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 
This is simply amazing. Sacha Baron Cohen takes on the NRA:
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jscheidell Here’s an appropriate analogy: The referee in a sports game, say soccer. In their personal lives, they may have likes and dislikes of the teams they are refereeing. So they are rarely if ever “empty of bias” in that realm–nor are any of us.
But when the referee enters the field (or in this case, a work environment that even has “justice” at its center) they put aside their bias and take on their professional principles as a matter of training. Most teachers know what this means when teaching children or dealing with their parents. You might not like the child, or the parents, or even have to deal with old early-learned racial or other biases (in S’s case, it was political–in that realm)–but your professional principles are dear to you, and trained into you and so come into conflict in our interior lives and tend to lead us in THAT realm, and (with teachers) we try to teach everyone while leaving those biases outside the classroom door where we take on our professional mantle.
If you think that’s not a possibility at all, then there is no talking to you. However, I know it to be a reality in my own and others’ lives. And I think that distinction was what S was talking about in the hearing. If so, then it gives the truth to his saying that he was not biased.
On the other hand, our friend Trump is vile ALL OF THE TIME. His utter ignorance holds no distinction between being a bully, a cheater, a liar, etc., in every situation. They only principle governing his actions and speech is what he wants in the present. And it appears that the centerpiece of that is financial gain and his man-crush on Putin and anyone like Trump himself: an utterly defunct human being and that’s giving him some. CBK
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Zeynep Tufekci takes on Elon Musk and Silicone Valley’s proclaimed expertise in all things, neatly dismantling Zuckerberg and Gates’ intrusion into education for good measure.
“The Silicon Valley model for doing things is a mix of can-do optimism, a faith that expertise in one domain can be transferred seamlessly to another and a preference for rapid, flashy, high-profile action. But what got the kids and their coach out of the cave was a different model: a slower, more methodical, more narrowly specialized approach to problems, one that has turned many risky enterprises into safe endeavors — commercial airline travel, for example, or rock climbing, both of which have extensive protocols and safety procedures that have taken years to develop.
This ‘safety culture’ model is neither stilted nor uncreative. On the contrary, deep expertise, lengthy training and the ability to learn from experience (and to incorporate the lessons of those experiences into future practices) is a valuable form of ingenuity…
By contrast, Silicon Valley moguls seem to favor spending money on improbable but impressive-sounding long shots. In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, donated $100 million to New Jersey schools as part of a multiyear plan to improve them. The centerpiece of the plan was teacher evaluation and charter schools, but it didn’t work well. Some aspects of the plan even made things worse. Education is a complex topic, and making a lot of money in tech is not a qualification for solving educational problems.”
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A Complete Breakdown Of Donald Trump’s 76th Unpresidented Week As POTUS – Rantt
https://rantt.com/a-complete-breakdown-of-donald-trumps-76th-unpresidented-week-as-potus/
“Week after week, the full extent of the depravity, dishonesty, and dysfunction with which President Trump and the Republican Party are leading this country continues to astound me – even after writing this column for 76 weeks straight.
“The Trump presidency has not only revealed who Donald is at his core, it’s revealed the true character of his appointees, his Republican sycophants in Congress, his allies in conservative media, and his voters.
“The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies will leave a dark mark on American history that will be frowned upon for centuries. They separated immigrant children from their parents with no plans to reunite them, leading to parents being lost or deported without their children. President Trump is repeatedly calling for the end of immigrants’ due process rights at the border, all while his “denaturalization task force” takes aim at immigrants already residing in the U.S. And now, the Trump administration is reportedly discharging immigrants who are fighting for our country in the U.S. military.
“While commentators claim President Trump is only governing for his base, his actions beg to differ. Trump may push rhetoric and depraved immigration policies that appeal to his base, but he’s waging a regressive trade war that directly harms them economically.
When it comes to “Making America Great Again,” all President Trump’s policies have done is isolate America into a state of waning global influence. Leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership and handing the reins to China, abandoning the Paris Climate Accord, desperately trying to revive coal while placing tariffs on clean energy, and attacking NATO allies while praising dictators has only made America appear as an unhinged bad faith actor who will soon lack an innovative edge. The only thing being made great again is the Trump family business, who has gone out of their way to profit from their dealings with foreign nations.
“President Trump cozies up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who interfered in American democracy to help him get elected, while screaming “America First.” While Americans celebrated the birth of American democracy, Republican lawmakers partied with the Russians who are actively working to undermine it. The party of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” has become the party of “Putin’s fine,” all while President Trump degrades western alliances and undermines Americans’ faith in U.S. institutions – some of Putin’s main objectives.
“And as this all occurs, President Trump’s supporters attack anyone who doesn’t express blind loyalty to Trump as unpatriotic or un-American.
It’s become clear to anyone who doesn’t only watch Fox News what kind of President Donald Trump is. The American people must make clear who we are.
There’s nothing more patriotic than standing up for what you believe is best for your country, even if that means standing against the man leading it. And there is no better place to do that than at the ballot box.”
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Brilliant, Susan.
It’s time to acknowledge that this egotist is destroying our country. All for $$$$$$$.
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And this paragraph is also SPOT ON– although the analogy it comes from an article that addresses the”greed, profligacy, shortsightedness and an insatiable appetite for immediate gratification’ of the baseball franchise called the Yankees:
“The analogy is imperfect, but irresistible. America — with its decaying infrastructure, its third-world public transit, its shrinking labor market, its evaporating middle class, its expanding gulf between rich and poor, its heartless health insurance system, its mindless indifference to a dying ecology, its predatory credit agencies, its looming Social Security collapse, its interminable war, its metastasizing national debt and all the social pathologies that gave it a degenerate imbecile and child-abducting sadist as its president — remains the only developed economy in the world that believes it wrong to use civic wealth for civic goods. Its absurdly engorged military budget diverts hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the public weal to those who profit from the military-industrial complex. Its plutocratic policies and libertarian ethos are immune to all appeals of human solidarity. It towers over the world, but promises secure shelter only to the fortunate few.”
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Here is the address to the nY Times article from which I extracted that paragraph that NAILS US.
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Susan Trump doesn’t know what America is in the first place. So the question follows: How can he make it great “again”? CBK
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He is only talking abut himself…not America. It is all about him: “look daddy, you should neve have sent me to military school. Look how great I am.
Geeze Catherine, I can’t wait for the moment that the ‘pee’ tapes are found… and the release of the Mueller investigation which shows his criminal empire built on Russian money.
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A lttle humor that says it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oW1CN8sbw0
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and here is A Complete Breakdown Of Donald Trump’s 77th Unpresidented Week As POTUS
https://rantt.com/a-complete-breakdown-of-donald-trumps-77th-unpresidented-week-as-potus/
What happens when the President of the United States is a threat to the liberal world order the United States created?
The only thing Donald Trump is making America again is hated.
This was a week of historic proportions.
The United States Justice Department indicted Russians for their attacks on American democracy, and the President of the United States and the Republican Party continued to do Russia’s bidding.
Never in the history of this great nation has the President of the United States been so petulant in attacking his own allies while at the same time being subservient to the foreign adversary that is actively working to undermine American democracy.
Never has a U.S. political party, in coordination with the President of the United States, sought to undermine the only U.S. institutions that are seeking to hold Russia accountable, all with the goal of obstructing a criminal investigation the President is a subject of.
Never has the President of the United States governed with such ruthless inhumanity that they would fear-monger and commit human rights abuses simply to score points with their base of voters.
Never has the President of the United States been so blatantly corrupt, milking the presidency for every dollar that it’s worth and benefiting the businesses he has not divested from.
Never has the President of the United States been so determined to dismantle the US-led liberal world order that the United States spent 70 years carefully crafting while cozying up to authoritarian leaders.
President Donald Trump is brazenly acting against America’s interests and executing on Vladimir Putin’s goals while screaming “America First.”
The Republican Party is brazenly acting against the American people’s interests while executing on conservative interest group’s goals.
Conservative media is brazenly acting against the truth, assisting President Trump and the GOP in their mission to gaslight the American people.
And decent people have made clear that they will not stand for this depravity, dishonesty, and delusional dereliction of duty.Seemingly unhappy with rolling back Obama-era policies and regulations, President Trump has set out to rollback Obama-era global goodwill.x
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Hi Susan, I know you from opednews.com and appreciate your posts. I am in favor of diplomacy with Russia. War is not an option with a nuclear power. Russia has been slammed by our government forever. We may have issues that we can compromise on. Trump is a national embarrassment, but let’s think of long-term strategy. No more war. Let’s talk to Russia. Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing but he could open the door for some reasonable discussion with others.
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I agree with all that you say here, but I have read extensively about Putin, and He is a sly dog, an smart,. He played our resident moron for the fool he is… and they played with our elections. The evidence is there girl!
So sad!
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No one has said that the US is going to start a war with Russia. The worst that will happen will be more sanctions unless Putin starts the war thanks to any military secrets Trump handed to him to give Putin an advantage. Why else would Trump want to meet with Putin with no witnesses?
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The sanctions, BTW, are put there by CONGRESS, and trump cannot remove them.
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cjonsson1: Schmooze aside, that’s the most naive thing I’ve read on this post–EVER, not to mention delusional. Forget the World Cup games, this is the World Schlup–Trump is being played before the entire world who watched yesterday’s playing out of the Great American Debacle.
What’s sad is that Trump was shown proof by his own appointees and still believed Putin asking rather: Where are Clinton’s emails and server? And when we get past all of the smoking guns and when Mueller comes forward with ALL of the evidence, his cult followers will still not change their minds. Trump and Putin both are depending on the utter stupidity of the American people who still support him–like you–who are to the Russians just more useful idiots. CBK
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Catherine. my husband has begun the decent into Alzheimers. At least he was once informed and intelligent, so when his long-term memory is engaged he is coherent. On the other hand the senility that is crushing his ability think rationally has many commonalities with what I see with that delusional moron Trump.
Trump is senile. He cannot remember what he said a moment ago, and contradicts himself constantly. Many say this is a ‘ploy’ to keep people guessing.
Yes, I realize that he knows that he rants nonsense all day long — the constant return to the Hillary emails, and his wonderful ‘win’ in the election… the same crap he spits out to his fans. He is the consummate narcissist, a real sociopath, too, but he is SENILE.!!!!
HE IS VERY DANGEROUS in his senility — and is being played by everyone: the dictators , the Congress, and the CABAL OF SUPR RICH oligarchs who run this nation. They all USE him to tear down everything and anything which our Congress has already left crumbling…. our infrastructure, our public education & health care systems, our safety net of pensions and social security, our environment.
With the sycophants in the Legislative Branch and an idiot-child in the Executive branch, and with the Judicial Branch about to go down, the American IDEA where the RULE OF LAW offers a chance for the citizens to have their government work for the THE COMMON GOOD…is over!!
History will never forget Trump, and will name him THE DESTROYER!
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Catherine King, Who put a bee in your bonnet? My question is also where are the DNC servers? Why hasn’t the FBI been able to obtain them for inspection? Maybe they really don’t want to know what is on them or maybe someone told them to back off the case. Whatever the case, the American public deserves to know what is on those servers. Without them, how will the FBI ever be able to prove their case against the Russians? Could it be there is no evidence? Just a stupid, naive question, I know. Trust them.
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Do you know more than the FBI, the CIA, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, and 15 Other intelligence agencies? Stop defending Trump.
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Did you read Mueller’s indictment? How did you get to know more than everyone, every career civil servant, in the US government?
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Did you watch Trump’s obsequious behavior towards Putin?
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Take a gander. Walk on the wild side. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/07/16/is-president-trump-a-traitor-because-he-wants-peace-with-russia/
Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia?
July 16, 2018 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article Print This Article
Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia?
The Democrats say he is
Paul Craig Roberts
The US Democratic Party is determined to take the world to thermo-nuclear war rather than to admit that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election fair and square. The Democratic Party was totally corrupted by the Clinton Regime, and now it is totally insane. Leaders of the Democratic Party, such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, my former co-author in the New York Times, have responded in a non-Democratic way to the first step President Trump has taken to reduce the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia that the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes created between the two superpowers.
Yes, Russia is a superpower. Russian weapons are so superior to the junk produced by the waste-filled US military/security complex that lives high off the hog on the insouciant American taxpayer that it is questionable if the US is even a second class military power. If the insane neoconservatives, such as Max Boot, William Kristol, and the rest of the neocon scum get their way, the US, the UK, and Europe will be a radioactive ruin for thousands of years.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives, declared that out of fear of some undefined retribution from Putin, a dossier on Trump perhaps, the President of the United States sold out the American people to Russia because he wants to make peace: “It begs the question, what does Vladimir Putin, what do the Russians have on Donald Trump—personally, politically and financially that he should behave in such a manner?” The “such a manner” Pelosi is speaking about is making peace instead of war.
To be clear, the Democratic Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives has accused Donald Trump of high treason against the United States. There is no outcry against this blatantly false accusation, totally devoid of evidence. The presstitute media instead of protesting this attempt at a coup against the President of the United States, trumpet the accusation as self-evident truth. Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with Russia.
Here is Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) repeating Pelosi’s false accusation: “Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.” If you don’t believe that this is orchestrated between Pelosi and Schumer, you are stupid beyond belief.
-snip-
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Paul Craig Roberts is a bona fide right winger. Is that the best you can do?
This is not the right place for a robust defense of Trump.
Please go to a rightwing site, which would welcome your Trump love.
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The Russians intervened in the Brexit election, the French election, and the German election. This is not the right blog for your robust defense of Trump and Putin.
I don’t know the pro-Russian, pro-Trump sites. You should not have any trouble finding them. They will welcome you.
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The evidence is growing that Trump is a traitor. Only fools or paid minions are blind to that.
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I am not responding to you anymore Lloyd Lofthouse. I don’t care what you have to say. Bub Bye.
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cjonsson1 Don’t go away mad. Just go away. CBK
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How can cjonsson1 not leave mad when it is obvious this sockpuppet is a lunatic like the sock puppet’s heros, The Kremlin’s Agent Orange, and the puppet’s master Putin?
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I say good riddance to cjonsson1 since all I did was ask the sock puppet to provide evidence with links to reputable sources to prove the puppet’s allegations.
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If anything convinced me of the truth about her, it was her rejection of you. One of the reason I came to enjoy this blog, was your participation. I say, “Hi, there, amigo.”
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Thank you.
cjonsson1 is a her?
Hard to tell when they use sockpuppet names and sound like their god, The gold-plated Kremlin’s (cancerous) Agent Orange.
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Susan, the response feature of WordPress is strange because it does not take you back to the conversation that you were commenting on. I don’t know if that has anything to do with your condemnation of me. I have been gone all day and busy, not commenting on the replies and comments on Diane Raditch’s page immediately. How did you come to this conclusion that I am a sock puppet unwilling to provide evidence of my beliefs? I have provided a few good references which you don’t find acceptable but did not challenge me on, or you did not read them, and took your friend Lloyd’s word for it. I am more than willing to provide you with more evidence but I sense you don’t care to read it.
The reason I no longer want to communicate with Lloyd is because I sent Diane a message explaining why I have not been on her radar since she started her blog, which she questioned. I have admired her and have followed her for a long time. Lloyd told her not to fall for my suck up to her. If he is so threatened by my attempt to explain myself to Diane, I don’t know how to react to that, other than consider it an attack from someone who has decided I am an intruder and an enemy on this blog. Since you agree with Lloyd and have made your choice, I do not think I will continue commenting on this blog. I thought you had an open mind, but apparently I’m wrong. I admired your work too. Too bad we couldn’t get to know each other.
Good night and good luck.
Susan Lee Schwartz commented on About.
in response to Lloyd Lofthouse:
If anything convinced me of the truth about her, it was her rejection of you. One of the reason I came to enjoy this blog, was your participation. I say, “Hi, there, amigo.”
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cjonsson1 Are you joking? EVERYONE wants peace with Russia. But not everyone will sell their soul to get it. Go away.
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dianeravitch Trump’s tacit also-twisted logic in his podium debacle went like this: if the FBI etc. cannot provide him with the servers, then they must be a part of the “deep state” that is out to get him and must also be lying about Russian meddling. (Why mention Putin’s KGB history, or the history of Russian aggression–just confuses simple minds.) And certainly don’t mention Hillary’s no-holds-barred put-down of Putin’s election while she was in Russia long before the election. But that doesn’t matter. The servers, if we ever find them, will show that she was colluding with the Russians–because that’s what Trump wants.
But there’s no talking to cult followers. CBK
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Catherine,
“But there’s no talking to cult followers. CBK”
Meltdown – some of the left wakes up in AM and they have a mental conflict – meltdown -and flushed feeling of Trump Derangement Syndrome that consumes them ands sends some of those here to bend there heads in the toilet – that trump did something wrong but they don’t know what it is and they don’t care – they just “know” – just like when they get their picket signs and blow horns to protest what thay don’t know – just like when they protested kavanaugh – one sign with four sticker names – just incase!
And you don’t want to have a discussion with what “cult” ?
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It’s easy to get angry when you see that the country has a con man and a fraud as its leader
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jscheidell As I’ve said here before, I’m waiting for Mueller, who already has confessions from several Trump associates. But I also think that if it walks like a duck and quacks, it’s probably a duck. What is it about Trump’s history that you don’t understand? or that you choose to ignore? like the emoluments clause and his taxes? Would you trust him enough to go into a financial deal with him?
And now we have creeping cause to wonder about others in Congress–how many others have been slowly drawn into the Russian circles and finally “bought” to do their bidding?
BTW, there is a bill circulating through Congress to lessen the weight of the sanctions on Russia. Gee . . . I wonder why? But let’s not spend any more time on this. If you are a troll, then my time is wasted and you’ve done your job; and if you are still thinking Trump is innocent regardless of all of the smoke, then my rhetorical question to you is: are you going to still think he’s been railroaded when Mueller delivers the evidence? No matter. I’m done here. CBK
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jscheidell addendum: You say: “– they just ‘know’ – just like when they get their picket signs and blow horns to protest what they don’t know.”
And you know too–in the same way they do. For instance, do you really think Kavanaugh plans to press for women’s right to choose? Do you know of some sort of conversion he underwent that no one else knows about? They are just not naive like your notes suggest that you are. Guess what: Naivete is not a condition for making intelligent judgments.
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Ok. I got it now… who you are and what you believe. I have heard the Steven Kipp conspiracy videos. If you believe that, then it is your right… but IF you wish to peddle such ideas here, do not be surprisedly the reaction.
Youcan defend Trump and spout conspiracy theories, but you are in the wrong universe, here.
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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/billionaires-fuel-powerful-state-charter-groups-analysis-finds/
SALLY HO / The Associated Press
Jul 16, 2018
Billionaires Fuel Powerful State Charter Groups, Analysis Finds
SEATTLE—Dollar for dollar, the beleaguered movement to bring charter schools to Washington state has had no bigger champion than billionaire Bill Gates.
The Microsoft co-founder gave millions of dollars to see a charter school law approved despite multiple failed ballot referendums. And his private foundation not only helped create the Washington State Charter Schools Association, but has at times contributed what amounts to an entire year’s worth of revenues for the 5-year-old charter advocacy group.
All told, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given about $25 million to the charter group that is credited with keeping the charter schools open after the state struck down the law, and then lobbying legislators to revive the privately run, publicly funded schools.
It’s an extreme example of how billionaires are influencing state education policy by giving money to state-level charter support organizations to sustain, defend and expand the charter schools movement across the country.
Since 2006, philanthropists and their private foundations and charities have given almost half a billion dollars to those groups, according to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings and Foundation Center data. The review looked at 52 groups noted by a U.S. Department of Education website as official charter school resources in the 44 states plus Washington, D.C., that currently have a charter law, as well as the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Most of the money has gone to the top 15 groups, which received $425 million from philanthropy. The Walton Family Foundation, run by the heirs to the Walmart fortune, is the largest donor to the state charter advocates, giving $144 million to 27 groups.
“We ought to be paying more attention to who these organizations are, and what kind of vision they have, and what drives them. A lot of these organizations have extraordinary influence, and it’s often pretty quiet influence,” said Jon Valant, an education policy expert at Brookings.
Charters aren’t subject to the same rules or standards governing traditional public schools but are embraced by Gates and other philanthropists who see them as investments in developing better and different ways to educate those who struggle in traditional school systems, particularly children in poor, urban areas. Studies on academic success are mixed.
The charter support groups, as nonprofits, are typically forbidden from involvement in political campaigns, but the same wealthy donors who sustain them in many cases directly channel support to pro-charter candidates through related political action committees or their own contributions. In one indication of the philanthropy’s success in asserting its priorities, Georgia’s lieutenant governor was recorded saying he was motivated to support school choice laws to curry the Walton foundation’s favor for his gubernatorial campaign. The Walton family has denied any connection to the candidate.
Nationwide, about 5 percent of students attend charters. They have become a polarizing political issue amid criticism from some, notably teachers unions, that they drain resources from cash-starved schools and erode the neighborhood schooling model that defines communities.
The Walton foundation notes the groups it funds have resources that often pale in comparison to the war chests of teachers unions, the usual foes in their battles over state education policy.
“The philanthropic support is essential for a small group of schools” that represents disadvantage families without their own political power, said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a University of Washington-affiliated think tank that has in the past been funded by the Gates foundation to do work supporting charter schools.
But John Rogers, an education policy expert and UCLA professor, said it’s a problem for democracy that billionaires who back a certain model of education reform can go toe-to-toe with a critical mass of professional teachers.
“A handful of billionaires who are advancing their vision of education reform is very different than having 200,000-some odd teachers across the state representing their understanding of public education through their union representation,” Rogers said.
In California, the Waltons are the biggest backers of the powerhouse California Charter School Association, which has gotten more than $100 million since 2006 with support coming also from Gates, Michael and Susan Dell and the Mark Zuckerburg-backed Silicon Valley Community foundations.
“We’re proud of our partners and very open about our desired outcomes, and that is, honestly, access to more better schools,” said Marc Sternberg, who leads the Walton foundation’s education program.
Sternberg said the foundation doesn’t set the agenda but wants to empower the local vision, which has included the charter association’s fight for more money and access to public school buildings through lawsuits against Los Angeles Unified, the country’s second-largest school district. The California charter group said it works aggressively when painted into a corner.
A political arm of the association also has been a force in Golden State politics. It’s now focusing on pushing pro-charter candidates in the November election, including former charter schools executive Marshall Tuck for state schools superintendent, and a number of legislative seats.
In Washington state, charter skeptics say Gates single-handedly propped up the entire charter school network. He gave at least $4 million to help pass a state charter school law, though the concept had failed three times at the ballot. Voters eventually approved a charter school law in 2012, making Washington one of the last states to adopt the schooling model.
After the state’s highest court ruled in 2015 that the charter law’s funding model was unconstitutional, the Gates-backed state charter group shepherded almost $5 million to keep the lights on at six charter schools and urged legislators to pass a new law. In 2016, its political arm called Washington Charters Action was created, and an affiliated political action committee has already given small amounts to dozens of state lawmakers up for election this fall.
Today, the state’s teachers union is challenging the second version of the law. The Washington Educators Association’s spokesman Rich Wood said the charter group inserted itself into the case after the union sued the state.
The Washington charter group — and all the charter schools in the state — wouldn’t agree to be interviewed. The Gates foundation said in a statement it is not involved with the lawsuit but values the association’s technical work helping charter schools blossom.
Some critics say money can define the advocacy itself, so not all charter support groups accept money from the billionaire philanthropists.
A second statewide charter support organization in California, the Charter Schools Development Center, relies on programming fees to preserve its independence, according to director Eric Premack.
Though the two California charter groups share many similar values, Premack said, they’re on different sides of the testing issue: how to and how much to use test scores to determine educational quality. Premack said he rejects test-based accountability — embraced by the California Charter Schools Association and many of its business mogul donors — as antithetical to the charter movement’s innovative spirit.
“You often find them being close political bedfellows — if not the same — who support high-stakes testing,” Premack said.
Associated Press journalist Larry Fenn contributed from New York.
SALLY HO / The Associated Press
In this article:
bill and melinda gates foundation bill gates billionaires charter schools education education policy education reform walton family soundation
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This is wonderful…Thanks!
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Thank you Susan.
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Diane, Please consider the possibility that Russia did not hack into our elections. The #1 hacker of elections is the US. The presidency of the US has been stolen every year since 2000. Investigate that. Our national security agencies have a long history of lying to the American public. We have never seen any proof that Russia broke into the DNC computers. The FBI was not permitted to look at the servers in the DNC office for evidence of hacking. The DNC computers were inspected by a private agency called Crowd Strike, hired by the DNC. There is no evidence of hacking because it didn’t happen. This is a cover up and diversion for the DNC’s cheating in the primary, which was reported by Wikileaks. The diversion worked, No one is looking into what the DNC did to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the election. The military industrial complex wants to keep up the fear level all over the world so they can continue to make money from selling instruments of war. Corporations use our military for protection while they take natural resources from poor countries. It is mind-blowing that the new cold war propaganda has continued to spread through our compliant corporate media, non-stop for over 2 years.
So please, before getting into another war, this time with a country that has nuclear weapons, let Trump negotiate with Russia and use diplomacy before the whole world is destroyed. Thank you.
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cjonsson1, If you are a US citizen, you are both a fool and a traitor to the United States.
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I am a US citizen and you are terribly misinformed.
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cjonsson1 alleges that “I’m terribly misinformed.” without providing any evidence from reputable sources.
Prove that I’m terribly misinformed with links to reputable sources that do not lie and spread conspiracy theories. If you can’t do that, you are hot air to be dismissed.
Your name is a sock puppet. A sock puppet can claim anything and in my book has no credibility. Unless you are an easy to manipulate ignorant fool, I don’t believe you are a US citizen. I think you are a Russian troll paid by Putin or a mute, deaf and blind deplorable follower of the Kremlin’s Agent Orange.
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Lloyd Lofthouse: Well-said. CBK
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Sorry, you are misinformed. Lloyd is right.
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The media is getting everyone into a lather of panic with this Trump/Putin peaceful meeting. It’s appalling. Rand Paul was on the PBS News Hour speaking calmly and clearly about the situation. I was proud of him.
No evidence of hacking, period. How the information was shared is a separate issue. Look at the facts. Where’s the proof? Take their word for it?
Nuclear winter is not my idea of a future.
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Sorry, this was meant for another post.
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The media is not whipping anyone into a “lather of panic.” Trump is. He betrayed his country today. He sucked up to Putin. Senator John McCain accurately called Trump’d behavior shameful. This was one of the worst, most humiliating days in my memory. A big win for Putin. A disgrace. Trump is a traitor.
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You are right. But the media circus excludes so many important things that are afoot on our national stage… not he least of which is the privatization of our schools, and the total neglect of our infrastructure.
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If we lose our democracy under the rule of this traitor, the schools will be one entry on a long list of destroyed institutions.
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When Muller goes in front of a Grand Jury asking for subpoenas, he has to provide proof that his requests are valid with the evidence he has already gathered.
How many of Muller’s subpoenas approved by a Grand Jury have already reached guilty verdicts?
1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But in February he agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
With a new indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers filed this Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury
What’s interesting is that the Russian investigation is not a Trump investigation unless the evidence leads back to Trump and Muller has not subpenaed Trump — yet.
I strongly suggest you read the letter that appointed Muller to investigate Russian meddling in a US election. It’s very short and it doesn’t say he has permission to investigate Donald Trump. However, Trump probably is one of the individuals associated with the alleged meddling explaining his propaganda to cast doubt on Muller and that the investigation is a witch hunt. Witch hunt? Go back and read the FIVE guilty pleas so far.
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How did you post that letter?
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I didn’t post the letter. I left a link to the letter.
Here’s that link again:
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In six years of blogging, I have never seen you on this blog. Are you a Russian troll?
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No Diane, I am not a Russian troll.I am a long time supporter of your work in public education. I pass your pieces on to my facebook friends and by email. I think I signed on tonight so that now you can see me. I have left other posts here. One of my posts was on the Detroit schools not having to be responsible for students’ literacy.
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Phew! So relieved… what does the C stand for?
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Susan, regarding cjonsson1, please focus on what they say or don’t say about Trump and what is happening to the public schools. Ignore any flattery or unproven claims from cjonsson1.
Has cjonsson1 clearly stated that he/she thinks Trump is a monster or is cjonsson1 indirectly supporting Trump by only attacking Democrats?
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I had not seen this person before… and was also wondering about who she/he is?
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Every once in a while, someone adds an incendiary comment, then disappears.
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At Oped, there are many comments that fit that description, but it is a news site and not a blog, and free speech is encouraged, as long as it is not ‘ad hominem’ attacks.
I see the commentary here as a discussion, where people speak and then are free to disagree, politely, as I did.
I never did this before here. I argue big time at Oped, when the real trolls post their alternative facts from their echo chambers.
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I am always civil on the internet. I don’t insult people. I have opinions that many don’t agree with, and I will defend them if people have open minds. Rob is a facebook friend.
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I assume you want peace in our time. That’s what Chamberlain wanted in 1938.
He brought back a signed document from his meeting in Munich promising exactly that.
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Civility is a must. I taught debate in HS. I do not spend much time on Facebook… too busy. I write and work my photos. A few are on Facebook,I do not have an online site for them but Rob introduced me to a site where I posted a few. So, if you want to see my photos . https://gurushots.com/susanlee.schwartz/photo
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Re: are you a troll? Another example of the effectiveness and reach of your work, Diane. You are now attracting the bad guys (hopefully without a gun). They are worried about your work.
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You speak with such certainty. We are guilty of some terrible stuff, but the Russians interfered. The CIA and the FBI know it, and so does Trump. Period!
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Rob Kall has some different ideas about this. So does Consortiumnews.com.
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Yes, I know. I read Rob and we correspond privately. And I read Consortium and The Greanville Post. I read many things, including Atlantic, and IMO the Russians did it… maybe no the government itself, but cyber-warfare is in full swing…. and we do it too.
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Susan, the Russian Military Intelligence Unit is part of the Russian government. Nothing happens in Russia that Putin doesn’t control. His friends are billionaires. If they dare to cross him, he takes their money away and jails them.
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Exactly!
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https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/16/us-media-is-losing-its-mind-over-trump-putin-press-conference/
US Media is Losing Its Mind Over Trump-Putin Press Conference
July 16, 2018 • 67 Comments
The media’s mania over Trump’s Helsinki performance and the so-called Russia-gate scandal reached new depths on Monday, says Joe Lauria
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
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Did John McCain lose his mind? Did Dan Coats? Did Bob Corker?
Anyone who wasn’t upset by the debacle in Helsinki want paying attention.
You are a troll.
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My name is Christina Jonsson. I am on facebook. Look for the polar bear icon.
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I will give you credit for your courage in this posting. You did not need to do that and I will respect your privacy.
My main argument with you is jumping to the conclusion that today’s actions might lead to war. I think that is nonsense. But if there is to be a war in our future, it won’t be with Russia, it will be among ourselves in this fragile nation.
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Trump is a buffoon and an embarrassment. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But he seems to want to make peace with other countries instead of more military buildup, which would be a great relief. Could we please spend money on our country and not on the oversized military? Our country is being sapped of all that is good about it. Trump is horrible on immigration, the environment, and almost everything I care about. This is one issue I would like him to succeed at. Peace.
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But he increased the military in his budget by $700 Billion. If Russia is our friend, who is our enemy? He was asked this question, and his first answer was “the EU.” Is he radically stupid?
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I appreciate your honesty. I see Trump for the imbecile that he is. Never very smart, and extremely ignorant, he has a venal personality ( a severe personality disorder) and is a total narcissist ; He is, however , the president, and if he can accidentally initiate some peace it would be nice… but my dear, he is a bumbling idiot in a dangerous world, and the deep state ( our very now death-merchants) is not going to allow him to allow him to end thier profitable business which depends on endless conflict.
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You don’t get peace with a tyrant by giving him whatever he wants and by attacking your allies. We learned that 80 years ago. God knows what Trump agreed to in his secret 1:1 meeting with Putin, with whom he is obsequious and servile.
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Dianeravitch Trump and cjonsson should read “The Stranger” by A. Camus. It’s the same problem– naively projecting one’s own authenticity and well-meaning onto others, inviting them into your house, and then they kill you and your children, then eat all of your food. CBK
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You got that right. Exactly!
But our people have no memory… the schools, where hsitor is shared, is gone. Theignorance that Ihear among bright people I know, makes me want to cry. I have given up talking at some of the dinners for organizations we belong to, because the people say things that make me want to tear my hair out.
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** Diane** and Susan Lee Schwartz Trump said (paraphrasing): “We can’t keep looking only to the past.” That’s code for “I don’t know nuthin’ about history.”
And about cjonsson: They are like Charlie Brown and Lucy’s football. They just keep believing the likes of Putin. And cjonsson seems to think that if someone doesn’t hit HER/HIM in the face with the evidence, then it must not be available. It’s out there, even Paul Ryan (in this morning’s news conference) that Russia did it, is still doing it, and has been doing it here and in several other countries for years.
I know several people who think the same as cjonsson, and they are not Russian trolls. But what they WANT to be the case, regardless, is much stronger than any evidence that might come their way, even from someone like Paul Ryan. This reeks of (by definition) a cult. CBK
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Here is the real danger, and it comes from the right!
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/the-real-threat-to-american-democracy-is-the-right.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_content=TheSlatest&utm_source=newsletter&sid=5a271b0c15dd96a5728b5ffa
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Slight disagreement. The American Right has merged with Putin’s Russia, despite the distracting squawking of the Right. One cannot succeed without the other in the U.S. today. Their fundamental fascist ideology creates an inseparable bond.
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I would not waste anymore time nor energy on cjonsson. I believe she is a Russian troll. Not even Trump supporters would be brave enough to continue posting those absurd comments after so much take down, especially in light of the steady stream of Republicans, mostly former or about to be former Congressional members, and including former FBI and CIA officials, who are strongly condemning Trump’s actions with Putin.
We know the Russians are currently working to intervene in the Nov elections to keep Trump calling the shots. We know from Mueller’s latest indictments that Rep congressional candidates across the country were aided by Russia, even some of them contacting the hackers for info on their opponents. What we don’t know is if they have figured out a way to attack voting machines. We must turn out anti-Trump voters in sufficient numbers in hopes of overriding interference.
We must petition Congress to move forward with putting in as much safeguards as possible, rather than wait for Trump. We need the intelligence community to send out routine alerts whenever they discover hacking so the voters are clearly aware it is occurring and where.
BTW, NPR news report yesterday – Congress imposed new sanctions on Russia for interfering with the 2016 elections BUT Trump has not initiated the sanctions.
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If she were saying things on the news site where I write, there would be many disagreements, but in no way, would anyone denigrate the writer herself, or accuse her of being a troll b=simply becasue she has a differing point of view..
I wonder how anyone can come to the conclusions about Russian interference , as she does, but not he other hand I read The Greanville Post and other news sources that follow her line of reasoning in very clear ways. As a journalist, I read widely, and thus, I hear many points of view.
I agree with your outlook on what we must do, but do not castigate those with opposing views. I simply beg to differ. After all, I was a teacher for 40 years, and if i was dismissive or rude to kids whose opinions did not fit my own, I would have had much difficulty in persuading them to follow the facts.
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Susan,
When someone who has never appeared on this Blog in six years (and over half a million comments) suddenly appears to defend Trump by pretending to be a leftist, it rings alarm bells for me.
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I think you are wrong, Susan. If we don’t challenge the liars, we enable them.
BTW, did you challenge anyone else who criticized her? I believe it was Diane who first referred to her as a troll.
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I hear you, but I am not calling her a liar. She is one of those who are being sold a bill of goods. I challenge what she says, because those are the lies. I looked at her Facebook page, and I see what she believes.
Perhaps the way I write to those with whom I disagree, has to do with my writing at a genuine NEWS site where we are NOT allowed to call people — who express contrary options –Liars. I vehamentally disagree, a t the site, with genuine trolls who post fake news.,, and they get mad a time, and try to tell the publisher that I should be flagged… but I never call them names, or label them. That is their methods… and I flag them often for doing that to me!
I would never call a student a ‘liar’ because of an opinion with which I disagree.
I would question and express my opposition, as I did here.
We need to be careful when at this time when division is being sold and promoted.
We need to call out the LIES, where it is appropriate, which I do at the Greanville Post, when the ARTICLES there are rooted in alternative facts.
But here, where people come to DISCUSS, IMPORTANT issues — to FIGURE OUT for THEMSELVES what IS happening — I prefer to say, emphatically “I think you are mistaken… and here’s why!”
SOME FOLKS think Diane should steer away form “politics”.
But Political issues are embedded in our society, and this is a great place — a room in cyber space–where intelligent folks gather.
Name-calling defeats discussion. Debate is something that genuine educators encourage.
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I did not say she is a liar. I am sure she truly believes that Trump has done us all a favor by making good relations with Putin and selling out his own government. Discussion means I don’t agree with her.
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Speaking of name-calling. Trump has perfected that into a high form of twitter art. No one has insulted more world leaders or more of her allies than this “stable genius.” He doesn’t know how to discuss. I wonder what he agreed to with Putin in private, without his own Secretary of State present. Scary thought.
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Diane, THAT thought keeps me up at night.
I wonder what those translators heard… and if the Russians bugged the private meetings… then they will have more that than ‘pee’ tape and his financial shenanigans (of which they know plenty https://medium.com/financial-times/tower-of-secrets-the-russian-money-behind-a-donald-trump-skyscraper-110d49b999ea
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SLS
“SOME FOLKS think Diane should steer away form “politics”.
But Political issues are embedded in our society, and this is a great place — a room in cyber space–where intelligent folks gather.
Name-calling defeats discussion. Debate is something that genuine educators encourage.
I remember a while back when the discussion went to Hillary Diane called a need for disclosure and returned to education issues —
Name calling! Ive been called a few – water of the duck’s back, Lloyd has spend – in a number of his replies a paragraph of derisive terms – before he gets to his points – There even have been those defending him – as if he needs it – Dialogue? Does this defeat discussion? Diane has thrown a few names in there as well – her blog I know – just saying – I agree – name calling defeats discussion
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Jscheidell,
As a MAGA man, you have to suck it up if you want to continue to be part of this blog. Your hero is a traitor.
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Trump is jscheidell’s role model and Trump never sucks it up so why expect jscheidell to rise above his hero. Instead, he will want to go lower than his hero or at last match him for a thin skin.
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Yeah. that’s true, but when someone brings here, over and over, alternative facts, after a while it becomes clear that they are marching to a different drummer, perhaps from some bubble in which they live.
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Diane,
“As a MAGA man, you have to suck it up if you want to continue to be part of this blog. Your hero is a traitor.”
As a MAGA Man i do suck it up – never complained about the names – in fact I remember thanking those who added to the MAGA Mans book of names.
But I totally disagree that he is a traitor! But that leads to another discussion – just because one doesn’t become a bubblehead of compliance to the discussion.
Still waiting for that collusion? Must not have read Rosensteins paper closely –
And lastly I did love it when Hillary lost and the Dems went bonkers – seeking their rubber rooms and pacifiers. They should SUcK it up as well – No?
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yes, we have all had to suck it up for almost two years, having a dunce and traitor and racist and misogynist as president, a man who calls equivalence between the KKK and those opposed to the KKK.
so you loved it when he agreed with Putin that the American law enforcement and intelligence community is wrong and Putin is right?
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It is always wise to focus on Trump’s actions more than his words (which are usually lies):
Chomsky on the Trump NATO Ruse
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/17/chomsky-on-the-trump-nato-ruse/
Under Trump, US Contempt for International Law Intensifies
https://truthout.org/articles/under-trump-us-contempt-for-international-law-intensifies/
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Set your dvrs: starting at 8 pm Eastern on Saturday, July 21, TCM will broadcast five episodes of the New York Philharmonic’s (Leonard Bernstein’s) Young People’s Concerts. These are a real treat for anyone who cares about teaching and education, not just music teachers. They’re all about the joy of learning and discovery.
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Also seven more episodes on Sunday starting at 8 pm Eastern!
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Thanks for sharing! I loved Bernstein’s YP concerts. I am so glad to hear they are being broadcast again. These were the greatest learning tool to turn on young people to classical. Even some older ppl, like me!
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On the subject of surviving the horrible political news of the day: When I am in the car, I have Sirius and listen to two stations: #72, which is Broadway. My favorite. #71, which is the Sinatra station, where standards are played all day by various performers. If I am not satisfied, I switch to the station that plays the Big Band music of the ’40s or the BeBop music of the ’50s, and am transported back to a pleasanter era.
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That is how I survive the noise. In my car I have bluetooth, and listen to Pandora, stations including the very music you listen to, but also I love Guitar music, and once upon a time played that instrument.
Maybe Flamencon guitar is in my gene’s — my great, great grandparents emigrated from Spain to Cuba, where my grandmother’s father was born. He immigrated here– later turning down the offer from Jose Marti, to become the fist Sec’y of State of Cuba,– just after the Spanish Americna War… where he was a decorated American hero.
My grandma graduated from Juliard… way back then. She sang opera and played piano, and was born here… into the wealth that Her immigrant father had amassed when he opened his tobacco Factory.. Mi Hogar..
Immigrants ALL!
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Susan,
I have vowed to learn to play the ukulele but right now I don’t have time!
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How to start playing Ukulele with Grace VanderWaal in 2.44 minutes
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I love grace. haven’t heard much from her, here in her home town. I hope they are letting her live a normal life.
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She’s busy.
Grace is on a 40-city tour this summer opening for the band/group called Imagine Dragons. She was also recently signed to play the lead in a Dinsey film called “Stargirl” based on a best selling book by the same name. Her mother, brother, and sister are traveling with her while she is on the tour.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/grace-vanderwaal-will-play-stargirl-in-new-movie
https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/grace-vanderwaal-open-imagine-dragons-new-arena-tour
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Quality never gets old. I made a slight mistake above. The Sunday programs are from the Omnibus series, also featuring Bernstein, but more geared to lay audiences. But it’s also brilliant.
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May these inspire you, Diane:
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Greg, I am definitely inspired. My big problem is that I am a lefty, and trying to persuade the local string shop to see if they can string a uke upside down,
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Grace lives in New York. Maybe you could contact one of her parents and ask them to see if Grace can get Fender to offer a Ukelele for lefties or you could just ask Fender if they offer one.
“VanderWaal’s collaboration with Fender is the next step in her already exploding career. It is also historic. As she joins the company of Fender signature artists like Eric Clapton, Johnny Marr and Chris Shilfett, VanderWaal is also the brand’s youngest signature artist ever and will be the first with a ukulele player.”
https://www.fender.com/articles/artists/meet-grace-vanderwaal-fenders-newest-and-youngest-signature-artist
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Oh. I see. She is going to be a star, and by the time she is 18, burned out and on drugs.
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Either Grace’s mother or father are with her everywhere she goes. She isn’t on her own. She’s only 14.
Success and fame does not destroy everyone that makes it big at a young age. It hasn’t destroyed Taylor Swift or Celine Deion who both made it big when they were about Grace’s age. In fact, there are others that made it big in music that are not into drugs. Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello, and Shawn Mendes are three more.
And the lead singer for Imagine Dragons and his wife are both vegans like me and not into drugs but healthy lifestyles with pre-school age children who are traveling with them during the tour too. I suspect Grace, her mother, sister and brother are spending a lot of time with that family.
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I hope so. Family matters, but that culture has people who overwhelm family.
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I think the real danger will be when Grace turns 18 when she is free to spread her wings and fly alone if she wants to. NetWorth pegs her wealth at $2 million with $800k annual earnings — at 14. Right now her parents control the purse strings but at 18 that all changes. If she survives, it all depends on how solid of a foundation her parents built for her.
Taylor Swift is 28 and from what I’ve read both of her parents are still involved in her career and her life while Taylor has her own houses too.
“If the family relationship has a history of being positive with strong communication, then it’s great.”
https://onwallstreet.financial-planning.com/news/amid-taylor-swifts-meteoric-rise-whos-managing-her-money
From everything I’ve read, Grace has a strong, positive relationship with her parents and older sister. Her older brother is sort of a mystery. Don’t know much about him other than his high school was a private military academy.
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My monthly exhortation for blog readers to look into the Theranos fraud. Many, many similarities with Ed Reform (with a big difference that this scam was caught — barely — before too many lives were damaged with widespread implementation). I see CEO and founder, Elizabeth Holmes, as a David Coleman figure. To the extent the company succeeded (as in a $9 billion valuation for a company that was worth less than nothing in that its products were harmful to consumers; sound familiar?) was in its cultivation of billionaires (9-figure investors included the Waltons, Rupert Murdoch, and the DeVos family among others), politicians (board members included former Cabinet members George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn), and the media. Nowhere to be found were any actual microbiological experts (sound familiar?). This interview is done by a Wharton professor of the Wall Street Journal writer who exposed the fraud: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-secrets-and-lies-that-sunk-theranos/
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My earlier comments have gone without response. Wondering if anyone on here can read this interview and tell me if I’m on or off base with my comparison.
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Did you see this one?
“Silicon Valley is notoriously full of founders who exaggerate, dupe investors and the media, and may even outright lie to Congress, often getting away with their deceit.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/elizabeth-holmes-is-trying-to-start-a-new-company
I don’t think you are off base. The US has an epidemic of notorious frauds getting away with their deceit. Trump is just one of them. Betsy DeVos is another one. They are legion.
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Thank you, Lloyd. I had not seen this article, and it goes more to the point. There is no remorse for her catastrophic actions. There isn’t even acknowledgement that she has done anything wrong. The parallels continue.
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Jennifer Berkshire sees the same parallels you do, but she has a podcast (guessing you don’t!)
http://haveyouheardblog.com/what-the-sordid-saga-of-a-silicon-valley-start-up-tells-us-about-edreform/
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I do not! Can’t wait to listen to this! Thank you, Christine.
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That was great! They nailed it. I highly recommend the book. (If you have more time and patience, follow with “The Best and the Brightest” by David Halberstam on a similar story about the Vietnam War…and see all the connections to Ed Reform.)
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Be sure to have some anti-nausea medicine handy when reading about Louisiana’s voucher program. Astounding numbers: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_458166f6-86de-11e8-98f2-0beb2d2a0340.html
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I know we are all serious and lament what’s going on in our nation. But this will hopefully give you five minutes of one serious laugh (and it kind of fits in with the spirit of this blog):
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Dear Diane, Read this article–what a charming idea that these two TFA alum (one of them our mayor’s son) have for a new school! But it is so wrong that taxpayers will foot the bill for their little project, and it is so unfair that they will be taking money from the public school district that educates all students, regardless of background, year in and year out. https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/at-new-st-louis-charter-school-students-will-decide-their/article_92e78b9a-9e1d-5c6f-a42f-9a7a94817fae.html
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I will be very curious to see how well this works. The part about the teachers not grading, I’m not sure how that will work. As much as I don’t like to say it, it will be interesting to see what test score results they get.
However, it is the same thing again, people, in this case pseudo teachers, saying that public schools are stuck. Most of what is done in public schools is because there is government control on these schools. Why can’t we vote someone into office who will allow the public schools to do what the charter schools are allowed to do. No school should be allowed to do things differently if all schools are not allowed to do things their own way. If they want to make schools better, make them better, they need to stop with the us and them antagonistic arrogance.
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Terrific article at Rethinking Schools by Kate Aronoff on the battle to save Puerto Rico’s public schools from the privatizers and charteristas.
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Arne Duncan had an interview today to promote his book. The question I have is why this unmitigated supporter of the reform movement popping his head out all of a sudden? Here’s a perfect description of everything that is wrong about who he supports and is supported by: “How Schools Work exposes the lies that have caused American kids to fall behind their international peers, from early childhood all the way to college graduation rates. But it also celebrates the countless everyday heroes Arne has encountered along the way: teachers, principals, reformers, staffers, business people, mayors, and presidents. …”
Find the interview at this link: https://www.marketplace.org/2018/07/24/education/big-book/arne-duncan-how-schools-work
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Duncan is promoting his book, sharing his “wisdom,” not mentioning the monumental failure of Race to the Top. Continuing to tell lies about our dumb children, our bad teachers, our failing schools, etc. Blah blah blah. Still clueless.
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Think about this: in 2012, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman urged President Obama to select Duncan as the next Secretary of State. Baffling.
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Unfortunately, I listened to this garbage while taking a long drive today. I got a lot of strange looks from other drivers as I was yelling and cussing at the radio. Arne truly is a piece of faux 24 carat tripe.
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Twitter reaction to Arne Duncan’s book is, while not overly heavy, highly positive towards him. I won’t listen to his interviews. No one angers me more than him. His veneer of respectability couldn’t be more aggravating.
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I can’t imagine who would want to read his memoirs.
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I think there are two groups of readers: those who enjoy really bad fantasy novels and McKinsey sycophants.
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No disagreement, but he’s very dangerous. He has a middle of the road air about him, and he’s treated like he has the wisdom of Solomon. (Maybe many don’t realize that when he’s saying to cut the baby in half, he really means it.)
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He is perfect for this moment n America, where DISINFORMATION IS THE WEAPON. I listened to an NPR analysis by brilliant people who analyze policy and intelligence. They made it clear that the weapon of choice MEDDLES in our democracy by not merely keeping our people ignorant –BUT BY disseminating a tsunami of DISINFORMATION.
I t is that MEDDLING that is causing LIES TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO TRUTH.
At the end of the hour, a sociologist addressed the phenomenon we see, where people are wedded to their BELIEFS in spite of the clear evidence before their eyes! He called this COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!
Add to that the alternative facts by charlatans like Trump, and MOscowiz and Duncan and Rhee and Klein and the man who you re discussing her, and one can see that America is going down to the fascists and authoritarians who manipulate an ignorant citizenry.
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Caroline Roemer tells how to do it in Louisiana: https://www.the74million.org/article/roemer-new-orleanss-unique-new-district-strengthens-schools-empowers-parents-it-must-not-repeat-political-mistakes-of-the-past/
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Having had her father as governor once, it’s obvious the sanctimonious, smarmy apple doesn’t fall from the tree.
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Having read a Governor Roemer’s recent book of autobiographical vignettes, I learned that the Roemers were Ed Reform before Ed Reform was “cool.” Caroline was huge into charter schools before charter schools exploded. Caroline’s brother, Chas, as state board of education president, may have been hoping Common Core and big Accountability would rocket his own political career (though his hedge fund may lead to a less rocky road).
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Papa Roemer was Kasich before Kasich became a refined, duplicitous hack. Only he started out as a conservative Dem before jumping ship when he put is finger into the political wind change.
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I think you’re on the money there. He has extraordinary self-confidence. Believes he would have won the 2014 GOP presidential nomination if the Establishment hadn’t continued to move the goal posts on what percentages were necessary to make the debate stage. Currently an executive in Chas’s hedge fund, so doing fine.
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Dear Professor Ravitch,
Dear Professor Ravitch,
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New Orleans RSD now exposes some of its students to asbestos. You can’t make this crap up: https://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2018/07/lafayette_asbestos_exposure.html#incart_2box_nola_river_orleans_news
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Diane
An interesting commentary on school safety suggestions
EDUCATIONCOMMENTARY
Here’s How School Security Should Be Improved in 4 Easy Steps
Steven Bucci / @SBucci / Peter Bucci / July 27, 2018 / 80 Comments
In Wellsville, New York, a teacher helps a student. (Photo: B.Fanton Universal Images Group/Newscom)
COMMENTARY BY
Steven Bucci@SBucci
Steven P. Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research.
Peter Bucci
Peter S. Bucci is a licensed psychological counselor in Georgia and Michigan with certifications in substance abuse, adolescent treatment, supervision, and trauma-specific training from EMDR International Association. He currently works with adults from high-risk environments.
Since publication of an earlier commentary on four steps to achieving better school security, many organizations have been in contact to offer excellent additional ways to reach this desired end state.
Again, there is no simple solution. We cannot just ban guns, or hand them out willy-nilly, and expect our kids to be safe. America must get beyond the political theater and posturing and do the hard work of making our schools secure places for kids to learn and grow.
What is needed is a true system of overall security.
The American people must determine that schools are a big enough priority to take action. Some groups have done so. Organizations like the FASTER (Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response) Program founded in Ohio, or the National Rifle Association’s School Shield program, offer training and support relating to physical security and first aid for any school district that wants it.
There are others as well. The University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education has developed an entire construct of steps to add psychological security measures to achieve balance among the students affected. They do this in their online master’s program in school counseling.
The experts at Defend Systems in Nashville called for a much-increased emphasis in emergency first aid, particularly for trauma wounds. They were spot-on, and this is a great additional call. Defend Systems provides local schools with that critical skill set.
There are still four steps that must be taken to increase security in our schools and decrease the likelihood of a shooting and the number of children who will be harmed. Those steps are really four interconnected pillars: pre-emptive response, access control, hardening classrooms, and on-site incident response.
Responding Pre-emptively
In order to pre-emptively stop school violence, it is vital to establish an environment that provides solid psychological security. A promising track is to develop relevant and up-to-date forms and modes of psychological first aid.
Psychological first aid should be a national strategy used as a preventative measure for dealing with more serious psychological trauma. Currently, the development of psychological first aid can be highly effective in smaller sample populations such as schools, a workplace, or a religious or social association, and can be put into practice in everyday life.
As it pertains to schools, and school-age kids, the initial action is to involve the students. Using them as an informational resource can make all subsequent actions more effective. Survey their experiences and then use the information openly (but anonymously) so they can see the follow-through.
Additionally, put students in as many leadership positions in the process as possible. This grows them, and will provide a wealth of insights that the adults might have missed.
All of this will build trust and inclusion that will empower the other pre-emptive actions. The students will be your best source of information. This generation of young people lives in near-constant communication, but it is not always transparent to the staff and faculty. Given that there were warning signs before almost all of the recent school shootings (many of which were stopped), making the students a part of this process is a key.
That said, these warning signs must provoke immediate action. The majority of the shooters have had some mental health or social interaction issues, and people noticed. The Parkland shooter was flagged multiple times, yet no one took action.
This was egregious, but not that abnormal. Police and school officials have to respond to red flags on social media or in overheard conversations. This response must be immediate and highly public. That way, we can stop what we know about, and deter what we don’t.
Teachers must follow due process, but fear of overstepping one’s bounds must not be allowed to obstruct intervention. Worries about giving a student a “black mark” must be swept aside. Troubled individuals—and all those around them—are much better served by stopping them from doing something potentially drastic and deadly. Action must be taken before shots are fired, if at all possible.
Control Access to the School
The second pillar is firmly controlling access to school facilities. If a person does not belong in the school, or is attempting to bring in prohibited items such as weapons, they must be denied access. Schools must have limited points of entry (one or at most two), each of which should be monitored and controlled by personnel that can turn people away when needed.
School personnel and students must not be able to “cheat” by opening doors for friends or for parents. Worse yet is opening doors for a stranger, just to be “nice.” Convenience must not be a factor. If a shooter is blocked from entering a school, they are unlikely to do much harm, or at least a lot less.
Controlling access to a school is particularly critical at the beginning and end of the day, but also applies during the remainder of the day. The question, “How did the shooter get in?” is always a pivotal one.
How people enter the building and who monitors the access process are a key set of decisions. They must be tailored to each specific school. Too much security, or too heavy-handed a footprint can add psychological insecurity to the student body, which can do harm even if a shooting never takes place.
A balance must be found and maintained. This decision cannot be driven from outside the school. It must be seen as part of the school’s central “culture.” If students see it that way—which will require research, education as to the reasoning, and a deft touch with both students and parents—they will be far more likely to buy into the practice.
Hardening the Classroom
Next, we must do a better job of securing (or hardening) classrooms as potential targets inside the school. Classrooms are often chosen to shelter-in-place, particularly for the youngest kids who are very difficult to move quickly.
All classroom doors have windows to allow observation (and protection for the children), but in an active shooter situation, this becomes a liability. There needs to be a low-cost, fast way of blocking the outside view through the window. Likewise, the doors must be lockable from the inside by the door’s organic lock, and with some sort of very simple, quickly applied additional blocking mechanism.
Within the classroom, teachers must be able to provide their students both cover (protection from gunfire) and concealment (a place to hide). The courageous teacher who hid her young pupils in storage cabinets and then faced the gunman in Sandyhook gave her life, but her quick thinking saved the children.
There are now bulletproof sanctuaries that can be put inside classrooms and can double as “story corners.” While these may be beyond the budgets of most schools, it’s a good model to provoke the imagination. We must devise the best cover and concealment we can find.
As a last resort, teachers and older kids should also make a determination as to how they might actually fight an attacker with improvised weapons available in the class.
The best mode of attack must be specified for each individual classroom, grade level, and teacher. Teachers should first be briefed or taught by an expert what is expected of them. Then, the teachers should devise a specific plan of action for their own classroom. This should be reviewed and, if need be, adjusted so that it provides the maximum protection and the minimum of psychological insecurity.
Once the plan is approved and set, it should be “published” in writing so it is not just in the teacher’s head. (Any substitute teacher should be required to review these plans.)
Lastly, drills should be conducted, first with the teacher alone, then with adults role-playing as the kids, and finally with the actual students. Older kids (high schoolers) can be told what the drills are really for, though teachers should characterize them for younger students as something like “stranger” drills, to avoid any unneeded worry.
On-Site Incident Response
That leads to pillar No. 4: Schools must have an on-site response capability that can confront and stop an active shooter.
Law enforcement will do their best to respond in a timely manner, but they will quite often fail. Most active shooter scenarios are done within 3-6 minutes. Few, if any, police or sheriff departments can promise to respond that quickly, especially in non-urban areas. How schools achieve this capability is again a delicate decision.
Every school district or individual school should come to this decision themselves. A highly centralized “solution” is not recommended. The “how” of achieving an adequate on-site response must once again factor in the school culture. This is clearly the most contentious aspect of school security.
There are four main options. (1) A school can have dedicated police assets on campus; (2) they can hire private security personnel; (3) they can seek volunteer security personnel from the community (such as veterans or retired law enforcement); or (4) they can have armed staff and/or faculty.
There are numerous options for schools to attain this on-site capability, and communities must choose what they can support, both budget-wise and within their collective moral structures. Remember: Too much security can be almost as big a problem as too little, so the right solution for each school is critical.
This is about more than just handing out pistols or asking those with concealed carry permits to bring their weapons to work. This will involve protocols for the storage of weapons, psych evaluations for those who volunteer, and extensive training regimens. The training must include negotiation and de-escalation skills, non-lethal control techniques, team response drills, firearms training, and extensive trauma-level first aid.
This all bears emphasis: You must have the correct people as well as the correct training. The firearms training in particular must entail far more than shooting a few dozen rounds at a local range. Shooting in close proximity to non-hostile personnel is the most difficult gun skill to learn—it must be trained and drilled until it is engrained, and only attempted in the correct situations. This is particularly essential if we are going to depend on a volunteer- or staff-based response capability.
The fact that certain individuals will actively deter and respond to threats need not lead to culture of fear among the student body. Local schools and communities will be able to develop their own psychosocial infrastructure that is compatible with each individual’s preferred form of security.
Some students are more attracted to a physical procedure, and therefore will be more likely to respond appropriately based on their training. Likewise, those who are attracted to a psychological facilitation can respond positively and rebound more quickly from the trauma of an attack event.
Both deterring and facilitating through adequately trained response are necessary to maintain psychological strength and resilience. This is needed both in the event and immediately afterward.
One final note of action. No matter how one of these situations plays out, the school and community will be severely traumatized. If a solid base of psychological security has been laid beforehand, along with the physical security measures, the school and student body have the best chance of weathering the tragedy with the least damage.
Strong follow-up support must begin as soon as the site is secured, and it must continue until every need is met. If the kids know the counseling department well from pre-existing relationships, this can go relatively quickly. Bringing in strangers may be needed, but it not optimal. School districts are better served if the counseling department is well and professionally staffed long before any event occurs.
These four steps (and the follow-up) will not guarantee 100 percent safety in our schools, but they will materially increase that security through deterrence, strong defense measures, and adeptness in ending the killing as quickly as possible, and returning to normality as swiftly as possible.
These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas. They are already being applied in hundreds of schools across America. It is time to apply them in all our schools.
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Such a reasoned argument with so many interesting points.
It is the one below, that was not a tenant o fly employment, or career, at any time that I can recall… becasue I would never have become a teacher… and to be honest…i cannot see that attracting the top minds, the dedicated talent who will opt to educate themselves and then need to carry a gun.
“Within the classroom, teachers must be able to provide their students both cover (protection from gunfire) and concealment (a place to hide). The courageous teacher who hid her young pupils in storage cabinets and then faced the gunman in Sandyhook gave her life, but her quick thinking saved the children.”
I am a quick-thinker. I think that if guns were not a central core of the ‘populist’ culture, then that shooter would never have had a gun!!
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Hey, Diane. I thought you might like to see the short video (4.5 minutes) that I made this summer while attending a digital storytelling workshop–you appear as something like the Good Witch of the East in this jumbled fairytale/dystopian nightmare.
Thanks for everything you do for our students, teachers, and schools !
All the best,
Kate
https://www.wevideo.com/view/1188385441
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Kate, that’s lovely! Thank you!
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oh my. Just wonderful. Every real teacher knows this. I was a teacher for decades. and my success with my students was because I knew this.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
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https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/08/harrisburg_teachers_union_grie.html#incart_river_mobile_index
Harrisburg schools to teachers: Pay us back $500k for ‘inflated’ salaries
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I’ve been a long time follower and fan. I’m curious if you have been looking into what is currently happening in Washington state regarding current bargaining. My teachers union, along with most in Washington, are getting close to a strike. It’s a very stressful time unfortunately, but very necessary . I’d love to read your opinion on the current struggles!
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Amy Hicks,
Please inform me. Send articles. Statements. Whatever.
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Here are just a few news articles. It is a major change in education funding and teacher pay. For my district, we have a union meeting in a few days and if the district doesn’t provide a reasonable offer, we will vote to strike as many other districts have already. Most large districts in the state are readying for a strike.
https://www.kentreporter.com/opinion/some-school-district-teachers-getting-raises-others-not-as-fortunate/
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.theolympian.com/news/local/education/article216067165.html
https://www.king5.com/mobile/article/news/local/seattle-teachers-rally-for-better-pay-fair-contracts/281-584451735
I have never seen anything like this in my teaching career as every district had to create a new pay scale. I’d love your take on this!
Thank you!
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Great article on How Totalitarianism Arrives:
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08/20/silence-is-health-how-totalitarianism-arrives/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Dawson%20City%20Totalitarianism%20Surrealism&utm_content=NYR%20Dawson%20City%20Totalitarianism%20Surrealism+CID_de012ed49d96f089086f7e69978c9089&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=How%20Totalitarianism%20Arrives
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Not entirely unconnected, I wanted to put out the book recommendation of “Red Notice” about a wildly successful investor in Russia who ends up fighting the governmental corruption that invades his business.
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FYI, I think Robert Reich is right on target with this, “It’s Not Enough to Impeach Trump — His Entire Presidency Should Be Annulled” https://www.alternet.org/its-not-enough-impeach-trump-his-entire-presidency-should-be-annulled
When there is evidence that a candidate has conspired with an adversarial foreign nation to effect regime change in our country, the result is an illegitimate, unconstitutional presidency, so we should settle for nothing less than wiping the slate clean with a TOTAL reset!
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I agree but the GOP’s autocratic billionaire masters won’t let that happen. Even if the GOP slaves/minions lost the majority in both Houses of Congress, the GOP’s conservatives still control the U.S. Supreme Court.
To roll back Trump’s dump, lying, fraudulent, illiterate and illegitimate presidency to the day before he lied and took the oath of office, would be a Constitutional crisis that probably would tear the country apart and plunge us into a Civil War with Trump’s rabid followers fighting the rest of us. They’d lose in the ned but millions would die and cities would burn.
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As Trump unravels, more and more dirt is floating to the surface. Last night, CNN reported that a former doorman at Trump Tower said he was paid off not to discuss Trump’s affair with a housekeeper who had his baby.
How much of this will his loyal base accept?
When do we touch bottom?
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We will never reach the bottom. Trump is a bottomless pit. I’m convinced there are bodies out there buried deep in the foundations of Trump’s buildings and the killers are probably also dead and gone.
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Diane I do think that, with Trump’s base and with many in Congress, we have entered Jim Jones territory. I think the only thing that they will “hear” will have to do with money–certainly not character or moral or spiritual wrong-doing aka evil. CBK
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This speaks to where we are ,as the Congress lets everything he does slide: “Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. “Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. So far there’s been no bottom, and there may never be. It’s quite possible this should have been obvious to me much sooner than it was, that I was blinded to certain realities I should have recognized.But the greatest damage is being done to our civic culture and our politics. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable and truth is relative. (“Truth isn’t truth,” in the infamous words of Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.) They are stripping politics of its high purpose and nobility.”
“That’s not all politics is; self-interest is always a factor. But if politics is only about power unbounded by morality — if it’s simply about rulers governing by the law of the jungle, about a prince acting like a beast, in the words of Machiavelli — then the whole enterprise will collapse. We have to distinguish between imperfect leaders and corrupt ones, and we need the vocabulary to do so.”
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Lloyd, I’ve read such theories, too, put out by gun-touting, hate-mongering crazies, and though it IS scary, that’s what an illegitimate election promoted by an adversarial foreign power gave to us along with Trump –it was a package deal, incited by Trump and his NRA supporting Russian sabatures.
The entire election is suspicious, not just Trump’s part in it. The Koch brothers interviewed for candidates and don’t like Trump, and many others in the GOP don’t either, yet they LET him take over the party. Why? I suspect the treason goes higher up, above Trump’s head, and I hope they find the evidence of that soon, too.
Liberals have their own billionaires, like Gates, Buffett, the Pritzkers, Kennedys, etc. How long are Democrats going to put up with stolen presidencies? As Ed reminded us below, this is the second time in this short century that the GOP has engaged in chicanery to rob us of a president with the popular vote. When it comes down to it, I think most Americans will show they believe that democratic elections are a battle worth fighting for in this country.
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This example defines most Democrats compared to most Republicans.
The Idealistic Democratic Mob:
Al Franken, in a skit that required a kiss in a USO show, is accused of making the kiss too sexual and later he has a photo taken of him squeezing the flak jacket of a woman reporter who is asleep. He thinks this is funny because the area of the flak jacket he is squeezing is above the woman’s breasts. He asks someone else to take the photo. It’s obvious that because of the flak jacket, he isn’t actually touching the breast. A flak jacket is much thicker than the cloth of a blouse or shirt.
When the photo is made public, the mob demands he resigns. He never had an affair with this woman. He never attempted to bribe anyone to cover the incident up. Franken never said he didn’t do it. Frankin apologizes and resigns.
The idealistic conservative mob — Trump’s mob:
It’s revealed before the election that Trump bragged on tape that he grabs women by the pussy and kisses them without permission (we hear the tape and he admits it was only locker room talk and makes an excuse but then later turns around and says it’s fake news … part of the witch hunt).
Republicans still vote for him.
Trump bribes women before the 2016 election that he has had affairs with so they will not reveal what he has done.
More than 80 percent of Republicans still support him.
20 women have come out and accused him of assault and harassment. Trump says they are all lying … its a witch hunt.
More than 80 percent of Republicans still support him.
Omarosa Manigault reveals how much of a racist Trump is. Trump’s Republican base doesn’t blink. They still support him.
More than 80 percent of Republicans still support him.
It seems that every day more evidence of Trump’s moral and financial corruption is being revealed and he refuses to admit any guilt. It’s all a witch hunt.
How many of Trump’s Republican supporters want him to resign?
“The $30 trillion reason Republicans won’t turn on Trump”
And even if impeachment proceedings led to Trump being pushed out, investors wouldn’t exactly be bothered by the prospect of a President Mike Pence.
“Pence is Trump without the tweets,” Stovall said.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/23/17769206/bull-stock-market-michael-cohen-trump-manafort-gop-donors
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I want to add this look at what is actually happening in America. Soooo interesting https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/what-socialism-looks-like-in-2018.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsunday&action=click&contentCollection=sunday®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront
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Trump’s election is the result of massive and numerous frauds. Hacking, trolls, fake social media, buying off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and how many more?
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Yes, Trump’s presidency should be annulled, and so should George W. Bush’s after his Dad’s Supreme Court 5 unconstitutionally stopped the vote count in Florida in December, 2000. Shame on Al Gore and the Democrats for not demanding the count resume (it later was, and showed that Gore won Florida, and, hence, the election).
But the chances of that happening are similar to the chances that we will escape the worst consequences of the rapidly-accelerating Climate Catastrophe which the Republican Party denies, which the Democrats are doing little to highlight, and which mainstream corporate media are mostly ignoring.
Nature bats last, and on a dead planet, no one will care about Trump and his scandals.
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Reteach 4 America: . . . this is not to mention Trump’s hiding his extramarital affairs from the American Public who should have known about them before voting. I keep thinking how the Republicans would act is either Obama or Hillary did that: I think the GOP Congress would have actually exploded. CBK
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Catherine,
At this point what does it matter? One thing for sure wedding have to worry about Hillary unless she is hiding Bill’s extra marital affairs
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jack Scheidell It MATTERS in this case because it was part of the scam to keep voters ignorant of who they were voting for.
My guess is that you are talking about morality as such. THAT matters, but on its own ground. In the case of the election, however, it was hidden for an exact political purpose. Put that with the Russian influence and Comey’s misstep, and you have a close election that went differently than if those forces were not in play. I’d say it matters allot.
Trump is worried that people think he’s illegitimate: Guess what? He is.
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Trump hated McCain because McCain was everything Trump wasn’t.
He served in combat. Trump was a draft dodger.
He was a hero. Trump is a coward.
He was respected. Trump is despised.
He was a man of principle. Trump has no principles.
He will be mourned and missed. People will celebrate when Trump is gone.
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Please see:
The Other Side of John McCain – Consortiumnews
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/27/the-other-side-of-john-mccain/
One Dead McCain, 2.5 Million Dead Iraqis
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/27/one-dead-mccain-2-5-million-dead-iraqis/
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Ed,
I have read these articles.
How long would you have lasted in a prison cell under torture?
Who has more dignity: Trump or McCain.
Trump is deeply envious of McCain because he is respected (if not by you), admired (if not by you), and honored (though not by you).
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Please do not mistake me for a Trump supporter. I despise him, his cronies, and everything they stand for, which is mostly power and greed.
Also, I know I would have not lasted more than a few seconds under North Vietnamese torture before telling them whatever they wanted me to say. Being a living victim of such brutality made him a survivor, not a “hero”.
But none of that justifies the bloody record of the warmonger, Nazi- and terrorist-supporter John McCain. Have you forgotten, “Bomb, bomb Iran!”?
Bombing a city, which he was doing when his plane was shot down, is a war crime. The U.S. war on Vietnam, which murdered many more than 2 million Vietnamese in addition to more than 58,000 Americans and U.S. allied troops, was an illegal war of aggression, the supreme international crime prosecuted at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals, for which the Nazi leaders were hanged.
If anything, McCain’s war experiences should have forever turned him against war, as it has so many other U.S. war veterans I know in Veterans for Peace.
McCain was not a “hero”. He was a victim of war, who then made it his life’s work to make millions of others victims of war.
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He’s not a renowned war hero for being a victim. He was a naval aviator who had other successful tours prior to being captured. Additionally, once he became a POW – he refused early release – admirably insisting that POW that were captured before him be released first. He is a hero for that reason. He is also a war hero because he went to war for his country – period. He then proceeded to serve as a Senator – always placing country first. Finally, he stood up for what he believed in when he gave the thumbs down to ending Obamacare. He believed in the American People and he worked for their sake. He was and always should be known as an American Hero. There are few left.
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You said McCain was a “hero” because he went to war for his country. Even if that war was an illegal war of aggression on a country that never threatened the United States, and U.S. escalation after 1964 was based on the Tonkin Gulf lie? So everyone who goes to war for their country, no matter how unjust the war is, is a “hero”?
In the 2008 presidential campaign, McCain said, “Bomb, bomb Iran!” Only a sociopath would joke about bombing people. He was a lifelong warrior and warmonger who never met a U.S. war he didn’t support. That may be your idea of a “hero”, but it sure isn’t mine.
Mine is someone such as Martin Luther King, Jr., who worked AGAINST violence and war, and who identified the three evils of racism, militarism, and materialism a year before he was assassinated. To me, someone who works against those three evils is a hero.
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Scheidell,
I don’t want your Trumpist, MAGA voice on my blog. I will block every name you use.
MAGA=My Attorney Got Arrested
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Diane,
I have always used my name….
I see that any opinion not included in the canon of tolerable opinions in this blog is classified as bad. Not wrong, not logically fallacious or uninformed, but morally repugnant.
There are no more multiple schools of thought, encompassing thousands of different combinations of arguments with countless different folds which are now replaced with only two sides: The Good vs. the Bad.
This strategy of demonization is quite an effective one. It brands anyone in disagreement with you on any topic hateful and bigoted and by doing so automatically grants you the moral high ground. Are you the example of one who is the elite?
When name-calling begins, it is almost impossible to be retracted, and any sort of rational, intellectual debate is thrown out the window.
You deny yourself the opportunity to hear a voice different than your own, furthering closure of mind and reinforcing the idea that your opinion is the only one that deserves a hearing.
The result?
Healthy disagreement and conversation is now a fossil of the past.
Nothing truly negative can come as a result of healthy and honest disagreement. After a lengthy discussion, either you are proven right by your intellectual rigor, general knowledge, and logical affinity, and are therefore better prepared for your next confrontation; or, you are proven wrong, and are forced to change your mind or adapt your position to a more intellectually or morally sensible one.
Picture all who disagree not as enemies, but as pupils in need of further information. With this mindset, not only are you likely to elevate others, you might just let them elevate you.
I see the blog as a classroom – an education on education – until you the “teacher” wants to kick someone out of class for having a different view….no wonder there are kids who hate to go to school because of teachers – the real losers are the other students who only hear one view –
And then these kids go to college and encounter the same teachers as profs – free speech stamped down – opposing ideas – lost to fear of reprisal….
So I wonder who the cruel, cold, soul is – the “teacher” or the student – who no longer has a voice… but its your classroom –
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Scheidell,
This is my living room. I tolerate many opinions. But I’m sick of your constant sniping at Hillary Clinton and your praise of the man who stole the election and is destroying our nation. He is a daily liar, a con man, a racist, a sexist, a worshipper of Putin. Words cannot express my contempt for this vile man.
I would not want him on my blog as a commenter. He is disgusting. There is no defense of his authoritarianism, his lies, and his crudeness that I can tolerate.
Just leave and take your red baseball cap with you.
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To JSheidell
Your argument is familiar. It is similar to the message from the top, that disagreement is ‘fake news, and that ‘Truth is not truth.’
I do not imagine that anything that I say, or anyone else says will affect you r deeply held beleifs about the nature of argument, but I think your error is in believing that this blog, of the eminent historian of our times; ( one of Politico’s 50 most important Americans for her integrity to offer TRUTH…NOT HER TRUTH, BUT THE TRUTH.)
THOSE OF US WHO KNOW DIANE FOR DECADES, grasp that she offers solutions to the problem and recognized the plan to demolish the public school system when she was the genuine, authentic ass’t SECRETARY OF EDUCATION in the Bush administration, watching from the inside as the ‘market’ forces and the ‘billionaires boys club, gathered to demolish the only road to income equality; it never was just about the end of schools, or the $$$ that the privatization of the market would amass. All Children Left Behind unfolded before her historian’s eyes!
All the real, genuine, authentic data & information from reliable (as in honest, brilliant policy analysis) showed how the ethnic minorities were facing the end of a chance at the kind of economic stability that came only with a good education.
A case in point can be gathered from this wonderful first person article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/opinion/lessons-from-2000-hours-on-a-public-bus.html It ends with: “I don’t doubt that there were people in my neighborhood who could have done more to help themselves and set a better example for their children. But I also know that there were many young men and women whose attitudes toward life, family and education would have been vastly different if they’d benefited from a small fraction of the opportunities I’d found thanks to an extremely hard-working father and THE LUCK OF AN EXCELLENT EDUCATION.
“My experience has taught me that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is a myth: “Achieving social mobility requires far more than will and ability. It’s nearly impossible to rise without other people helping you pull yourself up.”
I tell you this, here JS, because when Dr. Ravitch rejects your opinions posing as arguments, it is because she knows what is needed, what is not working, what solutions will make a difference in “pulling up” our ethnic population who is being utterly undermined!
They WILL SOON BE THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS; the very idea of a white minority.is something that the guys at the top cannot abide . https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/opinion/america-white-minority-majority.html?imp_id=769052115&action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Now, THAT, JS is scary stuff to the elite plutocrats who need an ignorant servile population, who will cheer on an ignorant mobster who is slowly undoing EVERYTHING that the CONSTITUTION was created to ensure and promote for WE THE PEOPLE.
‘Fixing’ the electoral votes is their current strategy, but ending genuine, public schools and destroying the very INSTITUTION of Public Education is the CORE of the plot.
Look who runs that ‘Show’! DeVos, JUST like Pruit is there to undo everything that was working — rules and regulations, which are the first to go as the lawless ‘leaders’ end what was working, and then sell, with Orwellian names —like CHOICE— things that will not work FOR ALL OUR CHILDREN.
To close this response to your thinly disguised rant, are your very words: “This strategy of demonization is quite an effective one. It brands anyone in disagreement with you on any topic hateful and bigoted and by doing so automatically grants you the moral high ground. Are you the example of one who is the elite?”
Let me Answer that. NO!
You need to look in the mirror, for YOU are example of those who use argument with disinformation as weapons. David Leonhardt points out that meddling in what drives a society is being weaponized. We see the result of meddling with our schools — as powerful, (monied) forces changing the conversation, converting lies to truth, meddling not just with our free press, but with our public discourse, by calling our Fake News when truth appears, and then substituting fake data from ‘experts’.
“The Things People SAY!” The Things People Say | The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/02/the-things-people-say?mbid=nl_Sunday%20Archive%20081218&CNDID=45272181&utm_source=Silverpop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sunday%20Archive%20081218&utm_content=&spMailingID=14041088&spUserID=MTgwNzgwOTcyMzEyS0&spJobID=1460937262&spReportId=MTQ2MDkzNzI2MgS2
And not satisfied with your baseless accusations, you go on the attack and ask a question: “So I wonder who the cruel, cold, soul is – the “teacher” or the student – who no longer has a voice… but its your classroom –“
Tsk! Tsk. Not only is it invalid it is insulting to us who contribute to the conversation.
It is foolish to anyone who realizes that although this is an internet blog, the educated people who come here are happy to conference with her and each other in this TEACHER’S ROOM, where genuine FACTS and thoughtful solutions are drive the conversation:
“Hey JS, the internet is soooo very big. Why not take your nonsense somewhere else, where your disinformation and subtle attacks are welcomed.
View this collection on Medium.com
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I’m not saying it would be easy, Lloyd.
I know that Trump’s base is incorrigible: “Trump Supporters, Hiding in Plain Sight: A commitment to a white Christian nation, the status quo and an economic model that works for the few”‘ https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/27/trump-supporters-hiding-plain-sight
Things are probably going to get worse for Trump, and “the leaners,” or swing-voters, who often determine election outcomes, are likely to come into play, so we just may have the numbers: “Gallup says Republicans are 27 percent of the electorate, Democrats are 29 percent, and the remaining 43 percent are (technically) Independents. Other pollsters suggest there are fewer Independents, explaining that many poll respondents don’t want to share their Party affiliation with poll takers. Pew Research says that when you include leaners, among registered voters there are 45 percent Republicans and 55 percent Democrats.”
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Trump, the Republicans, and every other Climate Catastrophe-denier in a position of power, including the Koch brothers and the other corporate Fossil Fools, are driving all of us into an unsustainable future, endangering us and all future generations.
If that is not treason, I don’t know what is.
This treason is the main reason they should be arrested and imprisoned, not the Russiagate follies.
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Russia interference in the 2016 elections is not a joke or a trifle. Do you want Putin to choose our President? He wants to sow chaos, to destroy the Western alliance, to make us ablaughing stock in the eyes of the world, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
We knew before the election that Trump would be a tool of the crazies who deny climate change and the racists who turn us against our neighbors. This is what Putin wanted.
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Yes, Diane, it’s what Putin wanted, but I think it’s also what Republicans really wanted. Why else would they support such an ignorant loose cannon who could not be reined in nor easily learn from others?
The GOP has become the anti-social, Ayn Rand loving MeFirst party and for them, the end justifies the means.
Why, before the election, did Mitch McConnell contest US intelligence reports of Russian meddling and threaten to blame partisan politics when Obama wanted bipartisan support to publicly condemn Putin’s efforts? Why does McConnell claim that Mueller does not need to be protected?
And how come Paul Ryan, who was bankrolled by banksters, privatizers & the Kochs, prematurely decided to end his political career and get out of Dodge?
It’s all very hinky to me.
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Reteach 4 America When we get through this and parse out the blame, Mitch McConnell will get a boatload of it. Thank you for reminding us of what happened between Obama and McConnell. <–his ONLY interpretive lens is political. CBK
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The point is that from the perspective of some of his closest advisers, it would be perfectly legal for him to stave off prosecution, pardon himself for the act, and even order the prosecution of those who try to hold him to account.
This is the absurd logic of a monarchical system, not a democratic one. For the chief executive to use the power of the state to suppress the opposition, while shielding itself from all potential sanction or limitation, is the logic of tyranny. And even if Trump never makes use of the unlimited powers his advisers claim that he possesses, it’s clear that he is surrounded by a clique of sycophants who are willing to justify any course he might take.
“President Donald Trump and his legal team—they do have the power to literally order the Justice Department to actually initiate an investigation, end an investigation, and by the way, for any reason,” the Fox News host and Trump adviser Sean Hannity declared on Monday evening. “That is within the president’s constitutional authority.” Previously, Jeanine Pirro, one of the president’s favorite Fox News hosts, said that the FBI and Department of Justice needed “to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired but who need to be taken out in handcuffs.”
The assertion of these powers offers a startling view into the mind-set of the authoritarian cult of personality that surrounds the president. These supporters of the president have now claimed that, in theory, he cannot only assassinate his political rivals, but also order the Justice Department to open or close any investigation for “any reason.” All of this echoes Trump’s own ominous pronouncement last year that he has an “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-man-who-would-be-king/562247/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20180608&silverid-ref=MzM0NTY0NzMyNzIyS0
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Not trying to incite despair, but here’s a good look at the long game that’s been played while the rest of us go about our lives.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
“The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept.
That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book, Democracy in Chains, a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans grapple with Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place, there may be no going back.”
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Interesting review of Secretary Duncan’s new book (apologies if you’ve already featured it, Diane): https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-arne-duncan-the-fallible-narrator/
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Hi Diane,
Thought you might find this article interesting.
https://www.al.com/expo/news/erry-2018/08/00d517d6fe1227/tag-kickball-red-rover-musical.html
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Perhaps this is a bit like putting a band-aid on a leaking dam, but maybe it’s something…
Ever the optimist, I was hoping to hear specific questions at the Nixon/Cuomo debate regarding public education, public school teachers, and unions. I know Cynthia Nixon supports us, but I was hoping that in this time when Cuomo seems more hell-bent than usual to convince NYers that he’s a true progressive, we could get him to share his current thoughts on public schools, teachers, and unions.
Alas, the questions were never asked. So, I’ve called his office several times to share my thoughts.
If you’re looking for something to do, maybe you, too, could call his office (518-474-8390) or even FAX him (518-474-1513.) Here are some juicy quotes about unions in general from the debate you can use in your message, should you choose to speak out: “Employees have rights.” “I was never at war with labor.” “The labor movement built the middle class.” “We need to protect the labor movement.”
Huh. Interesting, right?
Vote your conscience in the primary, but in the meantime, Cuomo is still governor and we can still let our voices be heard.
Thanks.
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In this time of so much negative, there is a superintendent of public schools, Dr. Gary Maestas of Plymouth, Massachusetts Public Schools, who works hard to inspire his staff. He holds a theme-based opening day for all teachers, and this one tops them all. The teachers do not know what they are in for here. I guarantee you will be glad you watch this true leader in action.
While there are more vimeos around the theme, this one of Dr. Maestas and one that provides evidence of the results of the hard work of the music teachers are likely to both inspire you and make you cry.
With appreciation if you can take the few minutes to watch these:
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Truly awesome! It’s just the kind of song that I would teach my students, too, when I was working with kids. It’s an important message and one that has never been more needed than right now, in today’s alarming Zeitgeist, where the ruling party sees political correctness as an unnecessary evil which crimps their style because they prefer to put down others for being different, as their brash, hateful leader does.
Thanks so much for sharing this!! One can never must enough hope in these challenging times…
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Sorry, meant muster not must
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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s opening statement at the Kavanaugh hearing is worth putting on your favorites for future viewing:
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GregB I was glued to the television during Whitehouse’s talk. What a “telling” history. One has to ask: who’s actually running the country, anyway? (<–rhetorical question)
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Yeah, very enlightening statistics. Sheldon Whitehouse is really terrific –one on the few genuine progressives left in the Democratic party.
I’ve been watching a lot of excellent interviews and lectures by David Coy Johnston lately (on youtube), who has a very good handle on what’s been going on in our country, such as this:
“How Government Creates Inequality – David Cay Johnston”
(He mentioned many important historical events leading up to where we are now, including concerns voiced by the Founding Fathers, but I have one caveat: when he discussed Lewis Powell’s Memo and the resulting establishment of CATO and Heritage, somehow he omitted ALEC.)
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Diane – please read current Vanity Fair article on Betsy DeVos. Thanks !
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The Broad Academy and SUPES continue to skim away funds for public education. The Baltimore Post exposes the machinations to save Dallas Dance, the disgraced superintendent, from records which perhaps point to nefarious doings. The SUPES academy is what led to Chicago superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s conviction as a felon on charges of kickbacks and bribery.
https://thebaltimorepost.com/op-ed-baltimore-county-schools-record-purge-more-significant-than-public-realizes/
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I’ve read enough to learn that most great wealth is not earned fairly, morally and legally. It makes sense that the minions of billionaires that were corrupted while they became wealthy or grew up wealthy expect their minions to act the same way.
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Nothing like satire! What to do when Trump tweets:
https://videos.posttv.com/washpost-production/The_Washington_Post/20180906/5b9176f0e4b08b20a0429525/5b9176fde4b01c35664f5f57_t_1536259844743_master.m3u8
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FYI: “Two New Studies Show Just How Underpaid Teachers Are — And That’s Exactly How Republicans Want It: Low teacher pay is on the way to becoming a crisis, as that and other attacks on the profession make teaching a less appealing career for young people.”
https://www.alternet.org/two-new-studies-show-just-how-underpaid-teachers-are-and-thats-exactly-how-republicans-want-it
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Diane,
Another corrupt charter school!
Dallas Charter School Superintendent Resigns Days After I-Team Receives Credit Card Statements
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/video/category/news/3933933-dallas-charter-school-superintendent-resigns-days-after-i-team-receives-credit-card-statements/
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Oh, my.
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Will this crook spend a day in jail?
Will this crook be forced to pay back every penny he took illegally or will he end up paying a piddling fine and a light slap on the back of one hand?
Will this charter school crook, like so many other have done, end up moving to another city or state and repeat the same thing?
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Did someone post about this already? Jeff Bezos is getting on the education train!
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The U.S. Dept. of Education announced this. Note ‘parent choice’ in the last paragraph.
On Friday, Sept. 7, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education announced a funding opportunity, the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) program.
This announcement solicits applications from 50 states and 6 territories. States and territories can apply for as little as $500,000 and as much as $15,000,000 for the first year of funding. Applicants have 60 days to submit an application, therefore, applications will be due by November 6, 2018.
This initial one-year grant differs significantly from the Preschool Development Grants that are presently funded. The PDG B-5 grant targets comprehensive statewide birth through age five needs assessment, strategic planning, parent choice and knowledge about mixed delivery systems, and sharing best practices prior to implementation of any quality initiatives states identify in a strategic plan developed based on what is learned from their needs assessment.
More info at: http://www.ed.gov/early-learning
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https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2018/09/14/history-curriculum-texas-remembers-alamo-forgets-hillary-clinton-helen-keller
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David Barton twisted legacy lives on.
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“The Trump administration wants to tax protests. What happened to free speech?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-administration-wants-to-tax-protests-what-happened-to-free-speech/2018/09/11/70f08bfa-b5e1-11e8-b79f-f6e31e555258_story.html
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People can submit a formal complaint about the unconstitutional protest tax here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/08/15/2018-17386/special-regulations-areas-of-the-national-park-system-national-capital-region-special-events-and#open-comment
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A friend sent me a clip of a wonderful segment on Anderson Cooper last night. Great examination of how the huckster family in the White House builds their fiefdom on lies:
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And some good news to put a smile on your face (for a change):
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/06/clapton-cfc-anti-fascism-shirt-global-audience
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What has happened to special needs children in Puerto Rico is a violation of their human right to an education. Somehow, I doubt that the charterization of schools will improve anything.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article218228870.html
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I am interested in joining this website .
Io am a retired professor of education at the University of Southern Maine , I am active participant in opposing what is called Proficiency Based Learning and has behind it millions of dollars from the Nellie Mae Foundation. We just won repeal of the proficiency diploma legislation, but are not home safe.
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Just subscribe and you have joined.
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Hi Lynne,
I nod not know if anyone welcomed you, but I came here to follow Diane’s posts, over 3 years ago, because it is the one place in cyberspace where the facts about what is afoot n 15,880 school systems in 50 states can be found.
I began adding my voice, especially about what happened to me as the assault on public education began , and I was a successful and celebrated teacher in a NYC public school.
I didn’t know what hit me… http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
but I do now, and I read and comment here and at OEN (ipEd NEWS . My bio and my articles are at this link http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
but if you go down the screen you can go to my many series, ( also a link here)
https://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.html
which contain links to the privatization of our schools — the hidden reality of the demolition of our schools, which Dr Ravitch knows so well.
here is one series of mine
Series Page for 15,880 Districts in 50 States: already divided for conquering. | OpEdNews
https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
Read the many links in this series on how legislatures took down public schools even as the media blamed teachers..
http://www.opednews.com/Series/legislature-and-governorsL-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-816.html
The quicklooks there are to the articles that I find as I read the many feeds describing the insanity afoot on our landscape at this moment.
Welcome Lynne, and below is one important article “How America Is Breaking Public Education.” It IS JUST AN EXCEPT that reverberates with me, who taught for a lifetime and knows what learning looks like and what a teacher needs to facilitate it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/12/06/how-america-is-breaking-public-education/#6955036a7f18
“You’d need the freedom to decide what to teach, how to teach it, how to evaluate and assess your students, and how to structure your classroom and curriculum”.
“You’d need the freedom to make individualized plans or separate plans for students who were achieving at different levels. You’d need the resources — financial, time, and support resources — to maximize the return on your efforts. In short, you’d need the same thing that any employee in any role needs: the freedom and flexibility to assess your own situation, and make empowered decisions.”
“Like any job involving an interaction with other people, teaching is as much of an art as it is a science. By taking away the freedom to innovate, we aren’t improving the outcomes of the worst teachers or even average teachers; we’re simply telling the good ones that their skills and talents aren’t needed here. By refusing to treat teachers like professionals — by failing to empower them to teach students in the best way that they see fit — we demonstrate the simple fact that we don’t trust them to do a good job, or even to understand what doing a good job looks like. Until we abandon the failed education model we’ve adopted since the start of the 21st century, public education will continue to be broken. As long as we insist on telling teachers what to teach and how to teach it, we’ll continue to fail our children.”
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The hateful pettiness of this regime never ends:
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While we are watching the SCOTUS drama, the administration is quietly reversing civil rights laws and policies..
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FYI, from Democracy Now on 10/3/18, “Lift Us Up: Meet the Activists on the Front Lines of the Battle for Educational Justice in America”
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/3/lift_us_up_meet_the_activists
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I said I would try to refrain from Third Reich comparisons, but cogent arguments seem to be blocking me at every turn. Here is a particularly good one, especially the author’s example of how today and then are scarily dissimilar:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
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GregB So, so right. CBK
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Such wonderful news!
The Reverend William Barber has received a MacArthur “genius” grant. I remember his powerful address to us in North Carolina at the NPE conference.
https://religionnews.com/2018/10/04/pastor-and-activist-william-j-barber-ii-wins-macarthur-genius-grant/
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No one deserves the MacArthur Award more than Rev. Barber. He is an inspirational and brave leader for our times.
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Truly wonderful!
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“Here’s why we only need 51 – not 67 – Senate seats to oust Brett Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court”
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/51-not-7-senate-kavanaugh/13257/
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NY BATS recently forwarded a request to complete a survey for a PhD candidate. The survey is soliciting veteran teacher opinions on what characteristics make for the most effective High School Administrators. From the cover letter and the questions I was able to view, it seems the researcher is trying to find out what matters more – classroom experience, administrative experience, or advanced degrees (Phd.) or some combination. I felt like he was missing the point in such a big way, I decided to share my thoughts with him directly. (He provided his email address and welcomed feedback.)
I guess with all that’s been going on in the news the past few weeks (years?) I felt this might be one small detail about which I could share my voice and possibly be heard.
The cruxt of my message was this:
I believe it’s the person that matters the most. Classroom experience is important. Good training as an admin is important. But putting those experiences to work in a positive and effective way depend on who the person is, most of all. If the person is interested in power, they won’t be effective. If the person lacks empathy, or insight, or compassion for both students and staff, they can’t be effective. If the person’s goals are about further advancement or focus on simplistic goals such as test scores and other cold data, they also won’t be effective. What makes an effective administrator are personality traits that aren’t easily quantifiable, and goals that are larger than accumulated data points.
Dig deeper and question more broadly. Your answers may be found in surprising places.
I hope my words will be read.
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Diane, I would like to talk to you about the US College Meltdown which includes savage inequalities in the K-12 pipeline, the lifetime effects of student loan debt, lower college enrollment, and the adjunct crisis.
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To understand where we are currently, how we got here, including with Trump, DeVos and the privatization of public services, such as education, prisons, the military, etc.,and where we are headed, please watch Chris Hedges’ “Best Speech,” from August 2018, located here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oef3wLs3HI
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Lebon James’ I Promise public school in Akron has been open a little over a month. Here’s a great profile of the school and the life experiences of the athlete whose promise and ability was first recognized at his public school.
https://melmagazine.com/how-to-build-a-school-with-lebron-james-c6b9b39c0976
“Were there certain aspects of this I Promise master plan that were immediate and obvious from the beginning?
The major feature we looked at when we were traveling was trauma-informed education. I spent many, many years researching, reading and practicing trauma-informed strategies in my classroom and with other teachers, but I’d never seen a school that was considered to have a full trauma-informed program.”
“Hence the need to look beyond the classroom to the student’s home life?
Right. And it extends further at I Promise because we also then extend that approach to the families with a variety of wraparound supports. We’re trying not just to change the academic outcome, but the social-emotional outcomes, which then create generational change within the community.”
“LeBron himself is a public school kid and felt passionately that I Promise should stay in that system. Why is it important to you that that’s the case?
The biggest point is with it being public is that it’s something that can carry over across the country. Our mission is to be a nationally recognized model for urban education. The common idea is that it’s easier to do a charter school, or it’s easier to do private because you don’t have to work within the confines of a public school system. But then those schools are only available to certain students, whereas every community has a public school. I want the elements of I Promise to be the norm for our district and spread across the nation so that in Chicago, in Detroit and in other areas where students have a lot of trauma, they’re utilizing these practices as well.”
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Here’s a wonderful look at authentic learning, via our friends at Garn Press:
http://garnpress.com/how-the-loss-of-native-american-languages-affects-our-understanding-of-the-natural-world/
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For those of us who have been upset, depressed, frustrated and furious since the ruling misogynistic “Gang of Privileged” (GOP) showed its ugly face and appointed Kavanaugh, we are not alone and the tide is turning! Now we’ve got to do what we can to sustain it through the next election –and beyond, including getting millenials out to vote: “Democrats Lead in Polls”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ezp2ndWINQ
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Things are looking up! (Thank G-d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSU9_ntddUE
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Important Action from Defending the Early Years (DEY) and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC):
“DEY AND CCFC’S STATEMENT OPPOSING PUBLIC FUNDING OF ONLINE PRESCHOOL SIGNED BY OVER 100 ECE EXPERTS AND ORGANIZATIONS”
On October 10, 2018, Defending the Early Years (DEY) and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) co-authored a statement about how online “preschools” deny children the hands-on, face-to-face school experiences that research shows is critical to both early learning and success in later life…”
https://www.deyproject.org/online-preschool.html
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In spite of its classification as a charter, this school was well-respected in the community for a very long time. Then, the school’s leadership changed and lots of money was suddenly unaccounted for.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/09/13/dallas-charter-school-superintendent-resigns/
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A devastating story from ProPublica about a neophyte do-gooder starting a school in Liberia. Despite the rapes of children by a member of the school community, which occurred at the school, the founder’s goal still is to expand to 500 schools by 2021.
https://features.propublica.org/liberia/unprotected-more-than-me-katie-meyler-liberia-sexual-exploitation/?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
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Dave Brennan dies: https://www.ohio.com/news/20181014/akron-industrialist-david-brennan-87-dies?start=2
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Randy Rainbow schools Melania on her slogan:
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We need a laugh. Borowitz, the New Yorker humorist, says Don Trump Jr. took a DNA test:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/dna-test-reveals-donald-trump-jr-is-fifty-per-cent-idiot?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20101618&CNDID=24457067&utm_source=Silverpop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Borowitz%20101618&utm_content=&spMailingID=14442719&spUserID=MTMzMTgyNDgxNjMzS0&spJobID=1501263553&spReportId=MTUwMTI2MzU1MwS2
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Yes, gotta laugh.
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This is great/horrible from Vanity Fair. Mitch McConnell blames exploding deficits on the poor and says that Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security have to be cut. You know, to make up for tax cuts for the 1%.
https://apple.news/AYH1swPNsQOW90uHrfQ-r5A
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It’s been a tough day in Boston.
The unqualified interim supernintendo (whose last job was CEO of EdVestors, which is just what it sounds like) has begun to role out #BuildBPS, which actually seems to be #CloseBPS. Three schools were notified today, without preamble, that they will be closed next year, citing facilities issues.
I’ll keep you apprised.
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I heard from thousands of people that the DNA test also revealed Trump Jr. is also 25-percent Hyena.
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I thought it was jackass.
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Yesterday was been a tough day in Boston.
The unqualified interim supernintendo (whose last job was CEO of EdVestors, which is just what it sounds like) has begun to role out #BuildBPS, which actually seems to be #CloseBPS. Three schools were notified today, without preamble, that they will be closed next year, citing facilities issues.
I’ll keep you apprised.
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orwellian language. Build means wreck.
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Excellent article yesterday by Thom Hartmann regarding how “Republicans Are Coming for Your Social Security and Medicare: The warning signs are already here.”
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/they-are-coming-your-social-security-and-medicare
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homelesseducator When I heard McConnell’s speech about the “need” to cut social programs (of course because those programs are the cause of the deficit), my first though was that, in fear of the “blue wave,” he and his GOP cronies are going to try to pass something BEFORE the midterms.
I cannot believe (as some say) that McConnell made an “unforced error” by making such an announcement NOW. CBK
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Beware of strangers with gifts: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-billionaire-decided-to-fight-high-drug-prices-and-the-industry-is-rattled-1540145686
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See:
Charter Schools Are Promoted Heavily by the Left, Not Just the Right | Dissident Voice
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/10/charter-schools-are-promoted-heavily-by-the-left-not-just-the-right/
Education is Everyone’s Business
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/11/1803616/-Education-is-Everyone-s-Business?_=2018-10-11T05:43:03.374-07:00
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You’re preaching to the choir. I think this is an important story for those who are myopic about education issues. The opponents of public education are not. There’s a line of consistency, not a good one, with everything Arnold touches. To simplify this as a right/left, “hey, they’re bad guys too,” issue is another kind of myopia.
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GregB: I know that most readers here are on the same page, but was hoping they would share these two articles with others who aren’t, especially with the midterm elections a few weeks away.
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Ed: We agree completely.
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I think it is a safe bet that there is more support for charter schools on the right, the GOP, than on the left, the Democratic Party.
The right has gone so far to the right, they have left the map and have entered unexplored territory that comes with a high risk of the end of everything even the human species.
And even the “left” has moved to the right but most of the leftist factions haven’t gone far enough to the right to become supporters of ALEC and Trump.
The “left” is also divided into factions and I think the “left” you are talking about are the neoliberals and libertarian factions.
The “left” as you label Democrats has seven major factions
centrists
conservatives (yea, the Democrats have conservatives but nowhere as extreme as conservatives in the GOP)
liberals
libertarian
progressive
social democratic and democratic socialists
neoliberals
David Harvey traces the rise of neoliberalism in the United States to Lewis Powell’s 1971 confidential memorandum to the Chamber of Commerce.[80]:43 A call to arms to the business community to counter criticism of the free enterprise system, it was a significant factor in the rise of conservative organizations and think-tanks which advocated for neoliberal policies, such as the Business Roundtable, The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academia and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
What about libertarians — how many are there?
Five Thirty Eight.com says, “It’s correct to say that few Americans identify as libertarian. Only 11 percent said the term “libertarian” describes them well, according to a 2014 Pew Research poll.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-are-few-libertarians-but-many-americans-have-libertarian-views/
Yet, libertarians exercise a lot more power than they should have considering how small their numbers are, and that is thanks to the Koch brothers and their Kochtopus that includes the infamous ALEC.
There are four factions in the Democratic Party that I’d prefer to be in power.
progressives (my first choice)
social democratic and democratic socialists
centrists
liberals (my last choice)
I don’t think there are any Eisenhower or Ford Republicans left so there is no GOP faction I trust.
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What used to be the Republican Party is now the House of Trump. There are no ethics, mo morals, only greed. No concern for the future of society, of communities or the planet.
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The bedrock of Americas foundation are under attack, at the very top, in the Executive office. It is a time when a new technology has opened a place where anyone can post their ‘opinions’ and call them relevant ideas, and in fact claim that they are ‘alternative truth’; there is no such thing!
Disinformation is ‘weaponized as a disruptive force! “The destruction of the distinction between truth and falsehood is the foundation of dictatorship! . Words MATTER! They help us to ‘think’ about what is before us! REAL CRITICAL THOUGHT lets us compare and contrast this to that!
Here are 2 links from our own journalists to help.
or maybe this publication is offering false information, when this writer says: I Listened to All Six Trump Rallies in October. You Should, Too https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/i-listened-to-all-six-trump-rallies-in-october-you-should-too
https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/donald-trump-celebrates-violence-against-journalists?mbid=nl_Daily%20101918&CNDID=45272181&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20101918&utm_co
When I post something it is because all my sources are saying the same thing. You cry “look at where this comes from. But when the behavior that we see demonstrates the truth, then we can compare.
The underlying tactic of our president is to foster lies to erode TRUST and undermine truth! The world, including the middle east is watching .
Here’s Why World Leaders Are Laughing at Trump – POLITICO Magazine
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/25/donald-trump-un-speech-laughing-unga-iran-220620
Your comment does not in anyway stand against the reality of who Trump is.
It is merely another ‘whaddaboutthis-ism’ to erode trust!
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and who runs Slate? The crushing dumbness of Donald Trump.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/the-crushing-dumbness-of-donald-trump-lying-lies-middle-easterners-caravan-tax-cut.html?
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Huh. How bout that…
http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/25/bill-gates-tacitly-admits-common-core-experiment-failure/?fbclid=IwAR31Mtzeh9P1GFoylS33a7hVWIORWwxaUtxUVFYaBjAjWdb_LyZfa_WxxzA
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Well worth a read – this is a Massachusetts group which has set out to use more authentic measures of school quality than standardized testing.
“Embracing democracy
Our public schools operate within a pluralistic democratic society. In our national mythos, this has been a source of unique strength, even as it has presented challenges. But present school accountability systems seem to wish away this complexity — obscuring the challenges of pluralistic democracy behind a system that will smooth over the vagaries of difference among us. Our collective delusion is that we can build an accountability machine, set it in motion, and let the unimpeachable results roll in, free from the responsibilities of situational judgment. This is an ignoble wish. While present accountability systems might appear to fulfill a responsibility to the public, they actually represent a negation of democracy.
Can members of the public agree on a set of relevant educational aims? Can they take on the responsibility of assessing school quality? We believe so. Democratic processes are not fail-safe or foolproof, but mechanistic accountability systems are an inadequate alternative. If human judgment is imperfect or frail, the solution is not to eliminate the possibility of judgment, but rather to put diverse judgments together in serious conversation. Democratic justice has always required the judgments of one’s peers and of one’s community. And, though it may not come easy, the importance of educational accountability merits an equally high standard.”
http://www.kappanonline.org/gottlieb-schneider-putting-public-back-into-public-accountability-public-schools/
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BEEn SO BUSY I DIDN’T GET TO READ YOUR COMMENT, CHRISTINE, UNTIL NOW… as always you are insightful and erudite. But at this moment there are no accountability systems for behaviors that throughout human history are destructive… such as lying.
Disinformation, misinformation , alternative facts have become the NORM, and no civilization survives when decisions are based on lies…especialy those that cause division and hatred.
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Thank you for your kind words, Susan.
Just to be clear, though, most of what I posted is a quote from the report.
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And now back to education issues –
New details on Education Department overhaul
By CAITLIN EMMA (cemma@politico.com; @caitlinzemma)10/30/2018 10:00 AM EDT
With help from Kimberly Hefling
Editor’s Note: This edition of Free Morning Education is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Education subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
NEW DETAILS ON EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OVERHAUL: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told her staff in an email Monday that the Education Department is moving forward with “several proposals” to restructure the agency that don’t “require changes to existing laws.”
— The plans, some details of which haven’t been previously reported, include elevating the Office of Non-Public Education to report directly to DeVos in the Office of the Secretary to help meet the agency’s goal of improving “parent choice,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO from the American Federation of Government Employees, which has clashed repeatedly with the Trump administration. Department spokeswoman Liz Hill confirmed the changes. Kimberly Hefling and I have the scoop.
— The Office of Non-Public Education, the agency’s liaison to the private school community, has in recent years been housed in the Office of Innovation and Improvement. We’ve previously reported that OII will be combined with the agency’s main K-12 office, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
— Other changes that haven’t been reported include the creation of a new Student Privacy Policy Office, which would be housed under the department’s Office of Planning Evaluation and Policy Development. The new approach would essentially break up the current Office of the Chief Privacy Officer, which has been housed under the Office of Management. The Education Department’s former chief privacy officer, Kathleen Styles, was reassigned earlier this year.
— The new Student Privacy Policy Office would be created by combining and moving two offices out of the Office of the Chief Privacy Officer — the Student Privacy Policy and Assistance Division and the Family Policy Compliance Division. A new rulemaking effort would amend the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law that protects the privacy of student education records, so the Family Policy Compliance Office can administer the law.
— The Student Privacy Policy Office would be charged with providing student privacy assistance to states and school districts, in addition to investigating FERPA complaints. The position of chief privacy officer will move over to the Office of the Chief Information Officer, which has historically dealt with information technology issues. The chief privacy officer would have jurisdiction over issues related to the Privacy Act, which regulates federal record-keeping, and other privacy safeguards.
— The reorganization would also move the Education Department’s budget office out of the Office of Planning Evaluation and Policy Development and into a new Office of Finance and Operations. The new Office of Finance and Operations would be created by consolidating the budget office, the Office of Management, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and Risk Management Service.
— The sweeping overhaul of the agency, which picked up steam this year, stems from an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March 2017 that directed agencies to examine whether their organizational structures could be improved. The changes are expected to take effect by Jan. 6.
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ProPublica has published a quite useful tool for comparing some 96,000 schools and 17,000 school districts across the country.
https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/reporting-recipe-how-to-investigate-racial-disparities-at-your-school?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
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This is wonderful! I got answers about my district in one click that I haven’t been able to get out to school administrators. Thank you!
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Thank you. I published the article itself and links ay OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Reporting-Recipe-How-to-I-in-General_News-Education_History_Issues_Propublica-181101-470.html#comment715638 and I am going to go to the top of this About page to add their list of key concepts which offer a chance to write articles about civil rights issues.
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As Christine Langhoff told us
Over the past year, ProPublica has been tracking civil rights issues in schools across the country.released a database of every civil rights investigation carried out by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over the past three years. https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/reporting-recipe-how-to-investigate-racial-disparities-at-your-school?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
SEE a treasure trove of education data on 96, 000 public schools and 17,000 school districts across the country to see how they compare! Using our database, they wrote about how the long history of segregation & resistance to integration in Charlottesville has contributed to one of the widest achievement gaps between black & white students in the country.’
Chalkbeat reporters examined student access to behavioral and social support staff in NYC, lapses of school discipline in Newark,NJ, and the dearth of Advanced Placement courses in Detroit’s high schools. Bethesda Magazine used our news application to look at the achievement gap in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Indy Week reported on racial disparities in school punishment in Wake and Durham counties in No. Carolina.
SEE list of ideas to help YOU investigate local education inequities &civil rights issues such as:
Advanced Placement courses are upper-level classes that high school students can take to obtain college credit.
Gifted and talented programs provide specialized support and enrichment activities to students that a school district identifies as exceptional.
Out-of-school suspensions are a form of school discipline in which children are temporarily removed from school for bad behavior. The punishment differs from an in-school suspension, in which a student is temporarily removed from his or her classroom but remains under the supervision of school personnel.
A dissimilarity index is one of the most commonly used measures of segregation. In our online database, we calculate how evenly distributed two racial or ethnic groups of students are across schools in a district.
The achievement gap refers to a persistent gap in academic performancebetween certain racial and ethnic groups of students.
A risk ratio is a measurement that compares the risk of an event between two groups. In our news application, we have calculated risk ratios to illustrate racial gaps in how often students are suspended or participate in high level academic programs.
Title VI is a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs that receive federal funds, including the nation’s 96,000 public schools.
Title IX is part of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive federal funds.
ADA/504 refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, both of which prohibit discrimination against students on the basis of disability.
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ProPublica publishes excellent investigative journalism. You can support their work by making a small monthly donation.
https://donate.propublica.org/give/141278/#!/donation/checkout
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Privatization – once you identify it, you can’t unsee it.
It’s no secret that the privatizers have been working their way into the VA. The parallels to public school takeovers are unmistakeable here:
ProPublica has been delving into a trio referred to as the Mar-a-Lago Crowd, who muck about much like Billy Gates with Jared Kushner playing the role of Arne Duncan:
https://www.propublica.org/article/va-shadow-rulers-program-is-trending-towards-red
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I read about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago trio months ago.
The GOP dominated Congress ignored it when Trump appointed these wealthy unofficial, private individuals to basically be in charge of the management of the Veterans Administration in secret, and they are doing the same thing to the VA that Betsy DeVos is doing to public education, wrecking the VA so it will not operate officially then that will give the privatize everything public ammunition to claim the VA in incompetent and has to be replaced.
From what I’ve been reading, everyone Trump appointed to run federal agencies are doing all they can to destroy those departments of the government. The IRS has had its funding cut so they can’t hire enough investigators to go after tax cheats. Trump moved money from FEMA to increase the number of storm troopers at ICE.
NASA isn’t allowed to issue any reports that mention climate change.
The CDC has had its budget cut so they can’t do their job to protect the nation and the world from epidemics that could kill hundreds of millions of people.
The list is a lot longer than what I’ve mentioned.
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This article was a follow up to one reported earlier.
My daughter, who works at the Department of State, recently returned to DC from a year’s assignment in Kabul. (She took on the assignment in part to pay off her student loans, but that’s another thread for another time.) She finds it ghostly at Foggy Bottom, with a third of the offices vacant and many of the career staff gone.
It will take us a long time to extract these parasites from the body politic, they’ve crawled so far into it – if we manage to do it at all.
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And … and … and we don’t know how many names of CIA agents outside of the U.S> DT gave to his Russian handler Putin during their private meetings.
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Yep, we don’t.
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Read my comment on Monopoly and the Atlantic article. It is about power!
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I read this in Atlantic. Lina Khan and the “Hipster Antitrust” Movement: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/lina-khan-antitrust/561743/, and began to grasp the monopoly that has become the lever of power over our public education system.
Today. everything IS about POWER
Let me explain my epiphany when I read:
“Khan didn’t start out interested in antitrust. Seeking a job at the New America Foundation, a center-left think tank in Washington, she landed in the group’s antitrust program, whose director, Barry Lynn, gave her an ad hoc graduate education in the anti-monopoly movement. She studied the book industry, then the chicken-farming industry. Combing the papers for corporate-consolidation news,
“SHE STARTED SEEING MONOPOLY POWER IN EVERYTHING.
She realized that antitrust policy could dominate the decades to come and that she had to understand it better. So Khan took time off to go to law school—and began intensively studying Amazon.
But Christine — people are able to visualize the immensity of Amazon — but they ARE UNABLE TO VISUALIZE the ‘cabal’ of billionaires that are the LEVER OF Power, over ALMOST SIXTEEN THOUSAND separate SCHOOL SYSTEMS in FIFTY STATES. https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
Folks see ‘schools’ as local, … but this MONOPOLISTIC ENTITY of which Gates. Walton Broad, DeVos, Pearson etc, and the EIC (EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf are running have ended the INSTITUTION of PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
THEY CREATED & OWN THE market OF CHARTER SCHOOLS…ACROSS THE STATES. DIANE’S BLOG NAILS THIS! https://dianeravitch.net/?s=CHARTER+SCHOOL
Then (in the Atlantic essay) there was the following about the Amazon company — but it APPLIES TO THE POWER in play in the EDUCATION ‘MARKET’ : ”When a company” {or a movement} “has such power, it will almost inevitably wield that power far and wide, distorting not just the market itself, but the whole of American life!”
You bet!
“When an organized business” { read ‘Reform MOVEMENT ‘} “becomes an institution so powerful that it can rule over people like a government” then it needs to be BUSTED!
BECAUSE this ‘reform’ movement’ is powered by huge money. it actually CREATED A MARKET — the BUSINESS of schools — where NONE EXISTED BEFORE– because EDUCATION was always the task of government to run things for the common good (I.E schools and health access.) That is why there is a government office to oversee PUBLIC EDUCATION…and just look at who runs it now… not our Diane!
Thus, it comes to monopolize the market and it it ceases to be merely a MOVEMENT — as the hedge funds discovered! But,our people do not realize this, becasue the media is complicit… the billionaires own it, too!
No one I meet grasps that the goal of the ’reform’ movement —OWNED by the wealthy plutocrats — is to MONOPOLIZE EDUCATION so they can create an American and global citizenry ignorant of history, government, ethics — everything to which they can compare what is ongoing before their eyes.
The great philosopher Bloom tells us that ‘prior knowledge’ is the KEY to ANALYSIS — which is actually a simple process comparison of what we see to what we know.
Hey, I explained that to my seventh graders when we read ‘current events,’ (something that would not be allowed today, in this politicized climate.)
The EIC does not want a citizenry that reads history.
. Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. An ignorant citizenry is the goal. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
The internet helped then to wipe out sacred values and to WEAPONIZE DISINFORMATION. They WANT TO MONOPOLIZE WHAT OUR CITIZENS KNOW of the past, of science, of government.
Words matter, and the EIC has the monopoly words!
The impact of words is what we are observing now. Words do not just dissipate, blowing away on the wind. “Intelligence is all about context, which is history and consequence. Without the right words there is no context. “If there’s no words of truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?”
Is it any wonder that we have a Liar-in-Chief.
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This is truly horrific: “Arsonist sets fires at 7 Brooklyn synagogues and Jewish schools: NYC councilman”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/arsonist-sets-fires-7-brooklyn-synagogues-jewish-schools-nyc-councilman/
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Trump will blame it on the enemy of the people, what he calls FAKE media, for daring to ask questions he won’t answer with truth, and not reporting Trump’s thousand of lies as facts.
Trump will also blame real Democrats while praying to his god called “Me & Greed” for another bomb maker to blow the Democrats and celebrates up this time instead of getting caught while the packages are in the mail.
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forget Trump and the blame game…HERE is what is up, m friend !
Read next week’s NY Times, cover story now .https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-far-right.html?emc=edit_ma_20181103&nl=magazine&nlid=5063771720181103&te=1
These genuine statistics belie the strident rhetoric around “foreign-born” terrorists that the Trump administration has used to drive its anti-immigration agenda .From the FBI to the DHS to state police, U.S. law enforcement failed to see the threat of white nationalism. Now they have no idea how to stop it. .For two decades, domestic counter-terrorism strategy has ignored the rising danger of far-right extremism.In this atmosphere of apparent indifference on the part of government officials and law enforcement, a virulent, and violent, far-right movement has grown and metastasized. .White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed far more people since Sept. 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremist.These statistics raise questions about the US counterterrorism strategy, which for nearly two decades has been focused on American and foreign-born jihadists, overshadowing right-wing extremism as a legitimate national-security threat.
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How to stop the spread of violent racism and hate?
That’s where the 2nd Civil War comes in. The US splits and the third that Trump represents ends up fighting the rest of us. Except there will always be the fools who think the fight isn’t theirs so they think they can ignore it.
I read this week that Russians (in Russia) think the US is headed for a violent Civil War because of Trump. I think that too.
If the majority wins, most of the hate filled racists will be eradicated. If they win, we won’t be around for what comes next.
The Always-Trumpists believe falsely that they are heavily armed and the rest of us aren’t. They are wrong … very wrong.
I think the Civil War already started soon after Trump won the Electoral College vote and Trump at his rallies is escalating the Civil War until is explodes like a wild fire across the country and the U.S. soon looks like Lebanon, Iraq, or Syria during their Civil Wars.
The US military will split just like it did during the 1st Civil War. Most of the officers will go with the majority of people and the enlisted ranks will split almost evenly.
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As always, Lloyd you see the frightening moment that we are facing.
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We recently had a spirited debate on the possibility of foreign students in the U.S. being spies. In yet another move behind the scenes, this administration is severely cutting aid for American students to study abroad. I guess they do think ideas are limited by political borders:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/nsf-suspends-program-allowing-graduate-fellows-study-abroad?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2018-11-02&et_rid=295352711&et_cid=2465523
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The NYT has covered the story Yong Zhao mentioned at Wellesley about the 5 year old with the 15 page resumé:
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I have often—perhaps too often—commented here that one of the great tragedies of our age is that comedians are often better sources of real information than many news commentators and journalists. Perhaps one of the subjects about which the American news media fails most is in explaining how the rise in fascism and authoritarianism is a global phenomena. British comedian Nish Kumar connects the dots at about 22:57 of this clip (it’s actually worth watching the whole show and series).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbpq6fvay4
And then compare this bit by Hasan Minaj with any news report on Saudi Arabia today. Which is more informative to the public?
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Teaching has now become dangerous:
Right-Wing Groups Are Recruiting Students to Target Teachers
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/53178-right-wing-groups-are-recruiting-students-to-target-teachers
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The history of FDR trying to pack the Supreme Court and it’s political death have pretty much ended debate about this issue. But a new movement called 1.20.21 is worth considering, especially when considering the arguments made by the political scientist who started it:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/why-the-democrats-need-to-pack-the-courts.html
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A friend who is a federal judge suggested that the next Democratic President should work with Congress to expand the Supreme Court to 15 to rebalance it.
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I’m all for expanding SCOTUS and, while we are at it, I suggest adding term limits, too, if possible. Is there any other government appointment where an employee is assured of a job for life (unless impeached)?
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Silly me. I forgot about all the other lifetime appointments to the courts the GOP made since Trump, including some that the Democrats let them get away with recently so they could go home: “Senate Democrats trade judge approvals for campaign time” https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/11/senate-democrats-trade-judge-approvals-for-campaign-time/
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I went to the that you post recommended … but what also concerned me was what the publisher of the site, said at the bottom. I thought of my news-site OEN, who fights this constantly, and I sent it to the publisher Rob Kall.
This is a coordinated assault on our democracy… aided by the internet… the transformational technology of this era, when EVERYTHING we knew… CHANGED thank s to thE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES that accompanies all transformational technologies.
Here is what the publisher of Reader Supported News said.
A note of caution regarding our comment sections:
For months a stream of media reports have warned of coordinated propaganda efforts targeting political websites based in the U.S., particularly in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
We too were alarmed at the patterns we were, and still are, seeing. It is clear that the provocateurs are far more savvy, disciplined, and purposeful than anything we have ever experienced before.
It is also clear that we still have elements of the same activity in our article discussion forums at this time.
We have hosted and encouraged reader expression since the turn of the century. The comments of our readers are the most vibrant, best-used interactive feature at Reader Supported News. Accordingly, we are strongly resistant to interrupting those services.
It is, however, important to note that in all likelihood hardened operatives are attempting to shape the dialog our community seeks to engage in.
Adapt and overcome.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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Wow, Susan, that is amazing!
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and so frightening. The assault is on everyone who can inform our citizens– journalists, teachers and all truth-tellers… and cyber -space makes it possible.
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Maybe I’m just stupid. What the hell are you saying?
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Sorry you don’t see what is happening. I think it is pretty clear that anyone who tires to have a meaningful conversation comes under attack.
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I went to the bottom to the link. It reads:
“Aaron Belkin: Democracy cannot work when a major political party steals courts, and that’s just what Republicans have done. The Republicans stole the courts and Democrats must “un-steal” them. Yes, a robust national conversation about various reform options is needed. And yes, there is a strong case to be made for some of the options. But un-stealing the courts is the only viable path to nullifying and penalizing Republican misconduct. Expansion, in other words, is the only option that imposes a proportionate political penalty for theft.”
What should we caution about? Again, genuinely confused. Sincerely.
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“but what also concerned me was what the publisher of the site, said at the bottom”
What specifically are you referencing? This is an interview conducted by Dahlia Lithwcik with Aaron Belkin. Who is the “provocateur”? How am I attacking you? I honestly don’t understand. This article is about an idea to reform the Supreme Court with some quite compelling arguments that should be taken seriously.
Are we talking past each other? If so, about what?
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GregB I was also confused about it. The “note of caution” was (according to Susan) on the Reader Supported News site. But I also think the argument to expand the court is “compelling.” I’m not automatically on board, but would like to hear more about it, which is what I took GregB to be saying also?
CBK
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You took it right, CBK.
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yes. I agree. I see what you meant.
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This is America:
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Good exposé of the much ballyhooed Forbes 30 under 30 in education:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/07/03/who-wins-the-annual-forbes-30-under-30-education-awards-new-study-details-telling-links-between-judges-and-winners/?utm_term=.ebe1573dedd0
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This article goes in a million different directions but finishes in typical “Ed Reform is the civil rights of our time” fashion. Some of the traditional names are as frustrating as ever:
https://www.the74million.org/article/midterm-post-mortem-was-the-election-a-repudiation-of-ed-reform-or-just-a-sign-that-its-going-under-the-radar/
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Teachers and schoolbus drivers are credited with saving the lives of some 125 kids by driving through the flame of Paradise, California’s wildfires.
http://www.kxxv.com/story/39457442/teacher-bus-drivers-evacuated-students-amid-california-fire?fbclid=IwAR2NSm41MRLc9b9ZMs8Wofdbn1-OkXU_Siot1txppcJJBMezSo3dYVjD7NY
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Have you seen this from the ACLU?
“What Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Betsy DeVos Won’t Tell You About ‘School Choice'”
https://www.aclu.org/blog/religious-liberty/religion-and-public-schools/what-donald-trump-mike-pence-and-betsy-devos-wont
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Also see these:
IRS Should Close Tax Loophole That Allows Private School Voucher “Donors” To Profit With Public Funds | Americans United for Separation of Church and State
https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/irs-should-close-tax-loophole-that-allows-private-school-voucher-donors-to
New York Officials Push Aside Public Housing and Schools for Amazon – Truthdig
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-york-officials-push-aside-public-housing-and-schools-for-amazon/
Betsy DeVos to Alter Sexual Misconduct Guidelines to Bolster Rights of Accused
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/53417-betsy-devos-to-alter-sexual-misconduct-guidelines-to-bolster-rights-of-accused
Bracing For The Blitz: The Religious Right Has A New Game Plan To Make America More To Its Liking – And If It’s Not Already In Your State, It Will Be Soon | Americans United for Separation of Church and State
https://www.au.org/church-state/november-2018-church-state/cover-story/bracing-for-the-blitz-the-religious-right-has-a
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My students and I created this song with the help of our music teacher as part of a product for a learning unit on the colonization of Americas in the Humanities class(6th, 7th, and 8th graders from a self-contained sped classroom). The unit ended yesterday and students learned about the colonial history of the Caribbean nations where many of the students’ own families are from. We thought Hamilton’s story was an interesting one and also relatable in many ways to the immigrant experience. We wanted students to find those connections.
I wanted students to reproduce Hamilton’s (the play) intro song. But, the music teacher came up with a better idea to personalize the project by having students share their own stories through hip hop, which connected with Hamilton’s experience. This song is the culmination of all that thinking and weeks of hard work and collaboration between teachers and students. I am in awe of what the students have created. Have a listen; it’s only about 3.5minutes.
Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. 😊
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ahv0ZRYEqPxZhd80xWsLu9ZqXH8UOg
Best,
J.Maq
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There has never been any doubt that our Dear Leader is stupid to an exponential degree. Today’s statement on—is it Saudi Arabia?—should also remove any doubt about the incredible stupidity of the people who work in the White House, Kelly included. Please read this and, you English and history teachers out there, let me know how quickly you would call in the student and parents to make sure inbreeding was not the cause: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/
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Don’t include the butlers, maids, plumbers, and chefs who run the “home” half of the White House.
“The White House is bigger than you think. Within the building, according to Brower, “132 rooms, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators are spread across the 6 floors—plus two hidden mezzanine levels—all tucked within what appears to be a three-story building.” Ninety-six people work full-time in the residence, and there are another 250 part-time employees. Among the jobs they do: butler, maid, chef, plumber, doorman, and florist. The second and third floors of the White House make up the residence.”
These people show up for work most if not all days and that staff doesn’t change with a new president.
I’m thinking that the leaks might be coming from them because rich people like Trump grow up thinking of their servants as just another piece of furniture to ignore and take for granted. That means Trump doesn’t censure how he acts or talks around the butlers, maids, plumbers, and chefs. To him, they are invisible and don’t exist except to serve him like a slave.
“Presidents come and go, but the service staff remains the same.” … One White House usher in The Residence admitted that some first families are a pleasure to serve, and that with some they have to pretend. “But we pretend very well,” he said.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/65690/11-interesting-facts-about-being-service-staff-white-house
“The Secret Service isn’t the only group handling security. The White House maid staff is trained to be alert for signs of unusual activity that might endanger the first family.”
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I was referring to the political staff, not the permanent staff (the horrors they must have to put up with every day!).
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Of course, no mention was made of the terrible genocidal-level famine and cholera epidemic now ravaging Yemen as a direct result of the Saudi war, with much U.S. military support, on the people of Yemen. The U.S. is complicit in these war crimes and crimes against humanity, which Obama started, and Trump continues.
Trump is no more than yet another U.S. War Criminal President, following in the bloody footsteps of every U.S. president, including FDR, since 1943, when FDR authorized the terror bombing of German cities by the U.S. Army Air Force.
As Noam Chomsky told us years ago: “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war [WW II] American president would have been hanged.”
As far as Iran as the “worst terrorist”, see this: Polls: US Is ‘the Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today’
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/07/polls-us-greatest-threat-to-peace-world-today.html
ONLY the U.S.:
is waging wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, all of them illegal wars of aggression never declared by Congress, as required by the U.S. Constitution;
has Special Operations forces in more than 150 countries;
has more than 800 military bases in more than 80 nations;
has nuclear-armed fleets on and under every ocean on earth;
has Military Commands for every geographical region on earth, plus in space, plus a CyberCommand for electronic warfare;
spends more than ONE TRILLION DOLLARS every year on “national security”, including its military, its wars, its “Black Budget”, its nuclear weapons, the military part of NASA, and Homeland Security, including illegal surveillance of its own citizens;
has committed, starting with Obama, more than $1.7 TRILLION over the next decade to “update” its already-massive, omnicidal nuclear arsenal so its nukes are “more usable”. To see how insane this all is, read The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of A Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg;
spends more than 60% of its discretionary budget every year on the military.
The United States of Avarice, Aggression, and Arrogance is actually the Number One Terrorist in the world.
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Knowing Mississippi as I do, I don’t have a lot of hope that Mike Espy will win the Senate runoff election. But the more we learn about Cindy Hyde-Smith, the more we realize that she represents every negative stereotype people associate with Mississippi. (Remember, she was one of the idiots, Capito being the other, who sat behind Susan Collins when she made her ridiculous speech to explain her vote for Kavanaugh.) In addition to saying she would attend a public hanging (what a euphemism for lynching!), she also proudly posed for a picture holding a rifle while wearing a confederate cap. It’s quite a juxtaposition of the final pages of John T. Edge’s “The Potlikker Papers,” which was one of the best books I read last year. Edge, who leads the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi and grew up in the Deep South, describes how he and his son visited a Civil War battle site and then split up at the end of the tour as his son went to the gift store. When Edge was young he purchased a confederate cap. His son, who grew up in Mississippi, made the decision on his own to purchase a Union cap because, as Edge writes, after learning about the Civil War, his son “made the only purchase he could.” Reading that makes me hopeful about Mississippi’s future, but we’ll have to wait for a whole lotta people to die of old age first. To bring this back to the purpose of this blog, here’s a story that ties it all together: https://crooksandliars.com/2018/11/cindy-hyde-smith-attended-all-white-seg
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Oh, good grief! Just about every single thing the era of reform has done to teaching, learning, teachers and kids is on display here. Read it and rage:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/11/04/a-heartwrenching-story-about-why-teachers-are-leaving-dc-in-droves/
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makes me want to weep. The many trials that teachers face, the impediments that are placed in the way education our most needy children are on display intros sad article
BUt… I was harassed out in 1998, unaware of the war on public education, that began with the assault on teachers’ civil rights.
Let me be clear, what happened to me, and tens of thousand so teachers could not have occurred if they had the legal help which a non MUST supply when their civil rights . I wrote this decades ago. Every word is true… and I was, at the time The NY State Educator of Excellence, four times in Who’s Who Among America’s teachers, and the chosen (by Pew and Harvard) cohort for The New Standards.
Nothing mattered, not even the parents who appealed to the DOE at the loss of the teacher who made a difference.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
The unions let this happen!
Period.
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Coming up this week: Camp Philos!
https://campphilos.org
Alas! Information seems to be scant, and registration seems to be closed.
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A literally sickening roster of featured speakers and attendees both for this and past years. Wonder why there’s a disproportionate representation from Louisiana and Colorado.
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Influential billionaires really like this teacher-less school: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article222210630.html
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No comment needed: https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/01/24/white-evangelicals-people/
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Excellent, Greg.
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Not something to cheer about. Just sad.
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The latest post from Randy Rainbow!
https://t.co/3hkB4frpgS
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George HW Bush, “the Education President, RIP:
http://theconversation.com/george-h-w-bush-laid-the-foundation-for-education-reform-108018
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This article seems like one you would have read more often 10 years ago: http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20181129/education-chief-ris-poor-results-on-new-test-are-our-truth-telling-moment
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John White continues to get “positive” evaluations in Louisiana: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_c08805ea-9fdd-11e8-a103-93975c72acfa.html
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A sixth straight positive evaluation for John White! And why not? On his watch, Louisiana dropped to #49 on NAEP, ahead of Mississippi. That’s something.
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That’s why Louisiana always thanks goodness for Mississippi. There will always be one state with lower standards.
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That fact was interestingly omitted from the article.
Reading between the lines, I think the $275,000 a year superintendent was a bit peeved not to receive the top rating (again).
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Great look at the College Board, the SAT and ETS:
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v14n7.htm
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Isn’t that the article posted here?
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Ooops! Sorry!
I sometimes forget your blog is likely the source of all things!
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This has nothing to do with the article but have you looked into the strike going on in Chicago with the first charter network to strike in the nation.
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I have posted several articles about the strike at UNO/Acero
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Here’s a follow up to the story about the woman who began a girls’ school in Liberia, where the girls were sexually molested. Seems she”won” the seed money by cheating. Katie Meyler seems to be completely lacking in morals. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-more-than-me-charity-gamed-the-internet-and-hollywood-to-win-a-million-dollars
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Diane FYI: The below is cross-posted from the AAACE-National Literacy Association and is about the Open Door Collective of adult educationists and concerns: Public K-12 Education and Inter-generational Literacy.
“The Open Door Collective is a national group of 80-plus adult basic skills researchers, practitioners, professional developers and policy advocates who want to include adult basic skills in efforts to reduce poverty and income inequality.”
The question comes up, then, about creative bridging between these groups and K-12 public educationists and advocates. CBK
From: aaace-nla@googlegroups.com aaace-nla@googlegroups.com on behalf of David Rosen djrosen123@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2018 7:43 AM
To: aaace-nla@googlegroups.com
Subject: The Open Door Collective
Hello AAACE-NLA Colleagues,
The Open Door Collective is a national group of 80-plus adult basic skills researchers, practitioners, professional developers and policy advocates who want to include adult basic skills in efforts to reduce poverty and income inequality. Many members fit more than one of of these descriptors; many also work in other fields such as: public libraries, organized labor, workforce development, corrections and corrections reform, immigrant and refugee issues advocacy or service delivery, affordable housing, anti-poverty advocacy, community health and health literacy advocacy or services, digital inclusion, and others. It is a group, not a formal organization; it does not have a budget, and does not seek funds. It is not formally affiliated with any organization. It does have several committees, including an active steering committee and communications committee. It works — in various way — to accomplish the mission below, including producing short “Make the Case” papers and resources for advocacy, presenting at conferences such as COABE (there will be a strand of seven presentations at COABE 2019, and I encourage you to attend them) and state adult basic skills, health, and library conferences, and building partnerships at state and local levels.
Several AAACE-NLA members are also members of the Open Door Collective (ODC) and I hope will reply with their own perspectives here.
If you would like to learn more about the ODC, and become a member or sign up to receive its e-news updates go to http://www.opendoorcollective.org. Read the landing page. Skim or read papers of interest under the ODC Papers and Resources tabs. If you would like to join, look at member responsibilities (under the Membership tab) and complete the contact form (under the Contact tab) indicating that you would like to join or that you would just like to get our occasional updates.) Reply here, or to me personally, if you have questions about the ODC.
From the ODC Website landing page:
The Open Door Collective (ODC) assists poverty reduction initiatives to take advantage of, expand, or improve adult basic skills services to meet the needs and broaden the economic opportunities of low-income adults. We advocate for effective policies and program designs that will reduce poverty, narrow income inequality, and provide free basic skills education for all adults in the United States. Improved policies and programs will enable adults living in poverty to increase their incomes as well as enjoy more economic stability and better health. These outcomes will diminish the need for social services, increase tax revenues, and lower overall healthcare costs. Expanded adult basic skills services will, therefore, pay for themselves.
ODC’s mission is to help adult basic skills advocates make common cause with advocates for other issues (health, employment, incarceration, libraries, etc.) in order to build an integrated approach to ending poverty. The ODC advocacy issues groups, therefore, are the engines of ODC’s efforts. They produce advocacy papers, presentations, and videos that set out the common cause within each ODC issue group. We do this because we believe that the efforts taking place within other issue areas will be more successful if adult basic skills advocates and practitioners support them and they support adult basic skills. In addition, we believe that an integrated approach to ending poverty that includes adult basic skills and all of the other issues groups is the only way to be successful.
ODC Issues Groups These currently include: Workforce Development and Labor, Public Libraries, Digital Inclusion, Community Health and ABE, Safety Net Services Advocacy, Criminal Justice Reform, Immigrant and Refugee Education and Integration, and Public K-12 Education and Intergenerational Literacy. Click on this ODC Issues Groups link for more information.
David J. Rosen
AAACE-NLA Moderator
ODC Co-founder, Steering Committee member and Communications Committee chair
djrosen123@gmail.com
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We’ve debated for a while how to refer to the current occupant of the White House. Dear Leader. Il Douché. Malignant narcissist. Drumpf. But I think the SDNY US attorney’s office finally got it right and I will use their’s from now on: Individual-1.
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A friend sent me a teeet with a photo of Trump Tower, renamed Individual 1 Tower
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https://twitter.com/AndTheBandAides/status/1072228704321851392
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A would be Education President whose term as Governor can’t end soon enough: https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2018/12/gov-john-kasich-says-ohios-k-12-education-system-needs-fundamental-restructuring.html
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The Chicago Tribune on Education issues of sexual abuse of children in the CPS. and Emanual’s non action – and he may run for office again? The Board of Ed closed their eyes to this under their control – who appoints and elects these worthless individuals?
In this era of #MeToo and grand jury investigations of the Catholic Church, Emanuel should have been driven out of Chicago with pitchforks. Instead, the Democrat Party and the media have been giving him high-fives as he takes a victory lap on his mayoralty.
Back in June, a Chicago Tribune investigation uncovered 523 credible cases of rape and sexual abuse of minors at CPS over the last 10 years. Again, note that this enormous number is in just one city over 10 years.
In one case, a 16-year-old track star was raped 40 times by her coach.
Since September, CPS officials have received 624 new complaints of sex abuse, including 133 allegations of adult misconduct.
This should be a national scandal, not just a Chicago scandal.
Emanuel’s appointed heads of the Chicago Board of Education knew about these abuse cases and hid them from the public for eight years. Emanuel controls the Chicago City Council, which refused to hold public hearings for months. A single public hearing was finally held this month, and CPS’ CEO Janice Jackson, another Emanuel appointee, was a no-show.
So why isn’t Rahm being held accountable for the CPS sex abuse scandal? One word: racism. Could this be the reason?
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is the only one who has taken action. She revoked a $4 million grant to CPS over their mishandling of sexual assault complaints. CPS recently filed a lawsuit to restore the funding.
The Education Department moved in September to withhold the grant dollars, following a Tribune investigation into the way CPS has handled allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct.
In an internal memo justifying the funding cutoff, the department’s civil rights office said it had “identified serious and pervasive violations under Title IX,” the federal law that protects students from gender-based discrimination and from abuse and harassment that interfere with schooling.
That memo also expressed frustration with the district’s slow and incomplete responses to federal investigators who are looking into student complaints filed in recent years.
The school board’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, asks a judge to reverse federal authorities’ decision and to keep the government from sending the money to other school systems until the case is settled.
Juan Perez Jr.Contact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
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Diane Here is a link to and snips from article in “Non-Profit Quarterly” titled: “Billionaires Focus Their Philanthropy on Education, But Will Children Benefit?”
SNIPS: “’Philanthropy is the least democratic institution on earth,’ says Professor David Nasaw, a historian who has researched Carnegie’s philanthropic focus on education. ‘It’s rich men deciding what to do.’”
“Two philosophical challenges have arisen with the nature of these investments. The first, which NPQ has discussed at length, is that it limits democratic control over the nation’s public education system. In effect, education philanthropy puts education program design in a few hands who are, by definition, outsiders, and often less expert and less informed than those who are doing the work. In the case of CZI, which was established as a limited liability corporation instead of a philanthropic foundation, there are also related issues of transparency. . . . The second challenge, behind which Anand Giridharadas’s 2018 book Winner Takes All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World has ignited new fervor, is that the country’s wealthiest donors and most charitable companies have made their money by perpetuating the broken system they purport to fix. . . . ” MORE
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/12/11/billionaires-focus-their-philanthropy-on-education-but-will-children-benefit/?utm_source=NPQ+Newsletters&utm_campaign=558fbf4ec1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_11_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_94063a1d17-558fbf4ec1-12886885&mc_cid=558fbf4ec1&mc_eid=cc73fe1cff
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There’s a lot in this, and it’s hard to know how to decipher, but the general message I get is that Reformers are finding that their easy fixes don’t work so easily for a myriad of reasons. For anyone else to decode: https://hechingerreport.org/the-dirty-secret-about-educational-innovation/
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A lot of politicians don’t give up on these ideas (and Colorado often seems to be a welcoming place for them):
https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-pol-capitol-watch-malloy-education-20181205-story.html
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The “Charter Czarina” gets another award from a typical source: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/11/26/1656735/0/en/Governor-Jeb-Bush-and-ExcelinEd-to-Honor-Eva-Moskowitz-at-2018-National-Summit-on-Education-Reform.html
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Ed Reform in Mexico = Billions down the drain (looks their president-elect gets it!): https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/81-billion-pesos-down-the-drain/
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As we wait for the site, timing, and number of casualties from the next mass shooting, or any, for that matter, remember to send this to those who offer thoughts and prayers:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-school-shooting-thoughts-prayers-gun-violence-hospital_us_5c181c01e4b08db99056bb8e
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See: DeVos’s Response to School Shootings? Make School More Like Prison
https://truthout.org/articles/devoss-response-to-school-shootings-make-school-more-like-prison/
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Yes, saw it here: https://dianeravitch.net/2018/12/18/secondary-school-principals-blast-devos-school-safety-report-no-mention-of-gun-control/ and here: https://dianeravitch.net/2018/12/18/devos-phony-school-safety-commission-report/
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Mission accomplished in New Orleans: https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/education/article_9e7c55fc-0471-11e9-8c4c-e3f94b3162f1.html
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Next time we have issues with content moderation check out this succinct explanation:
Ironic in so many ways that we use the web and social media and need it to watch this video.
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Those of us paying attention to public education are well versed in the dangers of use of algorithms as a substitute for human judgement. I recently read this characterization: an algorithm is just an opinion expressed mathematically.
Here’s a warning about their increasing use by governments:
These practices might seem both well intended and largely benign. After all, a universal welfare state cannot function if the trust of those who contribute to it breaks down due to systematic freeriding and abuse. And in the prototype being developed in Gladsaxe, the application of big data and algorithmic processing seems to be perfectly virtuous, aimed as it is at upholding the core human rights of vulnerable children.
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Speaking of dangerous algorithms read this https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/world/facebook-moderators.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Facebook could blunt that algorithm or slow the company’s expansion into new markets, where it has proved most disruptive. But the social network instills in employees an almost unquestioned faith in their product as a force for good.
When Ms. Su, the News Feed engineer, was asked if she believed research finding that more Facebook usage correlates with more violence, she replied, “I don’t think so.”
“As we have greater reach, as we have more people engaging, that raises the stakes,” she said. “But I also think that there’s greater opportunity for people to be exposed to new ideas.”
Still, even some executives hesitate when asked whether the company has found the right formula.
Facebook’s policies might emerge from well-appointed conference rooms, but they are executed largely by moderators in drab outsourcing offices in distant locations like Morocco and the Philippines.
Facebook says moderators are given ample time to review posts and don’t have quotas. Moderators say they face pressure to review about a thousand pieces of content per day. They have eight to 10 seconds for each post, longer for videos.
The moderators describe feeling in over their heads. For some, pay is tied to speed and accuracy. Many last only a few exhausting months. Front-line moderators have few mechanisms for alerting Facebook to new threats or holes in the rules — and little incentive to try, one said.
One moderator described an officewide rule to approve any post if no one on hand can read the appropriate language. This may have contributed to violence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where posts encouraging ethnic cleansing were routinely allowed to stay up.
Facebook says that any such practice would violate its rules, which include contingencies for reviewing posts in unfamiliar languages. Justin Osofsky, a Facebook vice president who oversees these contracts, said any corner-cutting probably came from midlevel managers at outside companies acting on their own.
This hints at a deeper problem. Facebook has little visibility into the giant outsourcing companies, which largely police themselves, and has at times struggled to control them. And because Facebook relies on the companies to support its expansion, its leverage over them is limited.
One hurdle to reining in inflammatory speech on Facebook may be Facebook itself. The platform relies on an algorithm that tends to promote the most provocative content, sometimes of the sort the company says it wants to suppress.
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Goliath still bullying: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teachers-are-quitting-their-jobs-at-the-highest-rate-on-record-2018-12-28
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Can anyone enlighten me on the Lucy Calkins Writing Program?
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Maybe this blog piece will help:
“Is Lucy Calkins Legally Insane?
“We have called for the arrest and prosecution of Lucy Calkins. We have sampled the child abuse of Lucy Calkins methods. We have called for all administrators that buy into Lucy Calkins to be terminated post haste. And we have pulled back the sheath of the Cult of Lucy Calkins.” …
“Many school districts are forced to purchase, institute, and receive staff development on, new curricular materials due to failing to meet NCLB targets. Here is all you need to know about one of the most popular choices of districts: The Lucy Calkins Writer’s Workshop, a useless heap of crap that no self-respecting teacher would rely on. Sure, there are a couple of good nuggets, but that’s about it. You can get those nuggets from any veteran teacher, without the million dollar price tag. Here is the money section from a Hoover Institute review of Lucy’s material:” …
http://southbronxschool.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-lucy-calkins-legally-insane.html
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Thank you so much, Lloyd! If Hoover thinks this is garbage, that really says something. My school superintendent recently touted the “improvement” of 3rd Grade test scores and linked it to their use of this program.
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Sorry to go on about this and this will come across as pretentious, but I spent this evening going over 5 star Amazon and Goodreads reviews on her writing book. Ironically, there were very few comments that went beyond five or six words. In fact, I found few with any substantive views or descriptions, mostly they were along the lines of “this was great” or “a favorite.” Pretty strange that they couldn’t write more extensively about a book that purports to teach about writing. On Goodreads I looked into the books that the 5 star reviewers and raters had on their lists and they were mostly children’s books, popular trite fiction, and generally what I would consider to be crap. There were very few serious readers with diverse interests. Again, that sounds like I’m being a pompous ass, but so be it, that’s my impression.
The other thing that struck me on Amazon was the number of Calkins books and prepackaged year-long classes in a kit that were fairly expensive. A whole lot of red flags for me. In retrospect, I wish I had spent that time reading the books at my bedside.
But I’m leaning with you, Lloyd. I figure my school system must be spending a lot of money on this and taking up valuable time and autonomy from teachers. I’d rather see them spend that money on hiring more teachers to have smaller class sizes and treat them like valued professionals, not as quasi-fast food, assembly line drones.
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I just checked Lucy Calkin’s page on Amazon. She doesn’t have that many reviews for each of her books. And you are right, most of the reviews are the kind a friend or minion will write because you asked or told them to. In fact, one of the 5-star reviews for this book says “Great condition and price”.
Then there is the “The Art of Teaching Writing”. It has 46 reviews but only 15 are verified purchases, and one of those 5-star reviews says “thanks”.
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I have been reading your conversation re Lucy Caulkins.
In the sixties I was told to read that by my college professors.
When I was put into a classroom, back then and all my life, anywhere… I had the authority to use what I needed to use ignorer to ensure and facilitate the LEARNING of skills, especially the literacy skills. Second grade and seventh grade were my tenures..
Nothing that I read in those books were of much use in my classroom, but the ideas about the practice of pedagogy, informed my practice. Sadly the schools in which I taught 2nd grade bought that “no phonics” approach, and I had to hide my lessons where I gave my non -readers the clues inherent in the alphabet–how letters sound.
Kids listen first as babies, then they babble, then in school, they recognize that the sounds that they hear and that they make are represented by letters.
Then we read, read read, and talk talk talk about words, and then we write and read some more.
I read to them and with them, because IN WHOLE LANGUAGE, reading proceeds writing… always and forever.
Nancy Atwell’s, book, “IN the Middle,” that was the only book that offered me a solid idea for holding the kind of meaningful conversation with children that led to authentic WRITING skills.
Hence, my “Reader’s Letters’ curriculum came from her, but was adapted for over 30 kids in a class, and for 130 students in the seventh grade at East Side Middle School which brought Harvard to study me and Pew to make my practice the NYC cohort for the standards AND to ask :HOW DID YOU DO THIS? —>THIS, being incredible writing skills on all ELA tests.
HOW?
It takes a TEACHER, who loves kids, and loves to show them how to do something!
It takes a talented, educated, experienced, skillful teacher to use what applies, and what can be found in books— stuff that helps their PRACTICE of the discipline known as PEDAGOGY!
They sell Lucy. They should sell Susan… but the book that Stenhouse asked me to write on this successful practice, disappeared when I was put in a rubber room, as the EIC tried to exterminate me.
Cant’ have teachers who teach kids to think critically… to compare and analyze, and to write!
BTW the Pew and Harvard THIRD LEVEL research done by the LRDC (in the nineties) –on the REAL STANDARDS FOR LEARNING — disappeared too, as Gates and Pearson replaced them with their ‘books’ and theories and products.
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I also had to do some stealth teaching in the 1980s when we were told to stop teaching grammar and mechanics because it was boring the kids and they’d learn it on their own just by reading a lot.
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Lloyd, David Greg and others who are exploring the idea of professional development and things that transform our classroom practice… see my newest comment in the larger text .
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Thanks again, Lloyd. Been spending the past hour trying to learn more and came across an op-ed written by Fordham Institute’s Robert Pondiscio: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/johnny-won-learn-read-article-1.1852715
I got a stomach cramp from laughing at the irony of his first sentence: “Bad ideas in education are like horror movie monsters. You think you’ve killed them, but they refuse to stay dead.”
Another article by Chester Finn also makes the head spin: https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-‘balanced-literacy’-hoax
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Greg, I would recommend that you get a copy of the Calkins book “the Art of Teaching Writing.” We sent a teacher to her summer workshop at Columbia, and then adopted it, working systematically through the book with sections of teachers, students age appropriate. It was wildly successful and we ultimately sent the 14 year-olds off to their high schools, confident, articulate and very skilled writers. It seems from the articles you found that the writers have no classroom instructional experience.
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Hannah MacLaren, I have no idea who you are but I do know this. If the US followed Finland’s example, no program would be forced on teachers and school from the top down.
It doesn’t matter if the program works or not. The final choice must be up to each school and its teachers.
I was a public school teacher in California for thirty years (1975-2005), and I taught English, writing and journalism for most of those years.
I started developing my own writing programs for my students back in the late 1970s and as an individual teacher I had a lot of success (with an emphasis on a LOT that was also documented and appeared in the local media near where I taught), but what worked for me wouldn’t work for every teacher.
Writing was and is my passion and has been since 1968.
However, today it wouldn’t matter what my passion was and how successful I was as a teacher because some ass-hat in the district office, or a state capital or Washington DC would decide what program I would have to use or else I’d be at risk of losing my job if I was still teaching. And I did face that type of stupid top-down crap when I was still teaching.
As a professional teacher, I knew what worked best for me and what worked best for my students … those students that cooperated and worked to learn.
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and, Lloyd, you know about what happened to me. I was the NYS educator of excellence, after my practice was the NYC cohort for the Pew research on Harvard’s “Principals of Learning.” My curricula was studied and matched to the 4 principles of learning. I was one of six teachers out of the 20,000 in the research study, who had matched the principles in a unique curricula that I had created. Today, I would not have been allowed to use my 5 decades of professional experience to determine what learning would look like in MY PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE, and what I could use to create learning.
Imagine of a hospital manager determined what the surgeon should use.
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I taught from 1963 until 1998, and would have taught longer, if they had not decided to eliminate me so I could not use my successful curriculum which I developed over decades in order to ensure the kids learned to speak, read and write in a neural process that worked. As the “core curricula crap’ and the tests, filled the storerooms the autonomy of the teacher to decide what works in their professional practice ended.
Imagine if the hospital administrator through out the expertise of the practicing physicians. People would die.
The schools died, and ignorance in America gave us this moment, when 86% of the people cannot grasp the Constittution, and the creation of the checks and balances.
America is a failed state according to many leaders around the world, and it happened as the media became the teacher, and real learning disappeared when the professional teacher-practitioner was eliminated and replaced by trained TFAs.
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I wouldn’t call the United States a failed state, but I would agree it is a failed experiment for its Constitutional Republic. If the Constitution had not created the Electoral College, it is possible the United States would be in a lot better shape. Instead of G. W. Bush, the country would have had President Gore. Instead of Trumpty Dumpty, the country would have had President Hillary Clinton.
I didn’t know much about Hillary Clinton beyond all the GOP investigations that found no guilt until the 2016 presidential debates when I was fact-checking all of Trump’s endless lies about Hillary, lies that she ignored instead of corrected. She should have fought back but she didn’t and she said as much when she was on The Howard Stern Show back in December 2019 for more than two hours. It turns out that Stern voted for Hillary and wanted her to become president.
And I kept learning about HC after 2016. Now I think she would have made a great president. COVID-19 would have hit no matter who the president was but Hillary would have done something right from the start because she actually cares about people, children, women.
Trump only cares about Trump.
I would also suggest that the traditional media died under President Teflon Don Ronald Reagon when he got rid of the Fairness Doctrine that would have protected the country from hate-mongers and misinformation-misfits like Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Alex Jones, Fox News, Sinclar Media, and One America News (OAN) that report alternative news based on lies and conspiracy theories instead of factual reporting of events.
If the country brought back the Fairness Doctrine and applied it to opinions and news through the internet and the traditional media, it would be a step in the right direction to bring back fairness and honesty in the media.
In fact, the country should add an Amendment to the U.S.Constution to make sure no one gets rid of a Fairness Doctrine when it comes to reporting the news or sharing opinions, again. That way when someone like Rush Limbaugh spreads msinformation and hate through his opinions, his show would have to provide equal time for someone to respond without that censor button people lie Limbaugh uses when they don’t like what a caller says.
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Hello Lloyd If if if. I think you are right . . . however, . . .
. . . a little piece of history is missing there that I think is relevant to the Gore-to-Hillary issue: Remember that the D-Party had to hide Bill Clinton during the Gore campaign–he was persona non grata for a long time because of the “affair” and impeachment.
I think it a reasonable fast-forward guess to think that, had Bill been able to actively campaign for Gore at the time, instead of going into hiding, the votes for Gore would have been decisive instead of marginal; hence, the Florida count, not to mention the rest of the States’ would have been quite different.
I don’t give a hoot about Bill’s night life, so to speak; but in that case, his extra-marital affair was a political travesty the size of which we will never be able to fathom or perhaps even, now, get a chance to rectify. I have even thought that, in some sense, perhaps Bill set the stage for the electorate in general to be able to accept the utter moral depravity of a Trump. CBK
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What you say is correct, but Bill Clinton’s affair was not the reason for him being investigated by the GOP in the first place. When Keeneth Starr did not find any wrongdoing in his investigation of financial dealings before Clinton became president, that investigation should have ended but it didn’t. Starr refused to stop looking under rocks.
“In the highly charged partisan politics of the 1990s, President Bill Clinton’s personal indiscretions led to the second impeachment trial in our history. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating Clinton’s pre-presidential financial dealings, but could prove no wrongdoing. In a separate case, Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. In her effort to demonstrate that Clinton was a harasser, Jones called a young former White House intern named Monica Lewinsky to testify. Lewinsky had told a friend that she had been having a relationship with the President.
“In the Jones case, Lewinsky at first denied a relationship with the president. In his deposition, Clinton denied under oath any involvement with Lewinsky. This denial caught Starr’s attention; Starr suspected the president had committed perjury and obstructed justice in the Jones trial. Starr assembled a grand jury, issued dozens of subpoenas, and eventually offered Lewinsky immunity in return for her testimony. She finally admitted that she had lied—she and Clinton had had sexual encounters. When Clinton testified for Starr’s grand jury, he gave evasive answers. However, that same night, he admitted the Lewinsky affair to the American people, apologizing to his family. …”
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/elessons/the-impeachment-of-bill-clinton/
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CBK, a quibble.
Bill Clinton paid the price—impeachment—for his sexual misbehavior.
He did not pave the way for Trump’s moral depravity.
In their lust for power, Republicans have set the bar as low as it can go. Maybe they dug a trench to lower it even more.
They were outraged by Clinton’s behavior but nothing Trump does bothers them at all.,
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In the last couple of decades, it has become obvious that there is a double standard in American politics.
Democratic voters hold their elected officials to a much higher standard while most Republicans voters do not care about standards.
To modern-day conservatives, any idiot will do and it doesn’t matter if they are a child molester, a serial liar, a total failure at everything even lying, a con-men, a fraud, and have no morality as long as they support little or no taxes on the wealthy and corporations, support teaching Creationism in the public schools, support privatizing public education, the right to own weapons of mass destruction and shoot anyone labeled a liberal, pretending they are fighting to block the Equal Rights Amendment, and stop women from having abortions.
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Since Trump supports lower taxes on the rich, public subsidy for church schools, and opposes abortion, he is seen by many in his base as a deity.
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Hello Diane: I don’t think Clinton “paved the way for Trump’s moral depravity” Trump alone is responsible for that; though of course its continuance has its many enablers.
I think Clinton’s moral behavior, the discovery of it, and his lying about it before Congress (back when lying made people gasp) made it impossible AT THE TIME for Clinton, the seated democratic president, to support the democratic nomination, Gore. The Party hid Clinton during the Gore campaign because we were all so ashamed of Clinton and offended at his behavior.
Also, the difference in our attitudes about such behavior, from then I(gasp) to now, (“whatever”) has many woven-in causes and effects; but one of them is the effect of the above Clinton debacle on the national moral consciousness, . . .regardless of the reality of Republican dirt machine, fake outrage, and tribal politics at the time. CBK
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I do not agree that the Clintons paved the way for Trump because of Bill’s dalliances with a willing adult. Yes, Bill cheated on Hillary, but that was not illegal.
Case in point: Al Franken resigned from the Senate in 2018, due to a photo showing him pretending to squeeze the breast of a woman journalist wearing a flack jacket over her breasts while she was napping on a flight into or out of Afghanistan. Franken didn’t actually squeeze her breast. He was pretending to do it while a friend took a snapshot.
When that photo was released to the world (a photo that Franken was aware of and had requested), the uproar caused by Republicans to stir up Democrats ended in Franken’s resignation.
But there was no similar uproar in the GOP over Trump’s vulgar locker room banter and decades of evidence that he cheated on all of his wives and even cheated on the mistresses he was cheating on his wives with.
The Clintons did not create the double standard that now exists between the Democratic and Republican Party. Let’s not forget that the GOP and Trump supported accused pedophile Judge Roy Moore in 2017 who lost the special election for Jeff Sessions’ former seat in Alabama due to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
“RNC Restores Financial Support for Roy Moore As Trump Gives Full Endorsement”
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568274917/removing-any-qualifications-trump-endorses-roy-moore
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Thank you, Hannah. With the track record of my children’s school board and administrators, I tend to assume they are guilty before proven innocent. It’s been many years since I was a teacher, but based on my experience of having attended 9 different schools in 9 different places growing up—and the last school, which I attended for three years, beat the joy of learning out of me—so I am naturally skeptical about programs like this. But I will be a bit more open-minded because of your message. Personally, I think the way to learn how to write is to read a lot and diversely when you’re young and then write a lot as you get older while getting advice from good teachers and Wallace Stegner essays.
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“The final choice must be up to each school and its teachers.”
Exactly. Thanks again for summing up my core concern.
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A New Kind of Professional Development: The Mini Sabbatical
Published on December 27, 2018
David Di Gregorio
Some might equate a good portion of the professional development offered by public schools to seeing a bad movie – time wasted. Topics come and go, and the teaching staff tires of a different push or initiative each year. This situation compelled me to write the following for your consideration.
When I was 7 years old I was introduced, through my father, a French teacher, to the sabbatical. In 1965, we boarded a Norwegian freighter and twelve days later we were in Europe. I attended school in France for several months – and to this day I reflect upon the small chalkboards (tablets!) we used to complete math problems, poem memorization and recital, and the “bon point” – a colorful little card awarded to students for doing an assignment especially well. That was my father’s sabbatical – I benefitted from it too!
Many years later, in my position as library media specialist at a public school, the superintendent granted me a week to visit the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the largest book event on the planet. This was directly related to my work. The knowledge, resources, and ideas I gained during this one-week experience benefitted the students in our school immeasurably.
This brought me to a simple idea – a new concept for professional development: the mini-sabbatical. Teachers would be encouraged to propose to travel to a destination directly related to their instruction for 5 – 10 days. Proposals would be submitted and decided upon by administration. Educators chosen would be equipped with a camera. A comprehensive presentation to colleagues would be required upon return.
Districts would fund a series of mini-sabbaticals every year, sending faculty on learning missions. With technology available, a class or two could even be taught on location. The prospect of being awarded such an opportunity is motivating, and the discovery process is empowering. This enables a teacher to be even better through a directly related experience. I feel districts getting behind such a concept will be doing their staff and students a great service. Their PD budget line will then make a real difference!
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Thank you for sharing about the mini sabbaticals. Great read.
Barbara Smith, PhD
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” ~ John Dewey
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Thank you for sharing about the mini sabbaticals. Great read.
Barbara Smith, PhD “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” ~ John Dewey ________________________________
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Lloyd, David Greg and others who are exploring the idea of professional development and things that transform our classroom practice. I was reading Medium, when I found a piece by a teacher : Transforming the First Ten Minutes of Class –
View at Medium.com
Upon reading it, I discovered that after a professional development course, this teacher tried to engage his students in dialogue about reading books… and — lo and behold — he did something very similar to what I did after reading “In The Middle,’ by Nancy Atwell; that summer when I was asked to ‘teach’ the entire seventh grade English classes at East Side .Middle School, I looked for an idea.
I had previously been subbing in middle school and high school (for 12 years), but my classroom practice had been in primary grades 2 and 3.
ESMS was a brand new middle school, and the director gave me NOTHING.. no curriculum, no suggestions… just a class list and an empty room. It had been a ballet studio, and did not even have blackboards.I bought (with my now money) books for the reading library. Over the 8 years o fly tenure there I provided 1000 books, purchased at library and garage sales.
So, after genuinely teaching 7 year old kids to read and write, and after 12 years, of observing what hundreds of teacher did to enable literacy, , I saw the Atwell idea of interacting with kids as they read, as a real potential.
I mean, how in the world could I monitor the private reading of over 130 kids?
I needed a method to carry on a conversation with my students about books!
So, I fine-tuned Atwell’s Reader’s Letter curricula, and also wrote a weekly letter to the parent–clear expectations for what I was doing ( Harvard loved that, because the first Principle of L earning) in their RESEARCH with Pew, was CLEAR EXPECTATIONS.)
In class, of course, we read literature together… stories that I chose that offered a look at great writing and literary devices like irony, personification, metaphors etc.
The ‘Dear Mrs Schwartz’ Letters, which I posted in the hallways and collected in folders for visitors to read, blew everyone away. As the teacher discovered in the article above, if you ENGAGE children in conversations, they become actively involved.
They talked about what they loved and what they LEARNED, and I answered every letter. (That according to Harvard was the 2nd Principle of Learning— the REWARD for achievement. THE KIDS LOVED TO SEE MY REPLIES– WHAT I WROTE TO THEM)
They talked about their personal connections to the books they read, and in class they told their friends ‘you gotta read this!.” Just like the article related… they got excited about books… because of the CONVERSATIONS.
TO ME, as I read all of your wonderful commentaries about how we bring LEARNING into our own practice, this reverberated. Of course, children need to be heard in order to find their own voices.
We all need a place to talk about what we see and what we hear, so we can compare and contrast our observations to what we actually know…prior knowledge.
If, as teachers, we are lucky to encounter good advice bout the practice of PEDAGOGY, and if we are educated, talented PROFESSIONALS that are informed by experience –you know– LIKE DOCTORS for example — then we can utilize the ideas and adapt them.
The problem is that too many professional ‘courses’ or books, ‘talk’ to ‘teachers’ about ‘teaching’– which is no the same as offering sound ideas that contribute to authentic LEARNING.
But what do I know? At the end of my career, when I was the nY State Educator of Excellence, the critters at the NYC DOE tried to end my career with charges of incompetence… until Randi Weingarten herself came to the rescue.
Happy New Year.
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Teachers Quit Their Jobs in Record Numbers During 2018
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/54204-teachers-quit-their-jobs-in-record-numbers-during-2018
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I developed something similar with the reading and linked it to a writing program. Instead of long discussions led by me (there were short discussions), I had students write essays that linked what they knew of the world to the poems, short stories and books we read as a class and hey read as individuals.
To learn to express themselves through writing, I organized creative writing critique groups and taught my students what constructive criticism meant compared to criticism that offered no growth but only negative feedback that was destructive. Destructive criticism was not allowed.
These small student groups focused on helping every student improve what they wrote. Every piece of writing was discussed and criticized by an entire class.
Then the students were provided time to write a revised and edited final draft based on all the feedback and support they had during group work.
My students read something almost every day and we briefly succeeded that what they read after finishing it and then they started writing to a choice of prompts. There wasn’t one prompt. There were usually three and they picked the one to write to. If they wanted to write to more than one of the prompts, the second or third piece was extra credit.
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By now you realize, as I do, that we are on the same page about many things, but especially about how to FACILITATE AND ENABLE learning.
I cannot imagine what would occur in learning if you and I taught in theS AME school, and in classes of no more than 18 students, they went from my seventh grade and into your eighth grade. Sigh.
In an alternative universe where authentic schools allow genuine born-to-teach professionals the autonomy to direct their own practice.
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Yes, yes, and yes, Susan. Thanks for sharing.
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I posted comments about the effectiveness of comedian Hasan Minaj’s commentaries on Netflix and even signed up for it to access a program Diane recommended despite my misgivings about giving money to Reed Hastings. Looks like I’ll have to cancel it now. Netflix caves to Saudis by taking down Minaj’s accurate bit: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/netflix-patriot-act-with-hasan-minhaj-saudi-arabia_us_5c2b8947e4b0407e9085ad5d
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Hoo boy!
Here on the blog, we often disparage reformistas’ claims to know what the future of work will be like, as they seek to sculpt learning enviroments to that goal. But I bet most of us have no clue how dysfunctional algorithms are already shaping the world of work through data mining. Consider combining the data already harvested with that gleaned from 13 years of public schooling from every child and the possibilites are dazzling.
This article will blow your mind:
“The use of machine learning to sift through high volumes of potential job applicants is certainly not new—we’ve known that firms use simple keyword searches in résumés and personality quizzes for years. But a new field of ‘people analytics’ has emerged, whereby software companies promise to surface the most qualified hires through psychological profiling based on thousands of data points related to where people live, their social media use, their personal relationships, and even which web browser they use. Each person’s unique profile, when matched with data supplied by third-party brokers, adds up to a score. The score is matched against an established ideal by the hiring firm, and the closer the match, the more eligible the candidate is for hire.
“The problem with technologies like these is they can serve to underscore existing biases and worsen structural inequities. For example, Cornerstone found that those applicants who installed newer browsers on their computers—such as Chrome or Firefox—stayed at their jobs 15 percent longer than those who used default browsers that come pre-installed, such as Safari for Mac.28 So, if an applicant is using a library computer because they don’t own a computer of their own—and thus are likely to be using a default browser—Cornerstone might score you lower for a job for which you’d otherwise be qualified. Cornerstone’s algorithm also favors lower commute times, thus biasing its process against applicants who might be willing to brave a longer commute for a chance at greater economic mobility…
“Advocates’ emphasis on employees’ tax status, while important, obscures a host of other problems that can stem from an entire employment experience governed by algorithms. Without any straightforward rules or understanding to explain to workers how the algorithms pay them, workers must engage in a costly trial-and-error process to understand how their behaviors affect their scores, and thus their take home pay. Last year, workers for Instacart, the same-day grocery delivery service, were taken by surprise when the company suddenly added a “service fee” that customers mistook for an automatically included tip, causing a sudden drop in wages.36 And these same Instacart couriers have to start out with no clear information up front about the most lucrative time periods to be available for shifts—they have to learn it, at their own economic risk, over time.”
https://tcf.org/content/report/datafication-employment-surveillance-capitalism-shaping-workers-futures-without-knowledge/?session=1
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Thanks for all your wonderful links,
I write about the Unintended Consequences of a THIS TRANSFORMATIONAL ERA— THIS new ERA OF information technology . The algorithms affect everything, and is effecting society across the world, as this article explains
“Maybe the effect is broadly negative. Maybe it’s broadly positive. Probably it’s mixed. But it is almost certainly profoundly disruptive in ways that we may spend the rest of our lives trying to understand.Whether they set out to or not, these companies are conducting the largest social re-engineering experiment in human history, and no one has the slightest clue what the consequences are.
“Few people I spoke with understood that the keywords they use to find information online can actually shift the ideological slant of their search results. Even after doing research, I’ve seen how voters walk away from Google armed with alternative news and alternative facts.”
The bedrock of Americas foundation are under attack, at the very top, in the Executive office. It is a time when a new technology has opened a place where anyone can post their ‘opinions’ and call them relevant ideas, and in fact claim that they are ‘alternative truth’; there is no such thing!
Disinformation is ‘weaponized as a disruptive force! “The destruction of the distinction between truth and falsehood is the foundation of dictatorship! . Words MATTER! They help us to ‘think’ about what is before us! REAL CRITICAL THOUGHT lets us compare and contrast this to that!
Today, Politico, knowing full well that there comment would become a ‘meme’ did a great disservice to our ignorant masses, comparing Warren to Hillary and openly SUGGESTING tHat Warren was ‘unlikable’ like her.
They should be ashamed of themselves!
I am!
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Not sure if this book has been mentioned before, but it’s a great satirical fictional look at Ed Reform through the eyes of teachers: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40947829-adequate-yearly-progress
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Michael Bennet running for President?
Twitter name change renews talk Michael Bennet is running for president Speculation about whether Colorado’s Democratic senator wants to be president reignited Friday after Michael Bennet changed the name of his campaign Twitter account. http://twib.in/l/aExRXeg8Xknb #USRC
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You just prompted me to respond to a tweet of his about electoral reform. What a putz.
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I look at him as the Arne Duncan of the Senate. (And I’m sure he’d consider that a compliment.)
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Diane, You should really be verified on Twitter, with the blue badge that has a white check inside it by your name, showing the world that you are undeniably, verifiably you. You are famous and truly deserve that!
Twitter claims they suspended public requests to verify famous people & are working on a new method of verification, but many people who have been newly elected to Congress and were previously unknown got verified, so there IS a way to do that now. I sent tweets to Twitter about verifying you today, but Twitter probably needs to hear directly from you about it, so try sending a public tweet requesting verification to Twitter at @verified.
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Bill Gates’ personal review of 2018 (be sure to check his goals for 2019): https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2018
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Diane, In an example of strange bedfellow, today’s local opinion piece by Michelle Malkin reviews the evils of computer driven “personalized educational experiences” and the dangers of who has access to student data.
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