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My Visit to a Transformed Germany, Which Faces Its Past with Truth

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2023 //
35

As a young person and a Jew, I swore I would never visit Germany. Growing up in Houston in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I occasionally met people who had a blue number tattooed on their arm, a legacy of their time in a Nazi concentration camp. I learned about the Holocaust at religious school, not public school. With my knowledge of the Holocaust, I was determined to avoid the nation that sought to eliminate the Jews of Europe. I was fortunate that my father’s parents came to America from Poland in the 19th century, and my mother arrived from Bessarabia after World War 1. Every member of their families who remained in Europe was slaughtered. Not one survived.

In 1984, I received an invitation from the State Department to visit West Germany and Yugoslavia to speak about education. I decided to go. It was a fascinating trip, and I overcame my phobia about visiting Germany.

Years later, after the Wall had come down, I went to Germany as a tourist with my partner and our Brooklyn neighbors. The wife, an emergency room nurse, was born in Germany, and is one of the kindest people I know. For the first time, I saw Germany as a vibrant and thriving nation. I visited the Holocaust Museum in Berlin and saw the honesty with which Germany was confronting its past. Every town we visited had its memorials to those who had perished because of Hitler’s genocide.

A few days ago, I was again in Berlin. Frankly, I fell in love with Berlin. The German people acknowledge the horrors of their past. They don’t sugar coat it. Their contrition is impossible to ignore. There are memorials scattered across the city to those who were unjustly murdered—Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and others.

Right near our hotel was a field of 2,711 stelae of different sizes that looked like coffins. We stopped to view the site where Hitler’s bunker once existed. It’s now just blank ground with a large marker explaining what it was. It was where Hitler and Eva Braun married, knowing all was lost. She killed herself. Hitler killed himself. When the Soviets entered Berlin, they totally destroyed the bunker.

Several readers corrected my statement that Hermann Göring and his wife and children died in the bunker. They are right. It was Joseph Goebbels and his family who committed suicide in the bunker. Göring committed suicide in Nuremberg the night before he was to be executed by hanging.

As the war drew to a close and Nazi Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined Hitler in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitler’s underground bunker complex, on 22 April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitler’s will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; he served one day in this post. The following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, after having poisoned their six children with a cyanide compound. (Wikipedia)

On our last day in Berlin, we intended to go to the museum of the Stasi, the secret police that monitored every East German’s life. But we decided instead to visit the memorial center of the German resistance.

The museum tells the story of Germans who opposed the rise of Hitler in the 1930s, who worked against him during the war years, who anticipated that he would destroy Germany’s struggling democracy, and who worked to end his brutal tyranny. There were stories of opposition to Hitler by trade unionists and Communists, by Jews and Catholics and Protestants. The museum identified religious leaders, scholars, scientists, educators, students, social workers, and others who worked against Hitler. Most were killed. It went into great detail about the failed assassination attempt by leading German officers on July 20, 1944. All of them were murdered.

My partner, a former teacher of history and social studies, wondered why Holocaust studies in the schools do not tell their stories. In some sick way, the constant focus on bodies and atrocities was not having its intended effect; it was desensitizing the students to cruelty and inhumanity.

Of course, the brutality must be shown and remembered. But why not make resistance to evil the centerpiece? Why not focus on courage and heroism in the face of overwhelming force? Why not tell the story of Georg Esler, the German carpenter who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939? Or the story of the White Rose Society, the college students who bravely distributed flyers about Nazi atrocities in 1942-43, who were captured and executed? They should be celebrated for their courage and conviction.

Meanwhile, back home, our own nation is convulsed by battles about teaching the past. Some insist on whitewashing history because the truth might make young people “uncomfortable.”We see the rising influence of groups like “Moms for Liberty,” who demand censorship and oppose honest teaching of the past and the present. They have a right to speak, but they should not have the right to impose their bigotry and intolerance on others. Moms for Liberty should learn from Germany about the importance of teaching truth.

If you visit Berlin, don’t miss this tribute to the resistance.

Categories Accountability, Extremism, Fascism, History, International

Thom Hartmann: Did Hamas Get Israeli Security Secrets from Trump Leak to Russians?

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2023 //
33

Thom Hartmann is one of the most consistently interested and provocative bloggers on the internet. This is one of his most intriguing:

He wrote:

This past weekend, Hamas launched a brutal, horrific attack against civilians in Israel. While there is a very real history that has led up to this, there is no justification for it. Even in a state of war, civilians must be protected.

This horror raises a couple of important questions. 

First, did Hamas somehow get inside information about Israel’s defenses that helped them pull this off? 

Second, how might this play out, how might it be resolved, and how can America and the world avoid the mistakes from previous but similar situations? 

Pondering these questions, Sunday night just before I went to bed, I tweeted:

“Hamas apparently knew how to get around Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. They probably learned this from Iran. Iran almost certainly got the information from Russia. And who gave it to Russia? Sure looks like it was Donald Trump, at the request of Putin:”

At the end of the tweet I included a link to a 2017 Washington Post article titled “Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador,” although, because Musk has eliminated headlines from news stories, the article just looked like a picture of Trump with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister yucking it up.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I discovered that my little overnight speculative tweet had caused Republicans on Twitter/X to totally lose their minds. 

The tweet had been viewed several million times and produced thousands of responses, the vast majority calling me obscenities and claiming that Trump would never share classified information with anybody because he’s such a patriot and anybody who would wonder out loud about him passing out secrets isn’t.

The Washington Post article I included with my tweet was pretty unambiguous. Reporters Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe wrote:

“President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

“The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.”

While nobody knew then (and nobody but Trump and the Russians know now) exactly what top-secret information we got from Israel that was shared with the Russians in that meeting, it was clearly a shocking revelation that caught our and Israel’s intelligence communities by surprise. 

As noted in that Washington Post article:

“‘This is code-word information,’ said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump ‘revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.’”

The Post reporters also note that, before the door was closed, apparently a Trump staffer overheard him tell the Russians:

“I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.”

Eight days before Trump was inaugurated as president, a Hebrew language Israeli newspaper with inside information from Israeli intelligence agencies was quoted by the Times of Israel:

“US intelligence officials have warned their Israeli counterparts that President-elect Donald Trump’s ties to Russia could pose a security threat, since information passed on to his administration may reach Moscow and from there be leaked to Iran, a Hebrew-language daily reported Thursday.

“During a recent meeting between US and Israeli intelligence staff, the Americans also assessed that Russia has some kind of leverage over Trump, but did not go into details, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper claimed, citing unidentified Israeli officials who were present at the session.”

So, whether Trump screwed Israel and the US because Putin told him to, or just to feed his own massively insecure ego, and whether it’s specifically led to this Hamas raid or simply did other damage to Israeli and American security, here we are. 

And, as we learned last week when it came out that Trump shared top-secret info about our submarine fleet with an Australian businessman, he has a history of doing exactly this sort of thing.

We also don’t know if that particular intel from 2017 had to do with Iron Dome or Israeli security (the article suggests it might have involved using a laptop to take down a plane) or not. 

It’s important to note, thought, that it was only one of literally dozens of secret, private meetings Trump had with Russian officials, Russian-aligned people at the White House and Mar-a-Largo, and at least 19 phone calls with Putin, for many of which there are no existing records.

Now Newsweek has published an article about this concern that Trump played a role in the Hamas attack as well, and I’ve been joined in my speculation by several others. The Newsweek article, headlined “Donald Trump’s Israel Intel Leak Under Scrutiny After Hamas Attack,” lays it out rather starkly:

“Donald Trump’s sharing of alleged classified intelligence to Russian officials in the White House has come under scrutiny amid a large-scale attack by the Hamas Islamist military group against Israel.

“In May 2017, the former president defended his actions after he was found to have discussed sensitive details about an alleged Islamic State (ISIS) plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office. Trump said he had an absolute right to do so. The intel was said to have been provided to the U.S. from Israel.

“It was suggested at the time that the former president’s handing over sensitive information from Israel could have damaged the relationship between the two countries. It also could have raised the possibility that the details could be passed from Russia to Iran, the Gulf nation that is a fierce adversary of Israel and has long supported Hamas.”

It goes on to quote me, Allison Gill (Mueller, She Wrote), Mike Jollett, and Meidas Touch. 

Even Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, tweeted: 

“This fucking maniac likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets… Plus, he divulged highly classified information about our nuclear subs to an Australian cardboard guy. Why is he still allowed to roam free?”

But, again, all this is speculation. What we do know for sure, though, is that on at least one occasion in the first months of his presidency Trump gave information to the Russians that would have landed any other American in prison. As the Post noted:

“For almost anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal.”

And let there be no doubt that the Russians Trump shared that information with are allies of Hamas, even if that wasn’t the specific time and information that led to this attack.

A year ago last month, as the Times of Israel noted, the politburo chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, met with Trump’s Oval Office buddy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Joining them were the number two man in the Hamas Politburo, Saleh Al-Arouri, and Moussa Abu Marzouk and Maher Salah, the two most senior members of Hamas’s political wing.

That meeting was followed up this March with confirmation that Hamas has been regularly meeting with Russia. As Al-Monitor, a newspaper that covers Middle Eastern politics, noted:

“Hamas officials have made several visits to the Russian capital, most recently in September of last year.”

Whether any of this will end up sticking to Trump is anybody’s guess, but if the thousands of hysterical replies to my tweetare any indication, the GOP is truly freaked out about the possibility. This might turn out to be more politically deadly to him than rape, paying off porn stars, or stealing classified information by the box-load.

Republican politicians have even gone so far as to nakedly lie to the American people about the horrors in Israel, suggesting that the deal President Biden worked out with Iran was used to fund this attack. But it’s not true: of the $6 billion in oil money South Korea was to pay to Iran (but was frozen by international sanctions) not one single penny has yet to be distributed.

That hasn’t stopped the GOP from lying about it incessantly; it got so bad that a Fox “News” host had to intervene and correct a Republican politician, pointing out that no money has changed hands. DeSantis repeated the lie this morning on Morning Joe.

Given how frantically Republicans in the Senate are trying to pin liability for the massacre in Israel on Biden, it sure seems that somebody might be trying to cover something up. Could this have something to do with the secret documents that Donald Trump hand-delivered to Rand Paul, and he then personally transported to Moscow to give to Putin’s intelligence agents?

Jim Jordan and James Comer are fond of saying, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” This “smoke” demands an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the very least. And, hopefully, the FBI is all over it, particularly given the horror of these attacks.

But to circle back to the second question, media pundits and even the government of Israel have been using 9/11 as an analogy to the events of this past weekend.

Both were clearly major intelligence failures, but George W. Bush survived his because Democrats chose not to politicize it. 

After all, a full month earlier (on August 6th, 2001) the CIA was so alarmed that they flew an agent all the way down to Crawford, Texas in a private jet just to hand-deliver a memo to Bush that was titled:

“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Bush’s response to the possibility of Washington DC being a target was to change his plans and take the longest vacation in the history of the presidency; he went from Crawford, Texas to Florida, a state run by his brother, where Jeb declared a state of emergency on August 24th. George stayed there, refusing to return to DC until after the attacks were over.

Press reports today suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received similar warnings from multiple countries in the region prior to the recent attacks and, like Bush, chose to ignore them. But Israeli politicians are often not as circumspect as America’s Democrats, so it’s possible that what rolled off Bush’s back will stick to Netanyahu. Keep an eye on this one.

While it’s a certainty that Netanyahu will be brutal and unsparing in his retaliation (“vengeance” was the word he used yesterday) against Hamas and Gaza, the situation was, in fact, both untenable and unsustainable and it didn’t take a prophet to predict there would be a blow-up one day.

There’s a huge difference in meaning, however, between the words “predictable” and “justified.” Nothing can justify the level of terror and brutality Hamas inflicted on Israeli citizens (and others) this weekend. 

And Hamas, with their commitment to destroying Israel and killing Jews, cannot be an honest broker for any sort of peace in that region; the organization and its leadership must be destroyed. They are not reformable, like, for example, the terrorist Irish Republican Army was back in the day. 

Similarly, Iran’s and Russia’s support for Hamas must be cut off. As Iran shows in its attacks on its own citizens, and Russia shows in the brutality of its daily terror attacks against Ukraine, neither are behaving like civilized members of the modern world.

Yet, here in America MAGA Republicans continue to do everything they can to support Iran’s (and, thus, Hamas’) number-one sponsor in the world: Russia.

— Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is blocking military promotions so we have no commander for our fleet in the region because he doesn’t want raped women serving in our military to get abortions; 
— Rand Paul (R-KY) has blocked the appointment of our ambassador to Israel because Covid, vaccine, conspiracy; 
— Josh Hawley (R-MO) is blocking has a hold on Dept. of Energy appointees; 
— Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has a hold on a nominee for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs; 
— JD Vance (R-OH) has a hold on Dept. of Justice nominees; 
— and the Putin caucus in the House is trying to shut down our government and thus cut aid to Ukraine, which will strengthen Russia and reward their help to Iran and Hamas. 

Our hearts break for the missing and captive Israelis, Americans, and others who are the victims of this medieval Hamas attack. It’s hard to imagine anything more horrific. 

The civilized world must stand united against terrorism, wherever it is practiced.

Categories Accountability, Scandal, Trump

Texas: State Commissioner Cracked Down on Houston While Ignoring Low-Performing Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2023 //
5

The Texas Tribune reports on the blatant hypocrisy of State Commissioner of Educatuon Mike Morath. He used a sledgehammer on the Houston Independent School District because of one low-rated school (whose rating improved before Morath acted). But he allows failing charter schools to expand with no corrective action. His heart belongs to Governor Greg Abbott and the charter industry. His hostility to public schools, attended by 90% of Texas students, is obvious. The takeover of HISD was vengeful and partisan, motivated by politics, not the well-being of students.

The story was written by Kiah Collier and Dan Keenahill on behalf of THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA.

In June, Texas Commissioner of Education Mike embarked on the largest school takeover in recent history, firing the governing board and the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District after one of its more than 270 schools failed to meet state educational standards for seven consecutive years.

Though the state gave Houston’s Wheatley High School a passing score the last time it assigned ratings, Morath charged ahead, saying he had an obligation under the law to either close the campus or replace the board. He chose the latter.

Drastic intervention was required at Houston ISD not just because of chronic low performance, he said, but because of the state’s continued appointment of a conservator, a person who acts as a manager for troubled districts, to ensure academic improvements.

When it comes to charter school networks that don’t meet academic standards, however, Morath has been more generous.

Since taking office more than seven years ago, Morath has repeatedly given charters permission to expand, allowing them to serve thousands more students, even when they haven’t met academic performance requirements. On at least 17 occasions, Morath has waived expansion requirements for charter networks that had too many failing campuses to qualify, according to a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis of state records. The state’s top education official also has approved five other waivers in cases where the charter had a combination of failing schools and campuses that were not rated because they either only served high-risk populations or had students too young to be tested.

Only three such performance waivers had been granted prior to Morath, who declined numerous requests for comment. They had all come from his immediate predecessor, according to the Texas Education Agency.

One campus that opened because of a waiver from Morath is Eastex-Jensen Neighborhood School, which is just 6 miles north of Wheatley High School. Opened in 2019, Eastex didn’t receive grades for its first two years because the state paused all school ratings due to the adverse impacts of the pandemic. In 2022, the last time the state scored schools, Eastex received a 48 out of 100, which is considered failing under the state’s accountability system. The state, however, spared campuses that received low grades from being penalized for poor performance that year.

“The hypocrisy here seems overwhelming,” said Kevin Welner, an education policy professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. “This is the same education commissioner who justified taking over the entire Houston school district based largely on one school’s old academic ratings.”

Open the link to read more about Mike Morath’s hypocrisy. Texas Republicans are determined to turn the state into a playground for edupreneurs. If only the parents of public school students voted against them, they would all be out of office. Governor Abbott and his appointees take instructions from the evangelical billionaires, Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Houston, Hypocrisy, Privatization, Texas

Philadelphia: Charter School Execs Are Very Well Paid

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2023 //
8

Charter school executives in Philadelphia are very well compensated indeed, write the leaders of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, Lisa Haver, Deborah Grill, and Lynda Rubin.

They write:

Three of the six most highly paid administrators identified in String Theory’s most recent tax information are members of the Corosanite family: Chief Executive Officer Angela Corosanite, Chief Information Officer Jason Corosanite, and Director of Facilities Thomas Corosanite. Their total salary and compensation, as listed in the charter management organization’s 2021 IRS 990, comes to almost $900,000. String Theory manages only two schools in the city, but the company has six administrators making over $100,000 in salary and compensation. In addition, each school has its own CEO. Why does a network of only two schools need so many highly-paid administrators?

There are no guidelines for charter compensation, that is, no schedule of salary steps as there is for district principals and administrators. Ad Prima charter, a small charter school with 600 students, has a CEO, a principal and a “site director” on staff, all paid over $100,000.00 in salary and compensation. Community Academy charter has a CEO, deputy CEO, a Chief Academic Officer and deputy CAO. Pan American, an elementary school with 750 students, lists eight administrators. Folk Arts Cultural Treasures (FACTS), on the other hand, has one administrator making over $100,000. Global Leadership Academy is a two-school network. Each school has its own CEO–one making more than the district’s superintendent, the other making slightly less. GLA’s principal made over $11,000 more than a district principal with seven years or more of principal experience.

The question is: What does a charter CEO do? In charter schools with a principal, school leader, several assistant principals and a cultural director, what duties are left for a CEO? One superintendent oversees the 217 public schools in the School District of Philadelphia, at a salary of $335,000. Based on most recent federal tax information, the total salary and compensation paid to the city’s charter CEOs is over $10 million. The individual boards of each charter school, or the board of a charter chain, decides on the salary of the CEO and other administrators. There is no uniform system that takes into account years of experience. Charter schools are publicly funded; all charter administrators are paid with tax dollars.

How can charter schools afford so many highly-paid administrators? A 2016 report by City Controller Alan Butkovitz showed that the district spends more of its per-pupil funding on classroom instruction than charters, who spend a higher percentage on administration.

Please open the link and read the rest of the report, which lists the compensation at every charter school in Philadelphia.

In what way is it efficient to pay so many executives?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Texas Observer: McCarthyism Rides High Again at Texas Universities

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2023 //
12

Gabriel Arans of the Texas Observer writes about the revival of McCathyism at universities in Texas. Republicans are intent on pushing out professors they think are too liberal.

Arana writes:

Texas A&M University’s disgraceful treatment of celebrated journalism professor Kathleen McElroy should terrify anyone who cares about academic freedom, education, and equality in Texas. The state’s Republican leaders, along with Governor Greg Abbott, have launched a radical, McCarthyite crusade to purge education of liberal bias.

Only in Texas or Florida would decades of experience at the country’s most prestigious newspaper and a track record of championing newsroom inclusivity disqualify someone for a job relaunching A&M’s defunct journalism program, which was shuttered in 2004 after 55 years.

McElroy’s ordeal is just the beginning.

At first, A&M officials seemed to realize how lucky they’d been to snag McElroy, a Black woman who served in various managerial positions at the New York Times for 20 years before completing a doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin, where she served as the director of the School of Journalism and Media and now teaches.

McElroy didn’t want to draw attention to herself, but A&M insisted on a public ceremony to celebrate her appointment as head of the university’s new journalism program. On June 13, she signed an offer accepting a tenured position in front of a crowd gathered at the school’s academic building, pending approval from the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.

Over the next few weeks, the deal unraveled. After conservative activist site Texas Scorecard published a scare-mongering article about McElroy’s work on newsroom diversity, right-wing ideologues on the board of regents started scrutinizing her hire. Six or seven regents called and texted now-disgraced University President Katherine Banks to express concerns.

“I thought the purpose of us starting a journalism program was to get high-quality Aggie journalist [sic] with conservative values into the market,” regent Jay Graham texted Banks. “This won’t happen with someone like this leading the department.”

Another regent, Mike Hernandez, added that McElroy was “biased and progressive-leaning” and called giving her tenure a “difficult sell” for the board.

Members of a conservative alum group called the Rudder Association and other right-wing Aggies flooded Banks’ office with calls and emails.

Text messages show that Banks—who initially denied any involvement in McElroy’s bungled hiring, then was caught lying—was fully behind conservatives’ efforts to rein in liberal academia: “Kathy [Banks] told us multiple times the reason we were going to combine [the colleges of] arts and sciences together was to control the liberal nature that those professors brought to campus,” Graham wrote.

So Banks watered down the offer to McElroy. Still eager to return to her alma mater to train the next generation of journalists, she agreed to accept a revised five-year, nontenured teaching position, which would not require the regents’ approval.

“You’re a Black woman who worked at the New York Times,” José Luis Bermúdez, the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, warned McElroy. Her hire, he said, had been caught up in “DEI hysteria.”

But then, Banks diluted the offer further, offering McElroy a one-year, “at will” position. McElroy declined and spoke about how the university had treated her with the media.

“I’m being judged by race, maybe gender,” McElroy told the Texas Tribune. “I don’t think other folks would face the same bars or challenges.”

(Editor’s note: McElroy sits on the parent board of the Texas Observer. Because of our editorial independence policy, she has no say in our editorial decisions. Alongside this piece, today the Observerpublished a heartfelt essay from McElroy about her journalism journey and the irony of being the subject of media coverage rather than the one behind it. )

Over the summer, with the governor’s support, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 17 (SB 17), which requires institutions of higher education to do away with all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and initiatives by 2024. Already, the University of Houston has shut down its Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as well as disbanding its LGBTQ+ Resource Center (under pressure, however, it appeared to backtrack, but it is only a matter of time before the offices are officially closed). Public universities across the state have formed committees to implement the law and seek input from the academic community. It’s clear, however, that days are numbered for all the offices and programs that help students from different backgrounds.

While the ostensible goal of anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts is to prioritize merit over race in higher education—and get rid of all the “divisive” diversity stuff that liberal academics champion—the real intent is to put radical, uppity queers, minorities, and liberals in their place. A key part of the plan is to strip liberal academics of the protections that allow them to pursue research and speak publicly without fear of reprisal; this past session, right-wing legislators tried to get rid of tenure but settled on more modest restrictions. The Senate also passed a ban on “critical race theory,” an academic theory that posits racism is embedded in society, but the House failed to pass the measure….

Anti-DEI hysteria will lead to a brain drain at Texas’ public universities. Academics at most institutions enjoy the freedom to conduct scholarship without interference. To ensure they can pursue ideas that may be unpopular to the public and pursue knowledge for its own sake, they are granted protection after demonstrating excellence in their field. The best scholars don’t want to work in a place where they have to worry that criticizing wingnut politicians will get them put on leave—as A&M did when Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick complained to administrators about criticism levied against him by opioid expert Joy Alonzo—and the best students from around the country will choose institutions that value academic freedom, openness, and inclusion rather than those under siege by the radical right.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Censorship, Cruelty, Disruption, Extremism, Higher Education, Republicans

Trump the Con Man: A True Story

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2023 //
16

The latest blow to Trump’s reputation came in a court in New York, when the judge ruled that Trump fraudulently overvalued his properties in order to get bank loans. Of course, his base won’t care.

I have a personal story that supports the judgement. Last fall, I drove with my partner to Saratoga Springs, New York, to visit a kayak maker. As we were driving up the Taconic State Parkway, we passed a sign that said “Donald J. Trump State Park.” I had never heard of such a park, so I googled and found a Wikipedia entry that explained.

Trump purchased the property in 1998 with plans to build a $10 million private golf course. Totalling $2.5 million, it was purchased in two sections: Indian Hill for $1.75 million and French Hill for $750,000.[1]The land contained significant wetlands and development faced strict environmental restrictions and permitting requirements.[2]He donated it in 2006[3][4] after he was unable to gain town approvals to develop the property.[2] At that time Trump claimed the parcel was worth $100 million.[1] He used the donation as a tax write-off.[5] The donation was praised by governor George Pataki. Trump said, “I hope that these 436 acres of property will turn into one of the most beautiful parks anywhere in the world.”[1]

The park is now abandoned. Trump paid $2.5 million for the land, which was not suitable for development. He claimed the land was worth $100 million and used that amount to reduce his taxes. Nice increase in value on land that that could not be developed.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Fraud, Trump

Joshua Benton: What You Never Knew about Elon Musk’s Grandfather

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2023 //
20

Joshua Benton wrote about Elon Musk’s grandfather in The Atlantic. Benton spent more time researching him than did Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson. It’s not a pretty picture but it might provide insight into Musk’s worldview. I hope not.

Benton wrote:

In Walter Isaacson’s new biography, Elon Musk, a mere page and a half is devoted to introducing Musk’s grandfather, a Canadian chiropractor named Joshua N. Haldeman. Isaacson describes him as a source of Musk’s great affection for danger—“a daredevil adventurer with strongly held opinions” and “quirky conservative populist views” who did rope tricks at rodeos and rode freight trains like a hobo. “He knew that real adventures involve risk,” Isaacson quotes Musk as having said. “Risk energized him.”

But in 1950, Haldeman’s “quirky” politics led him to make an unusual and dramatic choice: to leave Canada for South Africa. Haldeman had built a comfortable life for himself in Regina, Saskatchewan’s capital. His chiropractic practice was one of Canada’s largest and allowed him to possess his own airplane and a 20-room home he shared with his wife and four young children. He’d been active in politics, running for both the provincial and national parliaments and even becoming the national chairman of a minor political party. Meanwhile, he’d never even been to South Africa.

What would make a man undertake such a radical change? Isaacson writes that Haldeman had come “to believe that the Canadian government was usurping too much control over the lives of individuals and that the country had gone soft.” One of Haldeman’s sons has written that it may have simply been “his adventurous spirit and the desire for a more pleasant climate in which to raise his family.” But another factor was at play: his strong support for the brand-new apartheid regime.

An examination of Joshua Haldeman’s writings reveals a radical conspiracy theorist who expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and antidemocratic views repeatedly, and over the course of decades—a record I studied across hundreds of documents from the time, including newspaper clips, self-published manuscripts, university archives, and private correspondence. Haldeman believed that apartheid South Africa was destined to lead “White Christian Civilization” in its fight against the “International Conspiracy” of Jewish bankers and the “hordes of Coloured people” they controlled.

Benton writes that Haldeman wrote a self-published book, and there is only one copy in all of North America, at Michigan State University. Benton traveled there to read it. It’s title:

The International Conspiracy to Establish a World Dictatorship and the Menace to South Africa.

In this book, Haldeman expressed his hope that South Africa would become “the leader of White Christian Civilization as she is becoming more and more the focal point, the bulwark, and the subject of attack by anti-Christian, anti-White forces throughout the world.”

He was, quite simply, a vociferous racist and anti-Semite. Isaacson’s father was Jewish. It’s surprising that he paid so little attention to Musj’s lineage.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Racism

California: Write Governor Newsom Today and Urge Him to Sign Charter Accountability Bill

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2023 //
15

A reader called “Artsmart” called on Californians to contact Governor Newsom.

Artsmart wrote:

Very important charter accountability bill is on Gavin Newsom’s desk. “Right now sitting on Gov. Newsom’s desk is AB1604 (Bonta). This bill will tighten loopholes on the selling of charter school properties. AB1604 is important as it will capture public dollars that should be returned to the state but instead end up in the pockets of charter school operators. Wanna read more about this scam? Check this out- https://medium.com/…/the-charter-school-real-estate…


Public school families in Los Angeles need to call the Governor and tell him to sign this bill by October 14!!!


Just a heads up, we should be aware that billionaire political donors like Reed Hastings (he owns Netflix and LOVES charters) will be putting their thumbs on the scale. Of course, the usual suspect, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) wants this bill to die. Let’s fix it by pushing the Governor to sign the AB1604.


Phone number and email below. I am going to put a script/template as the first comment. Do this today!

CALL Governor Newsom
916-445-2841


EMAIL
https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/
Choose “education” in the drop-down menu.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Reform

Thom Hartmann: The Medicare Advantage Ripoff

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2023 //
39

At present, about half of all retirees are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. MA takes the place of Medicare. In this article, Thom Hartmann explains why Medicare Advantage is a very bad deal. In New York City, the city administration and the municipal unions (!) are trying to push 250,000 retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan instead of Medicare. The retirees have formed an organization and have fought back in court. The city says that switching to MA will save $600 million a year. The retirees won the last round in court. To learn more, go to the website of the New York City Organization of Public Service Employees. (NYCRetirees.org).

He writes:

President George W. Bush and Republicans (and a handful of on-the-take Democrats) in Congress created the Medicare Advantage scam in 2003 as a way of routing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of for-profit insurance companies.


Those companies, and their executives, then recycle some of that profit back into politicians’ pockets via the Citizens United legalized bribery loophole created by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court.


Just the overcharges happening right now in that scam are costing Americans over $140 billion a year: more than the entire budget for the Medicare Part B or Part D programs. These ripoffs — that our federal government seems to have no interest in stopping — are draining the Medicare trust fund while ensnaring gullible seniors in private insurance programs where they’re often denied life-saving care.


Real Medicare pays bills when they’re presented. Medicare Advantage insurance companies, on the other hand, get a fixed dollar amount every year for each of the people enrolled in their programs, regardless of how much they spent on each customer.


As a result, Medicare Advantage programs make the greatest profits for their CEOs and shareholders when they actively refuse to pay for care, something that happens frequently. It’s a safe bet that nearly 100 percent of the people who sign up for Advantage programs don’t know this and don’t have any idea how badly screwed they could be if they get seriously ill.


Not only that, when people do figure out they’ve been duped and try to get back on real Medicare, the same insurance companies often punish them by refusing to write Medigap plans (that fill in the 20% hole in real Medicare). They can’t do that when you first sign up when you turn 65, but if you “leave” real Medicare for privatized Medicare Advantage, it can be damn hard to get back on it.


The doctors’ group Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) just published a shocking report on the extent of the Medicare Advantage ripoffs — both to individual customers and to Medicare itself — that every American should know about.


The report, titled Our Payments, Their Profits, opens with this shocking exposé:

“By our estimate, and based on 2022 spending, Medicare Advantage overcharges taxpayers by a minimum of 22% or $88 billion per year, and potentially by up to 35% or $140 billion. By comparison, Part B premiums in 2022 totaled approximately $131 billion, and overall federal spending on Part D drug benefits cost approximately $126 billion. Either of these — or other crucial aspects of Medicare and Medicaid — could be funded entirely by eliminating overcharges in the Medicare Advantage program.

“Medicare Advantage, also known as MA or Medicare Part C, is a privately administered insurance program that uses a capitated payment structure, as opposed to the fee-for-service (FFS) structure of Traditional Medicare or TM. Instead of paying directly for the health care of beneficiaries, the federal government gives a lump sum of money to a third party (generally a commercial insurer) to ‘manage’ patient care.”

With real Medicare and a Medigap plan, you talk with your physician or hospital and decide on your treatment, they bill Medicare, and you never see or hear about the bill. There is nobody between you and your physician or hospital and Medicare only goes after the payment they’ve made if they sniff out a fraud.

With Medicare Advantage, on the other hand, your insurance company gets a lump-sum payment from Medicare every year and keeps the difference between what they get and what they pay out. They then insert themselves between you and your doctor or hospital to avoid paying for whatever they can.

Whatever you decide on regarding treatment, many Advantage insurance company will regularly second-guess and do everything they can to intimidate you into paying yourself out-of-pocket. Often, they simply refuse payment and wait for you to file a complaint against them; for people seriously ill the cumbersome “appeals” process is often more than they can handle.

As a result, hospitals and doctor groups across the nation are beginning to refuse to take Medicare Advantage patients. California-based Scripps Health, for example, cares for around 30,000 people on Medicare Advantage and recently notified all of them that Scripps will no longer offer medical services to them unless they pay out-of-pocket or revert back to real Medicare.

They made this decision because over $75 million worth of services and procedures their physicians had recommended to their patients were turned down by Medicare Advantage insurance companies. In many cases, Scripps had already provided the care and is now stuck with the bills that the Advantage companies refuse to pay.

Scripps CEO Chris Van Gorder told MedPage Today:

“We are a patient care organization and not a patient denial organization and, in many ways, the model of managed care has always been about denying or delaying care – at least economically. That is why denials, [prior] authorizations and administrative processes have become a very big issue for physicians and hospitals…”

Similarly, the Mayo Clinic has warned its customers in Florida and Arizona that they won’t accept Medicare Advantage any more, either. Increasing numbers of physician groups and hospitals are simply over being ripped off by Advantage insurance companies.

Not only is the Medicare Advantage scam a screw job for healthcare providers and people who are on the programs and are unfortunate enough to get sick, it’s also preventing Americans from getting expanded benefits from real Medicare.

As the PNHP report notes, for real Medicare to provide comprehensive vision, dental, and hearing benefits to all Medicare recipients would cost the system around $84 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Instead, though, the Medicare system is burdened with at least that amount of money in over-payments to Medicare Advantage providers — over-payments that have no health benefit whatsoever and merely inflate the companies’ profits.

A hundred billion dollars in excess profits can be put to a lot of uses, and the health insurance industry is quite good at it. The former CEO of UnitedHealth, “Dollar” Bill McGuire, for example, made off with over $1.5 billion dollars for his efforts.

And, because five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery with their Citizens United decision, some of these companies allocate millions every year (a mere drop in the bucket) to pay off loyal members of Congress and to dangle high-paying future jobs to high-level employees of CMS who have the power to keep the gravy train going and thwart prosecutions.

As PNHP noted:

“Medicare Advantage is just another example of the endless greed of the insurance industry poisoning American health care, siphoning money from vulnerable patients while delaying and denying necessary and often life-saving treatment. While there is obvious reason to fix these issues in MA and to expand Traditional Medicare for the sake of all beneficiaries, the deep structural problems with our health care system will only be fixed when we achieve improved Medicare for All.”

We’re on the edge of the open enrollment period for Medicare, and the Advantage scammers will be carpet-bombing America with advertisements over the next few months. Representatives Pocan, Khanna, and Shakowsky have introduced the “Save Medicare Act” that would ban Advantage companies from using the word Medicare in their advertising.

They made a video about it that’s well worth sharing with friends and family:

As Shakowsky, Khanna, and Pocan note, “Only Medicare is Medicare.” Don’t be fooled by the Medicare Advantage scam.

And now that you know, pass it on and save somebody else’s health!

Categories Accountability, For-Profit, Funding, Health

Houston: Teachers and Parents Say that Mike Miles’ System Is Seeping into Their Schools

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2023 //
9

Governor Greg Abbott and his State Commissioner Mike Morath hand-picked Mike Miles as Houston’s superintendent, based on the alleged failure of one school, Wheatley High School. In fact, Wheatley had made significant progress and was no longer a “failing” school, and HISD was a B-rated district.

Nonetheless, the state took control of HISD, ousted the elected board and a well-qualified superintendent. Mike Miles took control with a puppet board, charged with “fixing” 28 schools. The 28 quickly turned into 85 schools, all required to submit to Miles’ authoritarian “New Education System.” He pledged to leave the district’s other 190 schools alone. Miles has never been a teacher or a principal. His tenure as superintendent in Dallas was cut short after multiple controversies.

Now, teachers and parents in HISD are alarmed to see Miles’ NES overflowing into schools that were not mandated to adopt it and did not volunteer to adopt it.

Houston ISD English teacher Karen Calhoun enjoyed short-lived relief this summer when her principal at Askew Elementary School opted not to join the dozens of campuses getting overhauled by the district’s new superintendent, Mike Miles.

Despite the decision, Calhoun has watched in recent weeks as her beloved school seemed to morph into a version of the turnaround initiative, known as the “New Education System,” that she hoped to avoid.

Less than a week before classes began, Askew’s principal told reading and math teachers they had to use the same curriculums as NES schools, Calhoun said. The principal also directed all staff to check that students understood the lesson every four minutes or so using “multiple response strategies” — the same techniques that teachers at NES schools are required to use, Calhoun said.

The orders deflated the spirits of many teachers at Askew, a B-rated campus on Houston’s west side, she said.

“The bulk of our teachers have taught 10-plus years. So that means that everybody in that room pretty much knows what they’re doing,” Calhoun said. “You can do multiple strategies in a lesson, but it’s authentic, it’s not mandated. It’s not like, ‘Every three minutes you have to do something. Every four minutes you have to do something.’”

One month into HISD’s school year, significant curriculum and instructional changes have crept into campuses that were supposed to be exempt from Miles’ overhaul, teachers and families at 15 non-NES schools told the Houston Landing in recent weeks. The new practices appear to contradict comments made earlier this summer by Miles, who said he planned to largely leave most schools to operate as they were while he transformed 85 other campuses under the NES umbrella.

In interviews, the educators and parents said many of the changes they’re seeing include elements initially advertised as only for NES schools. Thirteen of their 15 schools scored A or B ratings under the state’s academic accountability system in 2022.

For teachers, the new requirements include removing classroom decor, writing daily lesson objectives on whiteboards at the front of the classroom and repeatedly incorporating the every-four-minute learning checks into their lessons.

In addition, principals leading nearly two-thirds of non-NES schools are choosing to use new reading and math curriculums, Amplify and Eureka, that are mandated in the overhauled campuses, HISD officials confirmed Thursday. Educators at those schools must use the teaching practices recommended by the curriculum providers, such as a daily quiz, called a Demonstration of Learning.

“It sure does feel like NES,” said Melissa Yarborough, an English teacher at the non-NES Navarro Middle School, who now has to use the new curriculum after her principal chose to adopt it this year. “If you don’t get to that Demonstration of Learning by the time you’re supposed to get to it, then that administrator is going to be telling you your pacing is wrong.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Disruption, Houston
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