Herbert J. Gans is an eminent sociologist who taught at Columbia University for many years. He was born in Germany in 1927 and left for the United States in 1938, becoming a citizen in 1945. He shared this article about the importance of political education because he thought it would be of interest to the blog’s readers.
See the pdf here.
Ken Bernstein, who blogs at The Daily Kos as Teacher Ken, likes to parse articles of interest. In this post, he parses Charles M. Blow’s defense of the truth. Over the past few days, I got the attention of many Trump supporters, in response to a post expressing my amazement about bumper stickers such as “I love my country, I hate my government.” So this post is for them. Among the sillier things said was that the Constitution has nothing to do with the government, although I refer to it as the document that defines our government. I was called many names, some unprintable here. On Twitter, I was the recipient of many insults hurled by people who identified themselves as part of the MAGA cult.
If they are still around, I hope they read Charles Blow, who wrote:
“…we must develop a societal strategy for protecting the true in a post-truth world, and the first step is that we must never stop saying: Donald Trump is a liar.”
I have been swarmed before, once by homeschooling advocates, after I dared to say that some parents are not responsible. But this is the first time I was swarmed by the MAGA crowd. The hatefulness was dense. As I often say, no one is required to read what I write. If you don’t like it, there are many other blogs that are more to your liking. If you can’t be civil, to me and other readers, go elsewhere.
In the past few days, we learned that the New America Foundation fired Barry Lynn, a fierce and learned critic of monopolies, because his work directly criticized Google, one of the Foundation’s major donors.
Now Barry Lynn has created an independent organization to battle monopoly power.
It is called Citizensagainstmonopoly.org.
Go to the website to find an excellent reading list. Sign the letter to Google. I did.
Fight back.
The hue and cry about a shortage of qualified workers in science, engineering, and technology has been repeated endlessly by business leaders, politicians, and the media. Even Betsy DeVos, who believes that the Bible is the latest and best source on science, has decried the lack of qualified STEM workers.
But this is a myth perpetrated by corporations that want to import cheap guest workers or outsource jobs to low-wage countries.
To learn more about this myth, read Hal Salzman of Rutgers, a labor economist.
“Rutgers Today: Is there a shortage of STEM workers in the U.S. economy?
“Hal Salzman: We can find no evidence of any shortages in most STEM fields. Typically when employers have a hard time finding workers, they increase wages. In the one area where there truly were not enough graduates to meet hiring demands, in petroleum engineering, wages have risen dramatically and the number of graduates more than doubled in just a few years. In other areas, such as IT, average wage levels today are the same as they were when Bill Clinton was president. If employers truly need more workers in these fields, we find it puzzling that they don’t use the market and raise wages; all available evidence suggests that students do respond to market signals. It may be that it is more an issue of cost rather than supply, and Congress has been providing a lower-cost pool of tech guest workers; it is understandable that expanding the pool of lower-cost guest workers would be preferable to paying more for workers already in the U.S., if given the option.
“Rutgers Today: Is the U.S. education system producing an adequate supply of STEM graduates with the requisite STEM education?
“Hal Salzman: When we consider the supply for the science and engineering workforce, which is about 5 to 8 percent of the overall workforce, we find that the colleges graduate about twice the number of science and engineering students each year as hired into those job. Even in fields such as engineering and computer science, the number of graduates is 50 percent greater than the number hired. At the secondary school level, there are certainly significant educational problems for certain areas and students, but overall, U.S. students are completing more math and science than ever before – over the past 20 years, about 50 percent more complete subjects such as chemistry, algebra II/trigonometry, biology and physics – and test score performance shows steady increases for all students. In terms of actual supply of high performing students in science and math, the U.S. produces the lion’s share of these students in the world.
“Rutgers Today: How does high-skill immigration affect the STEM labor market and the domestic supply of STEM talent?
“Hal Salzman: Unfortunately the issue of immigration has been confused with guest worker programs. While a broad immigration policy is at the heart of this nation’s success – socially, economically – it is quite different from the current guest worker programs that bring in young workers targeted to a few industries, mostly IT, on a temporary basis and at lower wages. Naturally, employers tend to prefer the lower cost option for many of the more routine work positions, and even some of the more specialized areas. Our estimate is that currently guest workers are hired for about two-thirds of all entry-level positions in IT. Although a balanced immigration policy can strengthen the nation, a targeted guest worker program can undermine the STEM workforce by making it harder for graduates of U.S. colleges (both native and immigrant) to find jobs at good wages and to have stable careers.
“Rutgers Today: How can the U.S. compete globally, when other nations are rapidly improving their STEM industries?
“Hal Salzman: There is an unfortunate premise in science and technology policy that the world is zero-sum – that China or India’s achievements in these areas are a threat to the U.S. Moreover, it’s a case of generals fighting the last war – and the cold war in particular when we thought that the Soviet Union’s scientific advancement would imperil the security of the U.S. Well, the Soviet Union, and later the Japanese, did produce large numbers of engineers and scientists but we know that did little to help their long-term economic performance. The supply of scientists and engineers does not assure high economic performance, nor does another nation’s improvements threaten the U.S. China, for example, is graduating many more engineers because they need them to build roads, buildings, and infrastructure. The U.S. does not have nearly the scale of building that requires large numbers of engineers. In addition, science is increasingly global and having a greater pool of scientists around the world can only help everyone. Although it would be great to have U.S. scientists be the ones to discover the cure for cancer, this country, and the world, will benefit much more if, by having more scientists in China or India, the discovery is made sooner rather than later.”
There will be a screening of “Backpack Full of Cash” in Boston on September 13. Everyone is invited. The film was made by professionals at Stone Lantern Productions and narrated by Matt Damon.
If you don’t live near Boston, go to the website, contact the producers, and arrange a screening in YOUR community.
If you recall, the Network for Public Education called on PBS to show “Backpack Full of Cash” to make up for showing a three-hour series attacking public schools and promoting the Betsy DeVos libertarian view. That show was funded by four libertarian foundations, as well as DeVos and Koch money. Despite the fact that NPE and The Daily Kos inundated PBS with more than 200,000 emails, they have not shown “Backpack.”
But you can see it by setting up a screening in your community.
Jamaal A. Bowman is the principal of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in New York City.
This is his Open Letter to the Parents of Black and Latino Children in Public Schools.
Back to School 2017: An Open Letter to Black and Latino Public School Parents
Dear Parents,
I hope this letter finds you and your loved ones in good health and good spirits. I write to you as a Black man in America, and educator of almost 20 years. I grew up lower middle class to a single mom in the upper east side/east Harlem section of New York City. I have worked my entire career with Black and Latino students in K-12 settings throughout the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan in New York City. I have experience working in both district and charter schools, and I attended public schools throughout my entire life.
I humbly write this letter to you as a call to action. There is a crisis in public education that mirrors the crisis in our country. The actions of the white supremacists in Charlottesville Virginia, are not unique to protesting the removal of a confederate leader’s statue. The thinking that drives the actions of these racists and bigots exist covertly throughout our public schools – as it does throughout American society.
Our schools are financially starved. If you are a Black or Latino child in this country, you are more likely to attend a “Title I” school. Title I schools receive additional federal funding to offset the impact of poverty in downtrodden communities. At present, Donald Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos are looking to reduce federal funding by $9 billion, which directly devastates Black and Latino children. Despite the additional Title I funding poor schools have received since 1965, schools in wealthy districts with high property taxes are able to outspend Title I schools by roughly two to one. This is one example of how racism exists within our current education policy.
Because of this financial oppression, parents throughout the country have been fighting back. In 1993, New York parents led by Robert Jackson, began a 13-year legal battle against the state of New York. The judge ruled that the state’s awful education spending was preventing a “sound and basic education” for our most vulnerable children. The parents won the lawsuit! However, as we are 11 years removed from the court’s decision, the majority of the money has yet to be paid to our mostly Black and Latino children. As a result, our children continue to underperform, drop-out, and receive school suspensions at rates much higher than white and Asian children. In this way, governments throughout the country remain complicit in keeping the school to prison pipeline amongst Black and Latino children thriving, while the racial economic and opportunity gaps continue to persist.
Further, Black and Latino history and culture is almost completely absent from public school policy and curriculum. As a result, America’s children learn almost nothing about the contributions of Black and Latino culture to civilization. This fact contributes to the ongoing misunderstanding, disrespect, and xenophobia that exist toward Black and Latino youth. While children of European descent continue to be recognized and celebrated in our public schools, Black and Latino history remains nonexistent. Unless implemented secretly at the school level, students are not taught about Kush, Timbuktu and Kemit, or the modern contributions of Black and Latino authors, mathematicians, and scholars. If Black and Latino children learned of their contributions to the cradle of civilization, one could only imagine the growth in their self-esteem, self-confidence, and contribution to the advancement of present day society.
Discussing Latino students specifically, and particularly English language learners, the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) calls for the tracking of how well English language learners perform on English standardized tests. Of course, it is important for Latinos to learn English. However, the unintended consequences of a policy like this involves the nonuse of the Spanish language among Latino Americans; while also suppressing other aspects of Latino culture. Bilingual education and dual language programs have suffered as a result. Under contemporary education policy, Latino lives don’t matter. The belief of many policymakers and corporate education reformers is one of English supremacy. If you are in America you should “speak American”. What’s implied here is the inferiority of Latino culture. Instead of celebrating the diversity of Latino citizens, Latinos are marginalized and forced to abandon parts of their culture. This creates enduring conflict and contributes to the social and political strife we see today. Latino students, particularly English language learners, suffer greatly in our public school system.
To save our children, we need a paradigm shift toward a more holistic education system. Holistic education includes more than just a single school. It involves the school working as part of a community based structure that incorporates, healthcare, higher education, local businesses, and a variety of community based organizations. A holistic education nurtures the whole mind, whole child, whole family, and whole community; while embracing America’s dynamic cultural diversity as an invaluable resource.
Black and Latino families must demand a holistic education for all children, in every school district in America.
From an “academic” perspective, public school policy dictates that if a child is “proficient” on an English and math state test, that child is considered in good academic standing. Many would argue that this is based on a limited view of intelligence. Researchers for decades have identified multiple intelligences as necessary for a holistic curriculum. The ability to build and sustain healthy relationships, the ability to self-reflect, perform musically, engage with nature, dance and play sports, all represent talents that are mostly ignored in our school system. Why aren’t we nurturing these talents in all schools? I fear that continuing to overlook the multiple intelligences in our children, will deprive generations to come of artists like Celia Cruz, and Duke Ellington, entrepreneurs like Nasir Jones, and technicians like Carlos Santillan.
Private schools, on the other hand, tend to implement a vast and deep curriculum. Private school children work on authentic projects, in the creative arts, and engage in humanistic learning methodologies like Paideia, Reggio Emilio and Maria Montessori. While private school children are nurtured to reach their full potential as leaders, public school children are trained in subordinate thinking. This structure of inequality maintains the vast economic and cultural divide that has existed throughout America history.
By continuing to implement a basic, so-called “rigorous” curriculum, public schools facilitate racist policies and communicate low expectations for our children. In public schools, our goal is simply to make Black and Latino students the best English and math test-takers they can be; not to build creative critical thinkers and real-world problem solvers. Black and Latino families should be wary of the overuse of words like accountability, and of policymakers that advocate only annual standardized testing in English and math. Most of these policymakers send their children to the private schools described above. This is not an accident, and this will not change unless Black and Latino parents come together, organize, speak up, and speak out against both the overt and implicit racism that plagues the children in our schools.
It is time for us to demand more from teachers, principals, school boards, elected officials and policymakers. We are in the middle of an education revolution, and I am calling for ALL Black and Latino families to be involved.
Consider how the opt-out movement demanded change as one voice by refusing state standardized tests. This forced a stoppage to certain education policies in New York State. This movement, organized by the New York State Allies for Public Education, continues to impact education policy in New York State and across the country.
We can also learn a lot from the great work that the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), the Coalition for Education Justice (CEJ), and Journey for Justice (J4J) have done for Black and Latino families in particular. AQE, CEJ, and J4J fight everyday against the privatization of public schools and the closing of neighborhood schools. Their fight also includes a push for culturally relevant curriculum and equitable education funding. Because of these outstanding grassroots organizations, elected officials are much more responsive to parent and community demands. But we need more voices in the fight. What might we collectively accomplish if we demanded the resources that nurture the strengths and diversity of our children? What if policymakers heard from Black and Latino parents and students daily, and we used our political leverage to have those that ignore us removed from office?
Our children are suffering daily as their voices, ideas, and cultures are suppressed. Even the children that get good grades are graduating high school less engaged than ever. Public education policy, both directly and indirectly teach Black and Latino children that their lives only matter insofar as they can serve the needs of the system that oppresses them. There are many Black and Latino students who graduate high school and refuse to attend college because they are emotionally debilitated. School has made them numb. Many who attend college do not finish because they do not see a bigger purpose in higher education. Because America continues to neglect our highest need communities and families, millions of kids never reach basic proficiency, nor do they get close to reaching their full potential.
Black and Latino parents must also act upon the unjust fact that the schools and districts that are celebrated for their work with Black and Latino children, invest substantially more resources than the average school district. Unfortunately, most Black and Latino public school districts continue to be starved and underserved. That will change as soon as WE ALL come together, demand equitable funding, resist the privatization of our schools, demand a culturally relevant curriculum, and build a holistic community based school system.
This is a wonderful article that appeared today in the New York Daily News.
It reminded me that almost all of us are the children or grandchildren or descendants of immigrants, except for Native Americans.
The author, Vesna Jaksic Lowe, writes:
Melania Trump and I both grew up in a country that no longer exists. Yugoslavia broke into pieces in the early 1990s after a civil war, and since her husband became President, I am reminded more of it each day.
Mrs. Trump and I came to the United States just a year apart and, at one point, had the same type of visa. We both moved to New York City, married American men, and had a child. I don’t have anything resembling her cat eyes or model looks, but I’m also a tall brunette, just an inch shy of her 5’11”.
But despite her big platform as a prominent naturalized citizen from the war-torn Balkans, the First Lady has chosen to stay silent while her husband unleashes harm on immigrants to America.
I was 13 when my family left Yugoslavia on the brink of war. As an eighth grader, I’d come home from school to see my hometown engulfed in smoke on CNN. A childhood friend was killed in a bombing, along with his dad. Soldiers stormed my uncle’s rooftop. Friends and relatives went into hiding when they heard the air-raid sirens.
Melania Trump faces many ‘unspoken rules’ moving in White House
Like most conflicts, the Yugoslav one was complicated. But like many civil wars, there are some common threads. Nationalist leaders stoked ethnic tensions. In Croatia, Franjo Tudjman boasted about Croatian nationalism. In Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic pushed for Serbian interests. Both used the media to spew lies and government propaganda, and spark ethnic hostility.
Paul Glastris, a journalist who covered the conflict, said Trump and the late Milosevic had a lot in common, including their brash personalities, obsession with manipulating the press, and fueling of ethno-nationalism.
I see many parallels between the Yugoslav conflict and the current situation in the United States, such as attacks on media and the targeting of Muslims, refugees and immigrants. Hate crimes are on the rise here, and many people are being told to “go back to their country.”
Such events remind me of a day in Croatia when a classmate told me to go back to Serbia, where I was born. I was confused about why this suddenly mattered to a seventh grader, when my whole class had always known this.
Now, for the first time in my 20 years in the United States, I fear someone could tell me to go back where I’m from if they hear me speaking Croatian. And yet, that is nothing compared to the fear undocumented immigrants feel each day, worrying they or their loved ones may be taken away in another inhumane deportation raid encouraged by our President.
And throughout it all, as Trump fights to close our doors to refugees from war-torn countries, to boot, our First Lady has said nothing.
I just went to the gas station to fill up the tank. As I was about to leave, a beaten-up, dirty truck pulled in. I glanced at the back of the truck, as I walked back to my car, because it was covered with bumper stickers. One bumper sticker said, “I love my country, I hate my government.” Another said, “Socialism=spread the misery among all.” There were political bumper stickers supporting Trump and our current Congressman, the Trump sycophant Lee Zeldin.
I drove away, and got no more than 200 yards away from the station when I decided I wanted a photograph of the back of the truck, which had at least 20 bumper stickers of a similar type. The grizzled old man driving the truck was pulling away. I followed him all the way home, about a mile away, but did not have the nerve to go into his driveway (I thought, “what if he has a gun and thinks I am stalking him?”). But I noticed that his house was tumble-down, his windows were as dirty as his truck, and his lawn was overgrown.
He is the perfect Trump voter. Hates government. Hates the elites. Hoping Trump will “drain the swamp” of bureaucrats and lobbyists. Hates those who are dependent on government programs. Yet from his woeful condition, I expect that he goes to the Post Office (government) to pick up checks.
I wonder why people who rely on government aid–whether it is social security or Medicare–hate government. He must have gone to public schools; he doesn’t look like a graduate of Andover or Exeter. Do people like him swallow propaganda from the Koch brothers and other libertarians?
What do you think?
Samuel Abrams is director of the Teachers College, Columbia University, Center on the Study of Privatization of Education. He wrote a wonderful book called “Education and the Commercial Mindset.” Most of the book is focused on the haplessness and failure of the for-profit Edison Project, which became Edison Schools, which became EdisonLearning, and which lost money, a lot of money. Abrams’ book represents deep scholarship into the consistent failures of for-profit education.
I reviewed it in the <em>New York Review of Bookss, along with Mercedes Schneider’s superb “School Choice.”
Barron’s just posted a negative review of the Abrams’ book by a reviewer who has made a career of besmirching public schools, teachers, and unions. He hates them all, so of course, he hates Abrams’ elegant expose of the profit motive in education. The reviewer is a polemicist, not a scholar, so he probably didn’t understand the book.
I don’t subscribe to Barron’s so I can’t post the review. You probably don’t subscribe either. I wish I could quote it but I can’t. I know it is hostile to Abrams’ scholarly work because the title of the review is “Slurring Charter Schools: A skewed defense of our failing public schools, and a hit job on Harvard Business School.”
But I know a great deal about the reviewer, Bob Bowdon.
Bowdon wrote and produced a “documentary” called “The Cartel,” in which he compared the teachers’ union in New Jersey to the Mafia. He is a familiar figure on far-right TV shows, where he bashes teachers and public schools.
Read his Wikipedia entry, where it says:
Bowdon directed The Cartel, a 2009 documentary film about corruption in American public education that was distributed by Warner Brothers.[1] The film views the current state of public schools in the U.S. as a “national disaster for the workforce of the future.” Bowdon notes that the U.S., by many measures, “spends more on education than any country in the world,” and chooses to concentrate principally on his own state, New Jersey, which spends more per student on public education than any other state, but where average standardized-test scores in public schools are very low. In an effort to explain where all the money allocated to public education is going, Bowdon portrays a union-dominated institutional culture in which bureaucracies are overstaffed by highly paid administrators, expenditures on school-construction projects are unsupervised and out of control, corruption and patronage are rampant, incompetent teachers cannot be fired, and excellent teachers cannot be rewarded. As a solution to the problem, Bowdon proposes school choice and charter schools.[3]
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who watched The Cartel twice, has praised it as an influence on his own ideas about school reform.[4][5]
When my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” was published in 2010, I was invited to be interviewed by Judge Napolitano. I learned when I got there that I was going to debate Bob Bowdon. Judge Napolitano was on Bowdon’s side, and he said snidely, “would you allow any child of yours to attend a public school?” I vowed never again to appear on any show on FOX, as my experience left me feeling deeply outraged by their hostility to the views I had formed over 40 years of study. Bowdon knew nothing whatever about education, nothing whatever about teaching. All he knew was that privatization was good, public schools bad.
It is an ugly experience to get into the ring with someone who literally doesn’t know what he is talking about but is sure of his opinions.
Deion Sanders was a superstar in sports. He opened charter schools in Texas, which have closed. Now, he is joining with the notorious Koch brothers in a plan intended to end poverty in Dallas. The program, called Stand Together, aims to raise $21 million.
Chalk this one up to innocence. Or ignorance. Or naivete. No one has done more than the Koch brothers to rip apart the social safety net that helps Americans who are down on their luck than the Koch brothers.
The story in Inside Philanthropy begins:
As we’ve pointed out time and again, David and Charles Koch are eager for an image makeover. After decades spent attacking governmental overreach and financing the right’s policy infrastructure, as well as bankrolling GOP candidates, the Kochs found themselves with a family and company brand that had become synonymous with extremist and self-interested politics. Among other things, their recent efforts to repair that damage have included large-scale grants to institutions that help African Americans and stepped up work on bipartisan criminal justice reform, as we’ve been reporting.
What’s received less attention is Koch backing for a new national anti-poverty group Stand Together, which recently led Charles Koch to find a surprising ally in Deion Sanders, a larger-than-life figure also known by the nickname “Primetime.” Sanders has the distinction of being the only athlete to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series. Following such an illustrious sports career, Sanders wants to give back, and he’s doing so in partnership with Koch and Stand Together.
According to Sanders, Koch is hardly the profit-hungry villain he’s sometimes made out to be. Commenting on a new joint effort between himself and the Koch-backed “venture philanthropy” organization, Sanders says, “I saw firsthand how wonderful and gracious and giving and kind the Koch family was in regards to really trying to make this country a better place for everyone.” High praise indeed, especially from a celebrity with very different roots than the usual Koch set.
Sanders’ charter chain, which opened schools in Dallas and Fort Worth in 2012, closed in 2015.
Even before Sanders’ first charter school opened, the Dallas Observer called them a “primetime scam.”
When the schools closed, they were in administrative chaos and saddled with crushing debt and dwindling enrollments.
