Here is the Lincoln Project’s latest video: We will vote. We must vote to oust the worst president in American history.
Archives for category: Education Reform
Ron Berler writes about education. This article originally appeared at Medium. He originally wrote the article at the beginning of Trump’s presidency but thinks it resonates today.
It was the Friday before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Kathryn Frey had decided to read Carmen Agra Deedy’s children’s book, “The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark,” to her fourth-grade, Greenwich, Conn., class. It tells a tale of how the king and his countrymen protected that nation’s Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II.
Frey teaches at New Lebanon School, one of the town’s three Title I elementary schools. Some know Greenwich as a tony New York suburb. But one corner of it is not. In her class of 18, there are 14 Latinos, two African Americans and two whites. Seventeen are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Frey was sick that day, so I was recruited to read to her students. The children, 9 and 10, gathered in front of me on the rug. They had barely heard of Nazi Germany or the war, and couldn’t say when the events in question took place. But they did have a firm sense of right and wrong. They blanched when I told them what the Nazis had done and how they had discriminated.
I opened the book and began to read, pausing after each page to show the children the illustrations that help illuminate the story. Deedy’s picture book is myth inspired by fact. In her telling, the king encouraged all his people to wear on their outer clothing the yellow star meant by the Nazis to identify and isolate Jews, so the invaders wouldn’t know who was Jewish and who was not. History teaches that the king protected Denmark’s Jews by other means. But the students got the point: Jews, non-Jews, all were Danes.
Since President Donald Trump issued his initial immigration executive order, temporarily barring U.S. entry to visa holders from seven predominantly Muslim nations, and banning refugees from all nations and those from Syria indefinitely, I’ve thought quite a bit about Deedy’s book, and why Frey chose it for her students. I sought her out in her classroom.
Frey has taught for 30 years, the last four at New Lebanon. She invited me to sit at a round, child-size worktable near the center of the room. We were alone; her students were in gym class. The wall in front of us was lined with baskets of books that made up the room’s library. Above them was a partial timeline of U.S. history, from the first British expedition to Roanoke Island, N.C., in 1584, to the civil-rights era, in 1960.
Frey said that the class had just begun a unit on historical fiction — a genre with which few of the students were familiar. She had selected “The Yellow Star” for its simple theme and its schoolchild accessibility. “This is the first time that most of them have been exposed to historical time periods,” she said. “At this age, they know famous people, but they don’t have a sense of what happened. They know Martin Luther King, and when I returned the day after his holiday, we talked about how a person’s actions and words can cause change. They made the connection between Dr. King and King Christian.”
Change and action and the power of words have taken on particular meaning for her students.
“The day after the [presidential] election, several children told me they were very worried about what might happen to them,” Frey said. “They talked about it that morning among themselves when they came into class. They were worried about their families. One boy came to me in tears and said he was leaving the country, that his family was going back to Portugal. He went around the room, saying goodbye to his friends. Later that day I called his dad. The boy was mistaken; the family was staying.”
But the damage was done.
It took 15 minutes to read “The Yellow Star” to the class. Upon finishing, I looked up at the students. From their expressions, I feared I had upset some of them all over again. When I asked their thoughts on those who had threatened Denmark’s Jews, their response was heartfelt, uncomplicated. “That’s wrong,” blurted one boy, to general agreement. “It’s not fair,” seconded another.
The students never mentioned President Trump or his executive order. But they decided they liked King Christian X very much.
Leonie Haimson writes that charter schools in New York City cleaned up with the Paycheck Protection Program, even none of them lost their secure government funding.
Payday!
Leonie writes:
In NY State there are 144 charter schools and management organizations that received PPP funding, the vast majority of which are in NYC. Fully 108 NYC charters and charter management companies received between $102 million and $236 million in these funds, with an average of between $940,000 and $2.2 million each.
The Charter Management Organization of New Visions and its assorted charters received between $6.7 million and $15 million dollars, despite the fact that they receive public school space free of charge and services from DOE. In 2018, they also received a $14 million grant from the Gates Foundation to “work with” NYC public schools — which to this day have not been identified. Coincidentally or not, the Gates Foundation director of K12 schools Robert Hughes came to the Gates Foundation from New Visions.One of their schools, New Visions Charter HS for the Humanities II, will be receiving an extra amount of between $2,000 and $4,000 per student, based upon their total enrollment last year of 496.
Harlem Children’s Zone was awarded between $4 million and $10 million, with Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy II receiving between $1,800 and $4,500 per student, based on their total enrollment last year of 1,093. The Hebrew Language Academies, heavily subsidized by billionaire Michael Steinhardt, received between $2.8 million and $6 million. One of their schools, Harlem Hebrew Language Academy, is receiving between $1,400 and $2,900 per student, based on their planned enrollment of 696 last year. Harlem Village Academy West Charter School received between $2 million and $5 million, from $2,200 to $5,500 per student based on last year’s enrollment of 902.
Williamsburg Charter High School was given between $2 million and $5 million, a total of $2,000 to $5,000 per student based on their enrollment last year of 963. Brilla College Preparatory Charter Schools received between $1 million and $2 million, $1,400 to $3,000 per student based on their enrollment of 677. Pave Academy Charter School, founded by the son of billionaire Julian Robertson, was awarded between $1 million and $2 million, equaling about $2,000 to $4,000 per student based on their enrollment last year of 490.
KIPP charter and KIPP LLC (which I guess is its Management Organization) is getting between $3 million and $5 million, despite also receiving $86 million from a federal charter school grant in 2019, and many millions more previously. Uncommon Charters, which has been criticized for its abusive disciplinary practices, received between $2 million and $5 million in PPP funds. The full state and city list is below.
So are charter schools public or private? Depends on where the money is.
Dana Milbank watched Bill Barr testify before the House Judiciary Committee and wrote this in the Washington Post:
Here comes the caravan!
In 2018, when things were looking grim for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, President Trump conjured a crisis. He declared “an invasion of our country” by Central American migrant caravans full of “stone cold criminals,” “unknown Middle Easterners” and “gang members” who were “putting our country in great danger.”
Trump mobilized 2,100 National Guard members and then, days before the election, 5,200 active-duty U.S. troops. He declared a national emergency and told voters to “blame the Democrats.” The voters didn’t fall for the phony crisis, and the caravan menace fizzled.
Now another electoral reckoning approaches, and Trump is following the same script. This time, he proclaims that “sick and deranged Anarchists & Agitators” in Portland, Ore., and Seattle seek to “destroy our American cities, and worse.”
Instead of using the troops again as his political props, Trump is now mobilizing armed federal police from the Justice and Homeland Security departments — and claiming that “cities would burn” if Democrats won the election.
There are two differences this time, though. The military deployment in 2018, though wasteful, did little harm. But the current deployment of federal police to Portland has provoked a dramatic increase both in peaceful protests and in violence — tensions had been subsiding before Trump’s escalation — and rekindled unrest nationwide.
The other difference: In 2018, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis restricted troops to a supporting role on the border to avoid constitutional violations. But the man leading the current provocation, Attorney General Bill Barr, displays no scruples as he whips up violence in service of Trump’s reelection.
Barr defends federal response in Portland
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, the attorney general described the federal response to the ongoing protests in Portland. (Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“What unfolds nightly around the [Portland] courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest; it is, by any objective measure, an assault on the government of the United States,” Barr testified to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Repeatedly blurring the distinction between the masses of peaceful, racial-justice demonstrators and the small band of violent vandals, Barr said peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square hit with chemical agents, stun grenades and rubber bullets had been “unruly.” Pressed about the many times force has been used against nonviolent demonstrators, he declared that “protesters” — he made quotation marks with his fingers — “are not following police directions.” He justified the use of weapons against peaceful demonstrators by saying “it’s hard to separate” them from the criminals.
He dismissed the idea that there is systemic racism in policing, alleged that police use deadly force more often against white men than black men (black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police) and blamed racial-justice protests for a spike in violence: “When a community turns on and pillories its own police, officers naturally become more risk-averse and crime rates soar. Unfortunately, we are seeing that now in many of our major cities.”
He spoke of a “mob” using “slingshots, tasers, sledgehammers, saws, knives, rifles and explosive devices” to attack federal officers serving on a strictly “defensive mission” — omitting mention of federal officers throwing nonviolent demonstrators into unmarked vans for questioning without probable cause. And he repeatedly scolded Democrats for “not coming out and condemning mob violence,” even as Democrats on the panel did just that.
But then, Barr, like his boss, is not a stickler for facts. Last week, he said of the administration’s Operation Legend, which forces federal police into U.S. cities: “The FBI went in very strong into Kansas City, and within two weeks we’ve had 200 arrests.”
The actual number of arrests in that period? One.
Barr sounded as if he were channeling Trump’s Twitter account as he denounced “the bogus Russiagate scandal,” defended Trump’s pardon of Roger Stone after Stone refused to incriminate Trump, defended the attempted dismissal of Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, defended the imprisonment of Michael Cohen after he refused to disavow criticism of Trump, defended the dismissal of the prosecutor overseeing investigations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, defended the baseless allegation that voting by mail is fraudulent, and defended armed, right-wing protesters who invaded the Michigan Capitol and called for killing the governor. (They were against “crazy rules.”) He even defended Trump’s handling of the pandemic as “superb,” while blaming the Obama administration.
Barr made no attempt to hide his contempt for the Democratic majority, telling them “I think I speak English” and “I’m going to answer the damn question,” and frequently speaking over, and occasionally laughing at, the lawmakers. The disrespect was mutual: Chairman Jerry Nadler attempted to deny Barr a five-minute bathroom break.
“You’re a real class act,” the attorney general told the chairman.
Barr knows about class. He uses federal police powers to deny peaceful Americans their constitutional rights while fomenting violence among hoodlums — all to revive Trump’s reelection bid.
This time, there really is a caravan “putting our country in great danger” — and Barr leads it.
David Berliner has devoted his life to the study of education. He has achieved the pinnacle of his profession as a researcher and statistician. He is currently Regents Professor Emeritus at the College of Education at Arizona State University. His list of honors is too long to mention. I welcome his original contributions to the blog and am honored to present them to you. His title for this post is: “Learning Losses Associated with the ‘Required Curriculum’ Can Be Easily Offset by Gains in Learning in the ‘Not-Required Curriculum.'”
Parents currently worry that their children have not or will not learn enough by participating in the non-standard styles of schooling associated with our pandemic. Some worry, particularly, that their children will not test well if they miss too much of what we have come to regard as “regular” schooling. The regular or standard school curriculum differs slightly by state, but it is what teachers try to deliver in each grade. It is the curriculum designed to prepare children for their states’ tests, and for the SATs and ACTs taken near the end of high school.
The pandemic also has teachers and administrators worrying about safety, and the arrangements needed for instruction as our crisis continues: In-class? On-line? Hybrid? What? Educators are afraid that the reputation of their schools could suffer, if their students don’t test well because of missed schooling, or because instruction appears not to be as effective on-line as it is when it occurs in classrooms, the historic and preferred mode of delivering instruction. In addition, a reduction in test scores could easily reduce housing values in the school catchment area, eventually changing the pool of students that they work with. Worry, worry, everywhere, and no solution apparent.
But much of this worrying can easily be relieved. Think of it this way: If we stop worrying about learning the “required stuff” in the ordinary, test-prep oriented curricula now in place in most American schools and districts, and instead started thinking about learning, just learning good stuff, the problem disappears. The issue for every parent and every educator should be about students learning. Period (cf. Westheimer, 2020).
Learning, growing, forming beliefs that are factually based, gaining deep insights into particular subject matters, extending ones’ horizons, and mastering something complex is really what is important. Surely, we can all agree that there is a plethora of ‘stuff’ worth learning out there, things that are of interest, utility, or beauty. Much of this is not found in the standard/ordinary school curriculum. If we can accept that there are countless worthwhile things to learn that are not in the accepted/normal/required/test-prep school curriculum, we might worry less about our students, as long as they are learning many of these other acceptable things. Actually, some of these other things may not just be acceptable, but quite desirable to learn.
I simply can’t get as distressed, as so many others do, when we believe kids are missing the “proper” time in their development to learn gerunds and the role of apostrophes, long division and simple algebra, or the date the constitution was signed. These certainly may all be worthy goals in our youths’ passage to a competent adulthood through our public schools. But what if a good part of the thinking and learning they are engaged in during these unusual times is, instead, based on a project the student chooses, or is assigned and willingly accepts? What if they had a topic to study and become highly knowledgeable about? And what if students must eventually report on their project or topic of study?
Even first graders are quite capable of learning sophisticated information about, say, dinosaurs. In fact, many of them do this spontaneously, and are quite capable of knowing more about dinosaurs and the lives they led than the vast majority of adults (Chi and Koeske, 1983). Sophisticated domain knowledge, the knowledge of experts, can easily be learned in a child’s study of rainfall, global warming, dog breeding, or a hundred other topics. What if our children began to learn these other good things, as well as whatever on-line instruction a teacher or school provides during the pandemic? Would America’s children lose anything? Or, might our students actually gain from such experiences?
On-line contact with their classroom teacher is likely not to be for the six hours per day that the child experiences during regular classroom instruction. But on-line contact about projects or topical areas will allow teachers to individually assist, tutor, critique, and advise on each project or topical area studied. After a semester or a school year, the child should be ready to present a project or topical inquiry to an audience of peers, teachers, and parents.
The beauty of these kinds of inquiries is that there would be little down time for students during education in this time of pandemic. Students will be learning about something of interest to them, though just not necessarily everything that is in the state required curriculum for their age group. Since not everyone is likely to have access to the full, required curriculum for their grade, the validity of any test scores at that grade level is greatly compromised and thus of little use. No attention should be given to invalid tests of the “required stuff” for students of a certain age and grade. But I certainly do want a way for students to learn “good stuff,” when limited in their getting access to the “required stuff”. Learning something in depth, and sharing it with others, may be an excellent replacement to the losses in learning the “required stuff” that are likely to occur in this pandemic.
Let us take a closer look at project based learning. Imagine if one or a few students had some months to turn in a project on whether: the climate is changing in their community, the air or water in their community is breathable or drinkable, their schools are adequately funded, their food is safe to eat, or a robot could be built to help the school cafeteria staff. Or the students investigated the causes of homelessness or asthma, or the need for public transportation in their community. There exists an endless supply of challenging projects, local and otherwise, worthy of study. Many will be appropriate for a particular age group, and some will require sustained effort over a moderately long time period to master the material at an age appropriate level.
A project not only teaches an individual, but if done with another it can substantially remove the feelings of loneliness that many of our students are feeling because of virus-caused school shutdowns. Moreover, two things are frequently noticed when students present their research projects or topical research to peers, teachers, and parents. First, students show evidence that they have learned how to organize and reorganize their ideas to prepare presentations from which others could learn. Second, their presentations regularly demonstrated that deep learning in the domain of study had taken place. The remarkable educator Debbie Meier (1995) describes successful schools where this has happened on a regular basis. The schools she describes didn’t wait for a crisis to incorporate the idea that children can direct their own learning with some adult scaffolding. Her experience and the testimony of others who studied her schools, convincingly established that students can and do dig deeply and happily into subject matter that they want to learn and share with others!
Topics to study. What if students negotiated with their teachers a topic: Birds, automobiles, penguins, glaciers, honey bees, artificial intelligence, the civil rights movement, internment camps during WWII, comets, and so forth. The topics investigated by a particular student might be of interest for them, or even assigned. The students’ job is to become expert in that topic and present a talk on that topic at the end of the school year, conveying to their classmates and others what is exciting and important to know about that topic. A version of how this approach might work schoolwide and across grades is described by Kieran Egan (2011), a most creative philosopher of education.
If learning from projects and topical studies as I have described was made more salient in the educational experiences of our youth, while the ordinary/standard curriculum was taught whenever and however it could be taught, what might happen?
We actually have some data related to this kind of arrangement. It comes from a classic, long-term, highly creative study conducted many years ago (Aikin, 1942). As the push to standardize the American curriculum gained traction, history has forgotten this study. But it is still quite instructive.
Students in 30 unique high schools, “progressive” schools, were studied. These 30 schools had agreed to let their students take a non-standard curriculum. The students studied some of what the school wanted them to, as current on-line instruction is meant to do. But these students also received high-school credits for choosing to study, think, write about, and to build, almost anything they wanted. The high school gave them credits for doing some highly unusual, self-determined projects and papers, few of which would have been approved had these students been subject to the standard high school curriculum of their time.
The students of these progressive schools, taking a very non-standard high school curriculum, went on to about 300 colleges and universities that had agreed to monitor and document their progress and achievements. They were also to monitor students’ deficits as well, since they had not been “properly prepared” for their college experience. They clearly had not studied the regular, standard, state sanctioned curriculum, so how could they compete in college?
From Aiken (1942) and the High School Journal (November-December, 1942), we learn that when each of the progressive school graduates was matched with a traditional school graduate who shared many similar background characteristics, the graduates of “progressive” schools showed: more leadership; joined and led more clubs; were rated as thinking more clearly; demonstrated a better understanding of democracy; had greater interest in good books, music, and art; got slightly better grades in college than those from traditional schools; and won more academic honors (e.g. Phi Beta Kappa, and honor roll designations). A special sub-study of the graduates of the six most progressive schools, what traditionalists thought of as the “wildest”, revealed that those students were superior to their peers from the other progressive schools! Thus, they scored well above the traditionally educated students on all the indices used for comparison. These poor students, deprived of the regular curriculum, achieved the highest college grades, and were rated the highest in intellectual drive, highest in thinking ability, and highest in extracurricular activity participation.
All I have written on this topic, above, now comes to this: The scholars reporting on the 8-year study said that the belief that students must have a prescribed school curriculum is not tenable. Studying almost anything in depth and breadth, with some (but not necessarily a lot of) teacher support, and reporting it out, prepares a child for the highest levels of scholarship at the next levels of their learning. There were no apparent negative effects from studying “this”, instead of “that”, if it was studied well. Learning seriously, deeply, and sharing that knowledge through papers and presentations (perhaps with power-points and YouTubes, maybe via film, television, music or art,) to one’s peers, parents, and the school faculty, apparently has no long-term ill effects, when compared to learning the “required” curriculum.
So to all the worried parents, teachers, and school administrators concerned that our youth will not learn about gerunds and the role of apostrophes, or long division and simple algebra, or the date the constitution was signed, “on time,” relax! Let us instead make sure our children are learning though projects and topics that capture their fancy during the time they have open. That should more than suffice for what they might miss of the traditional curriculum.
Aikin, W. (1942). The Story of the Eight-Year Study. New York: Harper.
Chi, M. T. H., & Koeske, R. D. (1983). Network representation of a child’s dinosaur knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 19(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/1031037/0012-1649.19.1.29
Egan, K. (2011). Learning in Depth. A Simple Innovation That Can Transform Schooling. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons from a small school in Harlem. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
The High School Journal, Nov.-Dec., 1942), 25 (7), 305-309.
Westheimer, J. (2020, March 21). Westheimer: Forget trying
to be your kid’s substitute school teacher during
COVID-19. Ottawa, Canada: Ottawa Citizen.
David Dayen writes a post called Unsanitized for The American Prospect. Here is today’s report:
First Response
The HEALS Act — a $1 trillion piece of legislation so comically in hock to corporate interests that one of the initials in the acronym stands for “liability protection” — was released yesterday. This was done in a super annoying format where separate committee chairs released their own titles (Finance; Appropriations; Small Business), but you can mostly piece everything together.
Here’s what we’ve got:
Unemployment: Increased unemployment insurance immediately falls from $600 a week to $200. This extension runs until the end of the year. Combined with what the states offer, that’s on average a cut from $921 to $521 (around 43 percent), according to an analysis from the Century Foundation. Allegedly, after two months, states will figure out how to individually replace 70 percent of lost wages and offers that, with a cap of $500 from the government in that equation. The cap means that everyone will have lower support from unemployment under this plan.
I highly doubt that states will figure this out, given the technical hurdles and the underfunded systems (which do get a $2 billion boost here), and in that instance they just stick with the $200 a week addition. Also everyone gets a note saying they are required to take a suitable job if offered. Also the federal stipend counts as income for purposes of determining eligibility for other federal benefits.
This only affects those on standard unemployment, not “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance” for freelance and gig workers and independent contractors. That was already extended to the end of the year in the CARES Act. However, the HEALS Act tightens eligibility to make it as hard to stay on assistance as possible. The whole thing is appalling.
Second stimulus: This is pretty much exactly the same as the CARES Act, with $1,200 for adults and $500 for dependents (not just children, in a switch from CARES), up to $75,000 in personal income (based on last year) and then a sliding scale that phases out completely under $100,000. One cheerful note: “The rebates are protected from bank garnishment or levy by private creditors or debt collectors.” This is something near and dear to us at Unsanitized, as we broke the news that creditors, including banks, could grab stimulus checks to offset old debts. It’s gratifying that Congress is finally getting around to making sure survival money goes to survival.
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Business tax credits: The “employee retention tax credit” sounds boring but this is a pretty large bonus for businesses that could cost as much as $100 billion. It was in the CARES Act but this provision allows more companies to use it. There’s also a tax credit for hiring unemployed workers and a “safe and healthy workplace” tax credit for expenses like testing, PPE, and cleaning supplies (this is Lysol’s big moment; move over, Amazon).
Health care: There’s $118 billion in new money for hospitals, testing, contact tracing, treatment, and vaccines. The Medicare Part B premium for 2021 would be frozen. Telehealth waivers would be extended to facilitate contactless medical care. There’s a bunch of what seems like for-show assistance to nursing homes, including “strike teams” and better reporting. A good health rundown here.
Schools: As previously reported, there’s $105 billion for education, split between K-12 and higher ed with a substantial portion of it only for those schools that reopen in the fall. Amazingly that’s all the money there is for state and local government, and I’d gather all of it covers increased costs for social distancing measures. The $150 billion previously released in the CARES Act, which previously was only for increased COVID costs, can now go toward covering revenue shortfalls, with many restrictions. But that’s not new money. The House Democratic Heroes Act had nearly $1 trillion for state and local government.
Random appropriations: Includes $20 billion for farmers, $29 billion for defense (a slush fund for defense contractors and the F-35), a $1.8 billion earmark for a new FBI headquarters that just so happens to be near a Trump hotel, $10 billion for a very sketchy “airport improvement program” (I think they’re just paying off airports to stay open), and about $3 billion for tenant rental assistance, a drop in the ocean of what will be needed. There’s also $5.3 billion more to use the Defense Production Act to require certain manufacturing.
Coupons!: Expensing of restaurant business meals goes up from 50 percent to 100 percent. Because you want to be doing business in the middle of a restaurant during the pandemic.
Small business grants: There’s a “Second Draw” PPP loan enabled for smaller businesses (under 300 employees) with a 50 percent drop or more in revenue during the crisis. There are also new “Recovery Sector” 20-year loans at a 1 percent interest rate, also for hard-hit industries. Section 113 of this title makes 501(c)(6) organizations eligible for regular PPP loans; this is the K Street bailout that’s also in the House bill. The math is weird, but it looks like $157 billion in new money, on top of the remaining $120 billion-plus. (There’s already massive lobbying over these plans to pry them open for bigger businesses)
Liability protection: This has been well-documented, it’s a five-year blanket release from a “flood” of business liability lawsuits that don’t exist.
Student loans: After the deferral deadline in the CARES Act runs out on October 1, you can only defer student loan payments if you have no income. Otherwise there’s a 10 percent income-based repayment option.
The Trust Act: we reported last week that a Mitt Romney-created process to inevitably cut Social Security and Medicare would be in the bill. It is.
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Here’s what’s missing: There’s no extension of the eviction moratorium, no money for the postal service or the November elections, no hazard pay for essential workers, no OSHA standards for workplaces, no money to shore up pensions, no funds for people who lost employer-sponsored health insurance, no increase to food stamp benefits. And none of the $1 trillion in new money for state and local government.
It’s in some ways a waste to lay this out, as now we move to the negotiating stage. But all of the above being off the table frames the corners of the debate. Nearly the entire framework of the Heroes Act was thrown out. Democrats have some leverage because rank and file Republicans really don’t want to pass this bill at all. But what will they be able to claw back as a result? And doesn’t that put the CARES Act in a different context, as whatever emerges is likely to be very inadequate?
One final indignity: the Republican baseline may include (it’s completely unclear) the repeal of leverage requirements for banks put in place under the Dodd-Frank Act. This is a straight handout to Wall Street. What’s notable here is that this was the signature contribution to Dodd-Frank from endangered incumbent Susan Collins, who I’ve been told argued against this but was rebuffed. There’s no way McConnell does this if Collins had a chance of winning; you don’t strip a Senator’s biggest policy achievement of the last decade in the middle of a tight election if you think she’s going to win. The signal I get is that McConnell knows he’s beat, and the strategy for the next six months is just to steal whatever’s not bolted down on behalf of corporate America.
Open the link here to read Randi Weingarten’s speech to the AFT Convention.
Here is a summary from the AFT:
Weingarten’s State of the Union address zeroed in on the three crises facing America—a public health crisis, an economic crisis and a long-overdue reckoning with racism. She detailed how these crises are being made worse by President Trump and emphasized the urgency of the November elections, not only to defeat Trump but to elect Joe Biden and reimagine America.
“Activism and elections build the power necessary to create a better life, a voice at work and a voice in our democracy. Activism changes the narrative, elections change policy, and, together, they change lives,” said Weingarten.
Weingarten honored the 200 AFT members who have died in the line of duty, and the hundreds of thousands who have protected, cared for, engaged and fed our communities during the pandemic. But those efforts have been met with reckless inaction by the Trump administration and some state officials who have failed to provide either a plan or adequate resources as community spread has skyrocketed.
While safety and education needs are front and center in many of America’s 16,000 school districts, and states such as New York have curbed the virus and published strong reopening plans, Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have embraced virus denialism and waged a weekslong campaign to force reopening with threats and bluster.
In her speech, Weingarten unveiled a resolution passed by the AFT’s 45-member executive council backing locally authorized “safety strikes”—on a case-by-case basis and as a last resort—to ensure safety amid the absence of urgency by federal and some state officials to tackle the coronavirus surge.
“Let’s be clear,” Weingarten told delegates. “Just as we have done with our healthcare workers, we will fight on all fronts for the safety of our students and their educators. But if the authorities don’t get it right, and they don’t protect the safety and health of those we represent and those we serve, nothing is off the table—not advocacy or protests, negotiations, grievances or lawsuits, or, if necessary as a last resort, safety strikes.”
Weingarten said the union’s members want to return to school buildings for the sake of their kids’ learning—and the well-being of families—but only if conditions are safe. And that requires planning and hundreds of billions of dollars in resources the Senate and the administration have refused to provide.
Trump has repeatedly defended the Confederate flag as a representation of Southern heritage, and he has defended Confederate monuments as part of “our history.” The military doesn’t want Confederate symbols and doesn’t want the names of Confederate leaders on its bases, which is deeply offensive to those who understand that the men so honored were traitors, not heroes.
Since there has been so much agitation about the Confederate flag and what it represents, it seems worthwhile to hear directly from the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America, Alexander H. Stephens, who gave a famous speech called “the Cornerstone Speech,” in 1861.
It is too long and tedious to print in full, but you can open the link and read it.
Here is the key section that explains the Cornerstone of the Confederacy.
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.
As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey, and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders “is become the chief of the corner” the real “corner-stone” in our new edifice. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.
Thousands of people who begin to understand these truths are not yet completely out of the shell; they do not see them in their length and breadth. We hear much of the civilization and Christianization of the barbarous tribes of Africa. In my judgment, those ends will never be attained, but by first teaching them the lesson taught to Adam, that “in the sweat of his brow he should eat his bread,” and teaching them to work, and feed, and clothe themselves.
To understand what the Confederate flag represents, ponder the words of one of its leaders. It is a symbol of white supremacy and black subordination. It has no place in our country today other than as a relic of a terrible war that was fortunately lost by the racist Confederate States of America.
The Lincoln Project hits hard on a subject that Democrats would not dare to touch: Trump’s sympathy for Ghislaine Maxwell and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. There has been speculation by a biographer of Prince Andrew that Trump will pardon Maxwell in return for her silence. Epstein has many prominent friends, including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Alan Dershowitz, and Prince Andrew.
John Harris Loflin assembled the following description of the privatization and takeover of the Indianapolis Public Schools by out-of-state interests, aided by local “reformers.”
He writes:
Purchasing the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS school board elections
According to the truly transformative IPS Racial Equity Policy and Black Lives Matter Resolution (REP/BLM), racism is social and institutional power combined with racial prejudice. IPS defines racial prejudice as a system of advantage for those considered white, and of oppression for those who are not considered white
The IPS resolution mentions years 1922 (the year the IPS board created Attucks) and 1968/1970 of IPS history (the era when the board was sued by the feds for maintaining segregated schools long after Brown). IPS histories of the Citizens School Committee or 1950s-early 1960s events leading to 1970 lawsuit aren’t noted. And, it skips the 1990’s era and notably, major board changes of the 2010-2020 decade.
The 2010-2020 decade
REP/BLM also states “[IPS] has participated in maintaining a system of racial inequality in Indianapolis through its actions and inactions, policies and practices, budgets and priorities, advocacy and silence, and by too often privileging the prejudice of white parents over the well-being of Black students.”
A review and analysis of “Purchasing the IPS school board elections” shows that the majority of donors to the winning candidate were mainly white wealthy males. Some were very wealthy.
The white money and power represented by the donations, whether intended or not, reveal a “system of advantage for those considered white.” This made the board members who decided to take the donations (note: the IPS candidates did not have to take the money), whether they knew it or not, beholden to the donors.
- It is naïve to assume there were no strings attached to the money contributed to campaigns.
- It is naïve to think the donations did not represent white corporate and philanthropic foundation
patriarchy.
- It is naïve to think the donations, intended or not, did not privilege white parents, and wealthy
white parents in particular.
The question: Does the 2012, 2014, and 2016 purchase of IPS school board seats discredit and delegitimize the past and current board members and the Supt. Ferebee and Supt. Johnson regimes?
“Then there’s the obscenity of outside influence and $300,000 to $500,000 in outside money which bought three seats on the IPS school board.”
~ Amos Brown, commentator, Indianapolis Recorder, 10.23.14
Part of the shameful history of IPS began in 1922, but where does it end?
Today’s board construes a current picture of the bad part of the Indianapolis Public Schools as out there in the waters of history. The board criticizes this past, saying it’s time for change. The dilemma for IPS is: if Supt. Johnson and the board take time to look down, they are standing in the water too.
Purchasing the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS school board elections
What started out as a push for a few local charters (given freedom from certain traditional public education policy requirements) has grown. Now, Indy is home of America’s 2nd most privatized public school system! New Orleans Public Schools is ranked first where every school is privatized.
Local citizens were not told back when the 2011 Mind Trust Opportunity Schools report came out, that possibly in 10 years 63.7% of Indianpolis students would be in privatized schools. For more on charters, read closely: Portfolio models: private ways of running public schools. Check out the IPS Portfolio Management scheme here.
To the dismay of the Mind Trust leadership, its 2011 $700.000 Opportunity Schools study and proposals never caught on. And, neither did Indy’s NEO Plan–Mayor Ballard’s Office of Education Innovation proposal called “Neighborhood of Educational Opportunity” or NEO.
The NEO Plan’s use of the term to “high quality seats” turned people off. As well, the Recorder’s Amos Brown wrote a Feb 28, 2013 commentary ,”‘White flight’ reason education reformers pushing change in Indy” (http://m.indianapolisrecorder.com/mobile/opinion/article_0cbb6212-81f4-11e2- a215-001a4bcf887a.html) followed by a Jul 13, 2013 column, ”NEO Plan harmful for Black, minority students” (http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_eef46606-ea3b-11e2-b6fc- 0019bb2963f4.html). The NEO Plan was shelved.
In fact, the NEO Plan was so bad, Cincy rejected it too. See Jan 24, 2017 Cincinnati Inquirer story “CEO quietly quits school accelerator.” “When it launched in 2015, Accelerate Great Schools promised to attack poverty in Cincinnati and smash the divide between the haves and have-nots in education.” Evidently, it did not. The Mind Trust’s Pat Herrel came back to Indy. http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Mind-Trust-NEO-Plan-Pat-Herrel-flop-in- Cincy.pdf
So what to do next? Buy IPS!
Mind Trust’s efforts to work with IPS had failed. Plan A, Opportunity Schools was ignored. Plan B, the NEO Plan got over scrutinized, critiqued, and finally rejected. The Mind Trust went into a long closed door session and came out with a plan that skipped the middle of the alphabet: Plan Z—just buy the IPS board.
Working with Stand for Children and their ground crew, Teach for America, the Mind Trust went about “Plan Z.”
The privatization of public education
All this must be appreciated over a background of the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS school board elections which were bought by local and national corporate school reform supporters, consequently engineering the consent of the Indianapolis public for the privatization of their very own public schools.
“Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: it dissolves the bonds that tie us together into free communities and democratic republics. It puts us back in the state of nature where we possess a natural right to get whatever we can on our own, but at the same time lose any real ability to secure that to which we have a right… Private choices rest on individual power… Public choices rest on civic rights, common responsibilities, and presume equal rights for all.” ~ Benjamin Barber
A national movement to privatize public education
To understand more of the national background on IPS privatization, view The corporate assault on public education.
Also read, Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What’s at Stake?, Fabricant & Fine’s 2012 book.
For the scenario on the corporate takeover of our IPS, see Amos Brown’s, “Is Stand for Children buying IPS school board election?” (Indianapolis Recorder 10.23.14) and other news stories and info on IPS board candidate’s campaign funding:
- The truth about IPS board election campaign funding https://kheprw.org/chalkbeat-indiana-distorts-the-truth-about-ips-board-election-campaign- funding/
- Dark money clouds IPS election https://inschoolmatters.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/dark-money-clouds-ips-election/
- Incumbents in IPS board race post massive fundraising lead over challengers
- https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/incumbents-in-ips-board-race-post-massive-fundraising-
lead-over-challengers
- How much money is Stand for Children spending in school board elections and lobbying? https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/how-much-money-stand-for-children-ips-school-board- elections-indiana-lobbying
Money from wealthy donors from outside the county and state influenced IPS elections
For a clear example, note the large amounts of campaign contributions to Commissioner Sullivan: http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Mary-Ann-Sullivan-2014-Campaign- Contributions-IPS-School-Board-Election.pdf $73,709.49 in contributions
Also note who gave and where they lived. IPS school board races were no longer a local phenomenon, but an event caught up in a national agenda to privatize/corporatize public education.
Commissioner Sam Odle http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Samuel-Odle-2012-Campaign-Contributions- IPS-School-Board-Election.pdf $61,924.56
Commissioner Kelly Bentley http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Kelly-Bentley-2014-Campaign-Contributions- IPS-School-Board-Election-1.pdf $52,677.73
Commissioner Lanier Echols http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Lanier-Echols-2014-Campaign-Contributions- IPS-School-Board-Election-1.pdf $52,677.73
Commissioner Michael O’Connor http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Michael-OConnor-2016-Campaign- contributions-IPS-School-Board-Elections.pdf $33,985.75
Commissioner Venita Moore http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Venita-Moore-2016-Campaign-Contributions- IPS-School-Board-Elections.pdf $25,711.61
Commissioner Diane Arnold http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Diane-Arnold-2016-Campaign-Contributions- IPS-School-Board-Elections.pdf $16,353.60
For more read:
- Indianapolis Education Reform Player Profiles
- Corporate School Boarding Indy Style
- Hoosier School Heist: How Corporations and Theocrats Stole Democracy From Public Education
Here’s info on IPS Supt. Ferebee’s million dollar team he brought in with him from North Carolina:
http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IPS-2016-17-pay-info-Dr.-Ferebees-NC- team.pdf
Another group of publications takes a look at this time period where unprecedented amounts of money came into IPS elections, especially from out of state contributors:
- http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Democracy-for-Sale-What-happened-in-
Denver-in-2011-will-happen-in-Indianapolis-in-2012.pdf
- http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Who-Runs-Our-IPS.pdf
- http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Corporate-School-Boarding-Indy-Style.pdf
More news stories and columns on the overkill of IPS pro-reform candidate campaign finances against their poorly funded opponents
- Academic shame for charter schools! Amos Brown Nov 6, 2014
“Maybe if the school reformers spent some of their filthy lucre they wasted in the IPS race on improving the quality of charter school board members and teachers and encouraged real instruction instead of listening to out-of-town educational scam artists, the majority of Indy’s charters would be ‘high performing’ schools for our kids.” http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_10ff4c0c-65e2-11e4-8df2- 03f7d5b55bcf.html - Don’t bet on big bucks in IPS election Dan Carpenter Oct 30, 2014
“Convince them [the public], in short, of the wisdom of the Mind Trust and Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform and the billionaires behind the industry of professional critics and charter school entrepreneurs who seek to own the operation.” http://thestatehousefile.com/commentary-dont-bet-big-bucks-ips-election/18192/ - Indy’s Chamber wants to elect an un-diverse IPS school board slate Amos Brown Sep 4, 2014 “Voters, parents and students in IPS don’t need Michael Bloomberg or other out-of-town fat cats to decide our school board election. Indianapolis voters and Indianapolis dollars and resources should decide who governs all of our city/county’s eleven school districts. Not out-of-town cash and meddlers like the Chamber’s Star Chamber selection committee.” http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_6c06aa28-344b-11e4-b8fc- 0019bb2963f4.html
- The Mind Trust is a Trojan Horse That Is Destroying Indianapolis Public Education Jim Scheurich https://kheprw.org/the-mind-trust-is-a-trojan-horse-that-is-destroying-indianapolis-public- education/
- Who’s giving money to IPS school board candidates? Campaign finance filings reveal contribu- tions from Indianapolis philanthropists, out-of- state reformers and more. Oct 17, 2014 Chalkbeat https://in.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/17/21094278/who-s-giving-money-to-ips-school-board- candidates#.Colombo.
- 2014 elections disaster for Dems, except for Indianapolis seats Amos Brown Nov 13, 2014 http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_08ab7088-6b5c-11e4-abe4- 0f389a79a5e5.html?mode=image&photo=0
- IPS’ corporate-bought board needs to pay attention to real crises in IPS Amos Brown Jan 29, 2015 http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_61c555c8-a7d7-11e4-ac39-d31c221ea357.html
2017 IPS high school choice experiment: IPS and Radio One inveigle students and parents into accepting the district’s new Career Academy model
Note, especially, the late 2017 commentary, “Without parents present: IPS tries to engineer the consent of students to accept its plan to reinvent high school.” The meetings discussed are examples of the extent to which the district and the local business community went to justify the manipulation of students and families—and public opinion—to accept an IPS high school corporate Career Academy model of public education.
Where does the Indianapolis Community stand? Corporatocracy or Democracy?
“Market competition favors the already powerful and if you unleash competition, then schools which are powerful from the start, are going to thrive and those that are not powerful are not magically somehow able to develop the ability to compete.”
~ Pamela Grundy, Parents Across America, Charlotte, NC
Another way to misuse democratic processes is a sort of “reverse takeover” move where groups like Stand for Children become akin to “corporate raiders” when they lead the organization of persons or entities to “buy” school board seats with thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
~ Amos Brown, 2014
Superintendents Ferebee and Johnson obtained their status and power to privatize the district by an unprecedented (and successful) effort to buy the IPS school board
These raw histories of facts and news commentaries directly challenge the political authenticity of the Ferebee and/or Johnson regimes. The antics of the Mind Trust and their sidekick Stand for Children, can now be viewed as shady local and national-level political deals. Here, according to Amos Brown, school reformers, “…spent some of their filthy lucre…” to grab control and privatize public education.
Yes, the above elections are over; yet, were the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS school board races corrupted by big money—indeed a “coup” by local and national entities to take over the school district?
To help unpack and analyze the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS elections and put them in perspective, let’s take seriously the points and concerns of 2 Black American educators:
Prof. Lester Spence
- The neo-liberal turn in Black politics
- The Intersection: Lester Spence On Neo-liberalism’s Effect on Black Politics. Detroit Today Jul 6,
2016
https://wdet.org/posts/2016/07/06/83418-the-intersection-lester-spence-on-neoliberalisms- effect-on-black-politics/
- “How Bill Cosby, Obama and Mega-Preachers Sold Economic Snake Oil to Black America” https://caribreport.com/2018/05/05/how-bill-cosby-obama-and-mega-preachers-sold- economic-snake-oil-to-black-america-must-read/
- How the “free market” has devastated black communities. TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDJ0rmxhmVI
Dr. Keith Benson
“To the Black Education Reform Establishment: Be Real with Who You Are and Whose Interest
You Represent”
http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/To-the-Black-Education-Reform- Establishment-Be-Real-with-Who-You-Are-and-Whose-Interest-You-Represent.pdf
“Purchasing the 2012, 2014, and 2016 IPS school board elections” is essay, analysis, and commentary by John Harris Loflin, researcher for Parent Power, the Indianapolis affiliate of Parents Across America and Indy’s Education-Community Action Team.
© 2020 johnharrisloflin@yahoo.com
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