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John Sweeney: When Tucker Carlson Met Putin

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2024 //
26

I have not seen Tucker Carlson’s interview of Vladimir Putin but I’ve heard plenty about it. On Chris Wallace’s show, Bret Stephens of the New York Times called Tucker the “Tokyo Rose” of our time. Hillary Clinton, interviewed on MSNBC by Alex Wagner, said he was “a useful idiot,” a term first used by Lenin to describe the dupes who parroted Soviet propaganda.

British investigative journalist John Sweeney reviewed Tucker’s interview and was even more scathing in his reaction. John Sweeney blogs at JohnSweeneyRoars. There is more to read so open the link.

He wrote:

Two narcissists but only one looking-glass: what was so bleakly and blackly comical about the Russian strong man Vladimir Putin granting an audience to the far-right showman, Tucker Carlson, was that even the American stooge could not hide his irritation at how boring the little man in the Kremlin was. Putin sensed that annoyance and gave Carlson bitch-slap after bitch-slap.

It would have been more amusing if Carlson had tottered out but the gravity of their shared neo-fascist agenda kept the two planet-sized egos in orbit, just. However, the big reveal of the-useful-idiot-meets-serial-killer show was that the two beauties really didn’t get on. Down the track, I look forward to a leak of what Carlson really felt about Putin. Lines like: “ungrateful dwarf sonofabitch” come to the novelist in me.

Sweeney the journalist notes the glorious moment when Putin upends the conventions and attacks the supplicant for a previous job application. Putin, puffy cheeked on steroids as ever, is waxing long about the 2014 Maidan revolution when the unarmed Ukrainian opposition took to the streets to bring down Kremlin puppet President Viktor Yanukovych:
Putin: “The armed opposition committed a coup in Kiev. What is that supposed to mean? Who do you think you are? I wanted to ask the then US leadership.

Tucker: With the backing of whom?

Vladimir Putin: With the backing of CIA, of course, the organization you wanted to join back in the day, as I understand. We should thank God, they didn’t let you in.

Carlson looks so mortified that I wondered whether his carefully coiffed hairdo might levitate in horror, as well it might. Who would have known that this career anti-elite hobgoblin had once tried to join the Company? Well, the former head of the Russian intelligence service, for one.

I feel I am entitled to be critical of Tucker Carlson because, firstly, he is a traitor to the human soul, and, secondly, I have interviewed Putin myself. Back in 2014, after the shooting down of MH17 by a Russian BUK missile, my colleagues at BBC Panorama and I worked out that the little man in the Kremlin was going to open some museum of mammothology in Yakutsk in the far east of Siberia. I rocked up, popped my question, Putin was caught in the bright lights of the Kremlin’s patsy media cameras – they thought my popping up had official permission – and Peskov, his PR man, was embarrassed. A few hours a goon came and punched me in the stomach. The Kremlin didn’t like my question. Still, I got off lightly.

Carlson’s interview set out several things about Putin to his core audience of ignorant white Americans who don’t like the twenty-first century (although they have been pretty clear to some of us for two decades, more): that Putin is boring, very; that he is nasty, very; that he is used to getting his own way to a pathological extent; that he is a liar; that he is incapable of explaining why he has invaded Ukraine in simple terms that make sense because he can’t.

Carlson wanted so little from the Russian dictator but the pleonexic couldn’t bring himself to be the least bit generous. Pleonexia is a term first applied to Putin by the great Kremlin-watcher Masha Gessen, meaning: having an irresistible urge to take things that rightfully belong to another. I wrote a whole chapter of my book, Killer In The Kremlin, on Putin’s craving to take from others: objects, countries, yes and yes, but also the time of others too. Putin turned up late for our departed Queen, late for the King of Spain, late for the Pope and four and a half hours late, of course, for then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. So Carlson should not have been the least bit surprised that Putin stole his time, wasting the precious first half hour of the interview by setting out a dark fairy story that history showed that Russia has a right to repress Ukraine.

How can I best summarise Putin’s case? He was talking bollocks, total bollocks. The evolution of Ukraine and then Russia – Kyiv was a well-organised citadel in the tenth century when Moscow was still a few sticks in a bog – is messy and complicated. But the modern world started in 1945 and rule number one, in Europe at least, was that no country should invade another. Nothing whatsoever from the past trumps that. Full stop.

One other Putin comment which will drive up the Polish defence budget by another five percentage points was that the Poles somehow brought on 1939 themselves, that they should have negotiated with Hitler. What? Hello?

Carlson is a great showman, his glands unctuous, his tongue fluent but he is also a profoundly stupid man who even failed to get a degree from the rich kid’s diploma factory his family money sent him to.  I didn’t expect him to challenge Putin on the Russian’s fairytale history lesson but there is one simple thing that even a very thick CIA reject should have cottoned on to. One of Putin’s beefs about Ukraine is that their leaders are Nazi. President Zelenskiy is Jewish. Hello?

OK, let me break this down in a simple way by telling a true story of just how un-Nazi Ukraine is, from my own personal experience. At the height of the Battle of Kyiv, when the Russian army was twelve miles away from the city centre, I got a call from the Jewish Chronicle in London, inviting me to be their stringer. I explained that I wasn’t Jewish. They replied that they knew but there was no-one else. I said yes because it struck me as funny to work for a Jewish paper in a country the Kremlin said was Nazi. I got to hang out with the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, to see Jewish aid relief to the front lines of Ukraine, to talk to soldiers who were Jewish – and also Muslim and Christian and those with no faith. The one thing I have not seen is strong evidence of Ukraine being Nazi. Because it isn’t.

All Carlson had to do was say: “but Mr Putin, how could Ukraine be Nazi if the President is Jewish?”

He did nothing of the kind. Carlson’s commitment to the cause, some kind of lower case Fascist International, was greater than his nous. But we knew that, didn’t we?
The worry remains that Carlson’s core audience will, once again, place their prejudices above their ability to weigh evidence. That is what the political religion they call MAGA does. What we all saw is a thoroughly horrible human being with a closed mind meeting the President of Russia. The latter, it turns out, is also a thoroughly horrible human being with a very closed mind and a bore – a crushing one at that.

Open the link and read on.

Categories Bias, Extremism, History, International, Media

Ohio: Fund Public Schools, Not Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
5

Tanisha Pruitt, Ph.D., wrote the following statement on behalf of Policy Matters Ohio last June. She urged the legislature not to expand vouchers. Her plea was ignored. The legislature decided to raise the cap on vouchers to 450% of the federal poverty level. Given research that shows the failure of vouchers in Ohio and elsewhere, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Republican dominated legislature doesn’t care about the state’s children or their future.

Regardless of race, neighborhood, or how much money is in their parents’ bank account, every child should be able to attend an excellent school that has everything they need to learn and grow. Every dollar spent on vouchers makes this vision less achievable. Vouchers take public money and give it to private schools, with real consequences for the 90% of our kids who attend Ohio’s public schools.

With their recent budget proposal, Senate leadership has shown they are willing, even eager, to sacrifice Ohio’s kids to ram through a universal voucher scheme they’ve been planning for years. The Senate plan would make EdChoice vouchers — worth $8,407 a year for students in grades 9-12, and $6,165 a year for those in grades K-8 — available to households with incomes up to 450% of the federal poverty rate. (For a family of four, that’s about $135,000 a year.) And they wouldn’t stop there: Senate leadership would also allow households making more than that to get 10% of the value of EdChoice vouchers, subsidizing a discount on private school tuition for the children of the wealthiest Ohioans.

<<< And that’s just one of the ways the Senate proposal will disproportionately benefit the rich while hurting the rest of us.>>>

Kids bring their whole selves to the classroom. To succeed they need well-funded schools — and they need good food, health care, and quality child care to build a solid foundation. Senate leadership would make it very easy to qualify for vouchers, while Ohio already makes it very difficult to qualify for other, more fundamental public programs. Legislators impose tight caps on family income to participate in SNAP, Medicaid, publicly funded child care and free school meals. Compare those income limits to the proposal for limitless access to private school vouchers and you get a good sense of where the Senate majority’s priorities and loyalties lie.

Public schools in Ohio are responsible for educating 1.6 million students. The Senate proposal cuts their funding by $245.6 million in FY 2024 and by $295.8 million in FY 2025. At the same time, Senate leadership would increase funding for vouchers by $182 million in FY 2024 and $191 million in FY 2025 — pushing the total annual cost to more than a billion dollars by the end of this budget cycle. That’s $1 billion of Ohio taxpayers’ money being funneled to unaccountable private schools, many of which are operated by churches and other religious entities.

The budgetary choices that we see in the Senate proposal begs the question of where our legislators’ priorities lie when it comes to funding our education system. How we fund our schools now will impact education — and our workforce and economy — for years to come. Ohio is currently ranked near the bottom at 46th in the nation when it comes to equitable distribution of funding in schools. By proposing massive new spending on vouchers, Ohio legislators would only make things worse.

In the last budget, we won the Fair School Funding Plan, with the promise to fully and fairly fund schools so every child in Ohio gets what they need to set them on the path to a good life. Now we need legislators to live up to that promise and finish the job. State leaders have a constitutional duty to protect public schools. Ensuring a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” — as Ohio’s constitution requires — means correcting disparities created by bad policies of the past, which still harm kids today. We do that by prioritizing public schools, cutting spending on vouchers, and paying teachers what they’re worth, so every student in every district in every school can thrive.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Politico: Trump Says He Won’t Defend NATO Ally if It Hasn’t Paid Its Dues

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2024 //
60

Politico summed up the reactions to Trump’s shocking statement that if he is President again, he will not come to the defense of another NATO nation if it hasn’t paid its dues. Section 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that every NATO member will come to the defense of any other NATO member that is attacked.

The only nation that threatens NATO nations is Russia. Trump is sending Putin an invitation to take what he wants.

At a rally in South Carolina on Saturday night, Trump recounted a conversation with an unnamed head of state about how he would respond if a NATO member who had not paid enough money for its defense was attacked by Russia. “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said.

“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted responding. ‘“No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) slammed the remarks Saturday night in a post on X.

“Trump bragged that he’d encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to our NATO allies if they didn’t spend enough on defense,” Schiff wrote. “He’s more interested in aggrandizing himself and pleasing Putin than protecting our allies. It would be enough to make Reagan ill.”

Others used Trump’s statements to draw a contrast between the current frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary, and President Joe Biden — who has been on the defense over his mental acuity after a special counsel report described him as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” The White House, Biden and other allies have forcefully refuted the characterization.

“Biden: 14.8m jobs; lower costs for insulin; repairs to road/bridges; health care for vets; cleaning up the environment; stronger alliances. And yes: mixed up a country leader’s name. And this happened, too,” Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) wrote on X, linking to a clip of Trump’s remarks. “Is there really a choice?”

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty that launched NATO in 1949 calls for every country to defend every other in the event of an attack. “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” it states. Article 5 was invoked in defense of the United States after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The 31 current members of NATO have agreed, as a target figure, to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, though some nations are below that figure.

The White House blasted Trump’s comments as “unhinged” Saturday night. 

“Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged— and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

European leaders also criticized Trump’s comments. 

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Reminder: Donald Trump is an elderly man with a bad memory, a vulgar mouth, malicious views, a well-established record of misogyny, an unparalleled prevaricator, and no knowledge of world history or current events. He is currently facing 91 criminal counts in state and federal courts.

Categories Elections, Extremism, History, International

The Supreme Court and Trump: Is a “Grand Bargain” in the Wings?

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2024 //
56

The New York Times speculates that the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to forge a “grand bargain” in dealing with the legal travails of Trump: a win in the Colorado case, a loss in Trump’s claim of sbsolute immunity. That would be a good outcome, on balance, as there might be time for Trump to be tried in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s court before the election. That is, if the high court renders a speedy decision in the immunity case.

There’s every reason to expect or hope that the Supreme Court will refuse to hear the immunity case, the one where Trump claims that he is immune from any liability, civil or criminal, for actions that he took as president.

The District Court—Judge Chutkan—ruled against him. The Appeals Court wrote a unanimous, stinging critique of his claim.

The Times wrote that his victory in the Colorado case would be balanced by his loss in the immunity case.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his colleagues seemed ready on Thursday to start to rebuild the court’s reputation by presenting themselves as unified and apolitical.

He has had a bumpy ride of late, what with the leak of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, an inconclusive investigation into that breach, a lonely concurrence in the decision itself and ethics scandals followed by a toothless code meant to address them.

All of this has contributed to dips in the Supreme Court’s approval ratings, as large segments of the public have increasingly viewed it as swayed by politics rather than committed to neutral principles and the rule of law.

Judging by the justices’ questions in arguments on Thursday over former President Donald J. Trump’s eligibility to hold office again, they will rule that Mr. Trump can remain on the primary ballot in Colorado and on other ballots around the nation — and by a lopsided, if not unanimous, vote.

But if the chief justice’s project of evenhanded nonpartisanship is to prevail, the court will have to rule against Mr. Trump in a separate case heading to the court, the one in which he claims absolute immunity from prosecution for his conduct leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.

Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in Slate that the outline of a “grand bargain” was coming into view.

“The Supreme Court unanimously, or nearly so, holds that Colorado does not have the power to remove Donald Trump from the ballot, but in a separate case it rejects his immunity argument and makes Trump go on trial this spring or summer on federal election subversion charges,” he wrote.

Will the Trump trial happen before the election? That’s the question.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Justice, Trump

What 25 Eminent Historians Told the Supreme Court About the Intent of the Founders Who Wrote Amendment 14, Section 3

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2024 //
35

Twenty-five of the nation’s leading historians submitted an amici curiae brief in support of the decision by Colorado’s Supreme Court to disqualify Donald Trump as a candidate for the Presidency. The signers are scholars of the Reconstruction era, when the Fourteenth Amendment was written. They address with admirable clarity the issues in the case.

The issue they did not address is the one the Supreme Court justices focused on: can one state remove a candidate from its ballot? Would this create incentive for Trump states to remove Biden? Would this lead to chaos, a Trump specialty?

This is the language at the center of the case:

Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights

  • Section 3 Disqualification from Holding OfficeNo person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The lower court in Colorado ruled against disqualification on the grounds that the President of the United States is not “an officer” of the federal government. As it happens, the issue was discussed by members of Congress when they wrote Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Some of Trump’s defenders claim that Congress never passed any enabling legislation. This issue was debated by Congress at the time.

The brief is interesting reading.

Categories Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, History, Justice, Trump

CNN: “Moms for Liberty” Is Encountering Stiff Resistance

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
69

When an education story is featured by a major media outlet like CNN, you can bet it’s captured mainstream attention.

Many educators have worried about the pernicious agenda of “Moms for Liberty,” which arrived on the scene in 2021 with a sizable war chest.

What is that agenda? Defaming public schools and their teachers. Accusing them of being “woke “ and indoctrinating students to accept left wing ideas about race and gender. Banning books they don’t like. Talking about “parental rights,” but only for straight white parents who share their values.

M4L got started in Florida, as do many wacky and bigoted rightwing campaigns, but it has been shamed recently by the sex scandal involving one of its co-founders, Brigitte Ziegler. The two other co-founders dropped her name from their website, but the stain persists.

CNN reports that this rightwing group is encountering stiff opposition from parents who don’t share their agenda and who don’t approve of book banning.

The story begins:

Viera, FloridaCNN —

In Florida, where the right-wing Moms for Liberty group was born in response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates, the first Brevard County School Board meeting of the new year considered whether two bestselling novels – “The Kite Runner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” – should be banned from schools.

A lone Moms for Liberty supporter sat by herself at the January 23 meeting, where opponents of the book ban outnumbered her.

Nearly 20 speakers voiced opposition to removing the novels from school libraries. One compared the book-banning effort to Nazi Germany. Another accused Moms for Liberty of waging war on teachers. No one spoke in favor of the ban. About three hours into the meeting, the board voted quickly to keep the two books on the shelves of high schools.

RELATED ARTICLEOusted Florida GOP leader Christian Ziegler won’t be charged with sexual battery

“Why are we banning books?” asked Mindy McKenzie, a mom and nurse who is a member of Stop Moms for Liberty, which was formed to counter what it calls a far-right extremist group “pushing for book banning and destroying public education.”

“Why are we letting Moms for Liberty infiltrate our school system?”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hypocrisy, Injustice, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Media, Parent Groups, Privatization, Racism

Read the Federal Appeals Court’s Unanimous Decision that President Is Not Immune from Prosecution

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
12

Donald Trump has delayed his trial on charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election by claiming that he enjoys “presidential immunity” for everything he did while in office. The federal district judge hearing his case—Judge Tanya S. Chutkan— ruled against him. Today a three-judge federal appeals court ruled against him. The three judges were two appointed by Democratic presidents and one appointed by a Republican president.

It is a historic decision. It is a history lesson of the utmost importance.

I urge you to read it.

It is a stirring defense of democracy and the rule of law.

A few citations:

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution…

We have balanced former President Trump’s asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed. We conclude that ‘Concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government’ compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case…

We also have considered his contention that he is entitled to categorical immunity from criminal liability for any assertedly ‘official’ action that he took as President—a contention that is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution. Finally, we are unpersuaded by his argument that this prosecution is barred by ‘double jeopardy principles.’

The justices ruled that what Trump sought (immunity from prosecution) was an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government…

We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count…

It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to “take Care that the laws be faithfully executed,” were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity…

The quadrennial Presidential election is a crucial check on executive power because a President who adopts unpopular policies or violates the law can be voted out of office.

We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power—the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.

Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. He allegedly injected himself into a process in which the President has no role—the counting and certifying of the Electoral College votes—thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of Congress …

At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.”

The judges pointed out that other presidents have recognized that they were not immune from prosecution after they left office. That’s why President Ford pardoned President Nixon and why President Clinton accepted a deal to pay a fine and surrender his law license when he left office.

They noted the irony that the President is sworn to Take Care that the laws are faithfully executed yet was appealing to be immune from those laws.

It’s a good read.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, History, Justice, Trump

Houston: Principal Turnover Hits 20% After State Takeover

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
47

The Houston Chronicle reports an acceleration in principal turnover since the state took over control of the Houston Independent School District and placed non-educator Mike Miles in charge. The principals of nearly 60 schools have resigned or been removed. A military man, Miles was “trained” by the Broad Superintendents Academy. He is imposing standardized curriculum and instruction across the schools he directly controls (called the “New Education System”).

Even the principal of an A-rated school lost his job.

The memos came in one after the other, a laundry list of grievances listing all the ways Federico Hernandez was supposedly failing as principal of Houston ISD’s Middle College High School.

A teacher used Post-It notes rather than index cards during a lesson, according to one complaint from Hernandez’s supervisor. Others allowed students to sit in the back of a classroom or kept a light off during class. Some implemented multiple response strategies, “but not correctly,” read the memo shared with the Houston Chronicle.

Even though the campus run on Houston Community College’s Felix Fraga campus boasts an A-rated academic performance, those were among the infractions that got Hernandez removed from his job less than two months into the school year.

He is one of at least 58 principals who left their schools, involuntarily or otherwise, in 2023 since Superintendent Mike Miles was appointed to his post by the Texas Education Agency on June 1, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of HISD staffing records. After taking into account schools that share a principal, such as Jane Long Academy and Las Americas Newcomer School, or those that recorded multiple changes between June and December, such as Madison High School, the Chronicle confirmed there have been at least 61 leadership changes across 59 campuses…

Erica Harbatkin, an education policy expert at Florida State University who studies principal turnover, said it is not unusual for administrators to reassign principals in an attempt to shake up under-performing schools. They typically don’t do so during the school year, though, because principals need time to plan and coordinate their staff, and “coming in after the school year started… obviously undermines some of those strategies.”

Harbatkin said replacing a principal is one of the quickest ways to effect change at a school, for better or worse.

“The theory of action behind more contemporary school turnaround and improvement policy is that these schools are in this pattern of low performance, and they need something to get them out, some sort of big external shock … and one of the ways that happens is through replacing the principal,” Harbatkin said.

If not done carefully, however, principal turnover can lead to negative effects on student achievement, Harbatkin said. Her research found that principal turnover “is associated with lower test scores, school proficiency rates, and teacher retention.”

“When principals turn over teachers tend to turn over as well, and if that turnover is not well-planned, if there’s not good distributed leadership in the school or someone who can step into the role, that’s likely to make those negative effects even larger,” Harbatkin said.

No one explained the theory or rationale for removing a principal from a high-performing school. Maybe he failed to comply with an order…

Ebony Cumby, who served as principal at Askew Elementary in west Houston for 12 years, resigned within a week of Miles’ appointment after sitting through the first couple days of principal meetings.

“Throughout that period, there were things that I thought were exciting changes that needed to be made in the district, and there were other things that I could foresee being problematic, especially for a district as large as HISD,” Cumby said.

Cumby said she appreciated Miles’ attempts to “bring more consistency” to the district by standardizing the curriculum and other elements, but she was put off by what she described as “a cookie-cutter way of teaching” that she would be expected to enforce. After over two decades at HISD, she ended up leaving public education altogether for another industry.

“I noticed early on that there were things in place that, whether it was intentional or not, were going to take autonomy away from teachers and require them to conform to a certain way of doing things and really take away their creativity, which as a principal was a big deal to me,” Cumby said. “To kind of hear that its ‘our way or the highway’ did not sit well with me.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Disruption, Extremism, Failure, Houston, Principals, Texas

North Carolina: Vouchers for the Rich! Propaganda Wins!

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
6

Thomas Mills, a blogger in North Carolina, describes the hoax of “vouchers for all” in his state. Vouchers began as a way to offer new opportunity to poor kids. But since the General Assembly removed income caps on voucher families, vouchers have become a subsidy for rich kids who never attended public schools. The Republicans who passed universal vouchers knowingly and cynically turned them into a subsidy for the wealthy, a reverse Robin Hood scheme.

Mills writes:

This week, the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program, also known as the voucher scheme, began accepting applications. House Speaker Tim Moore tweeted, “The expanded NC Opportunity Scholarship Program is now open for applications! In fact, the website was so inundated that it crashed at 12:15 am, shortly after going live. Thanks to the NC General Assembly, ALL families of K-12 students are now eligible to apply.”

When Moore says “ALL families,” he’s referring to wealthy families since the legislature eliminated the income cap for the vouchers. The site crashed because North Carolina has so many people already in private schools who now are eligible for state subsidized education. Rich folks who send their children to private schools are about to get a windfall while poor schools are going to lose funding. It’s Robin Hood in reverse.

The whole program is a scam, the epitome of a bait-and-switch. Republicans pushed through their voucher program as a way to level the playing field, offering poor families a way to send their children to private schools when public schools weren’t working for them. Now, they’re saying that families that don’t send their children to public schools shouldn’t have to pay for them. They have dropped any pretense of helping struggling families and moved straight to subsidizing rich people. According to Republicans, rich people have no community obligations.

Let’s be clear. The name “Opportunity Scholarship” is pure propaganda. There are two types of scholarships, need-based and merit-based. Giving vouchers to rich people just because they decide not to send their kids to public schools is a tax break, not a scholarship. And it’s a tax break designed for wealthy people at the expense of poor people.

Republicans are working hard to damage public schools. They fundamentally don’t believe in the responsibility of the state to provide a sound, basic education. They have cut per pupil spending, let teacher pay lag, and reduced support staff in schools. They’ve tried to dictate curriculum to indoctrinate students in a conservative philosophy, all while claiming public schools are brainwashing our kids with left wing ideas. They’ve left us with demoralized teachers and overworked staff and our children are paying the price.

Now, the state Supreme Court is about to get into the act, too. Thirty years ago, a group of students from North Carolina’s poor counties sued the state, claiming that their school systems lacked the funding to provide the quality of education that the state constitution demands. They won their suit and, since that time, the courts have reviewed funding to ensure that poor counties got the money they deserve.

However, with a new court dominated by far-right Republicans, the decision may be overturned. Chief Justice Paul Newby and his band of conservatives justices have not been shy about throwing out precedent, giving new meaning to an activist court. They will decide if the most recent allocation determined by the court will be rescinded. The GOP legislature contends that the court has no business telling the lawmakers how to spend tax dollars.

If the Republicans win, they will have essentially reinterpreted the constitution. Article 9, Section 2 of the constitution reads, “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” Traditionally, the court has interpreted the “uniform system” of “equal opportunities” to mean the quality of education should be as good in poor counties as it is in rich ones. The GOP would render the clause either aspirational or maybe just a suggestion, despite the word “shall.”

The assault on public education in North Carolina is unprecedented and radical. Republicans aren’t just making cuts around the edges. They are changing the way we view public schools and our collective responsibilities. They are shifting resources and increasing the burden of financial responsibility on the poor while reducing the funds from the rich, just like they did with our tax system.

Ironically, the people who suffer the most are the people who make up the GOP base. Rural counties will watch their tax dollars go to wealthy families in urban and suburban areas while their public schools will suffer from increasing lack of revenue. Of course, Republican donors will almost certainly benefit. As they say, partisanship is a helluva drug.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Propaganda, Vouchers

Billy Townsend: America Rejects DeSantis and “the Florida Blueprint”

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2024 //
64

Florida blogger Billy Townsend was delighted to see Ron DeSantis get booted from the Republican primaries after the Iowa caucuses. DeSantis had large ambitions, thinking that the nation wanted his harsh rightwing policies. But he made the mistake of thinking he could run to the right of Trump. There’s no space there.

Billy hopes that voters saw through the hype about “the Florida Blueprint” and DeSantis’s promise to “Make America Florida.”

Before the primaries, in March 2023, he predicted that DeSantis would flounder, and he was right:

The same Florida state “government” of gangsters that destroyed the Florida state education system will invade the United States of America in 2024. Whoever wins this civil war-as-referendum — the gangsters or the country — will control the U.S. Military and federal law enforcement power.

We don’t know who will command Florida’s invasion yet — tiny Emperor Ron DeSantis (with his pseudo VP Jeb Bush) or Florida-ism’s Pope Donald Trump. But it makes no difference. Whoever wins their gross song of ice and fire will then lead Florida’s army of the dead right toward Colorado and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Florida’s political and cultural invasion of the country should be laughable. The Florida “blueprint” has made us a hollowed out shell of a state — pleasantly livable for people with capital (like me) because a few big private interests team up to “govern” our warm spaces enjoyably for customers who can pay. And a few cities, like mine (Lakeland), which is blessed with a money-belching socialist power utility, create a nice and warm urban experience.

But as a state, rather than a vacation destination, retirement home, or temporary crash pad for remote workers and tech bros, we are: extremely high cost, extremely low wage, extremely corrupt, high inflation, nation’s worst education “learning rate,” bad public service, high crime, low birth rate, high and spiking abortion rate, and very very old.

If America fully grasps that Florida Blueprint by 2024, I feel quite certain that we will repulse this absurd invasion-by-mafia. The referendum on Florida should not be a close run affair.

But our worst American billionaires and mouthiest showboating sheriffs like hollowed out states; and they far prefer mafias to unions or citizens mobilized politically around public good.

Florida is their model state for decadent capital cut free from any public oversight, public good, or sense of shared citizenship. And they will try to impose that Florida on everybody else by pretending that Florida is not Florida. Anti-civic capital is often dumb. But it’s heavily armed; and it has great sway — although not total away — over what the public is told.

Crushing Florida’s invasion — explicitly rejecting the failed “Florida Blueprint” at the national level — is crucial to any effort to reform Florida at home. The Florida Blueprint must culminate, in the military sense, as an expansive political force. That’s the sine qua non of Florida’s future…

The MAGA Pope thrashed the Tiny Emperor

Well, MAGA Pope Trump’s GOP smashed the tiny emperor’s irrationally cocky army of Pushaws and private jet jockeys as easily as Trump gropes unwilling women. (Sorry Trumpers, he is who he is. I can’t make your citizenship choices for you. But you will own them. Expect no moral mercy or understanding from me this time around.)

Trump’s formally adjudicated sexual abuse and Capitol Lynch Mob leadership aside, his defenestration of DeSantis is a useful first step. It’s good for Florida and America.

Even better, when America as a whole saw the “Florida Blueprint” personified by Gov. High Heels, America as a whole rejected Gov. Pudding Fingers thoroughly and humiliatingly, with the national contempt growing almost by the moment. Watching DeSantis in the polls has been like watching the Enron stock price circa October 2001 (go Google it, youngs).

Yes, in large part, that’s because he’s personally very weird and off-putting and cruel in the way that people who torture cats are weird and off-putting and cruel.

But it was also because Florida, as a model for America, got a thorough thrashing — including by Trump himself. Of all people, Florida Man Bonesaw Jesus himself attacked the Florida Model of “governing” a week or two after I published my piece.

He sounded just like me. LOL. I’d bet a lot of money his gross people read my stuff.

The GOP primary campaign ended that day, with the Trump campaign’s unanswered dismantling of Florida as an expansive idea. A loooooonnnnnng, slow humiliation ensued, tempered only by extensive luxury travel.

In some ways Trump is now running as the ultimate Florida man — full of gross indulgence and utterly devoid of any concern for the state where he lives. Only a Florida Man would have the chutzpah to run against Florida from Florida when the party he owns has been in power here for a generation…

Anyway, ya’ll will generally share my mirth for now in laughing at DeSanctimonious. We can do that together. Trump gives you permission.

But then you’re all gonna try to convince yourselves it’s fine to line up behind a more senile version of the Zieglers writ large — the Capitol Lynch Mob leader with a terrible economic record, a jury-adjudicated sexual abuser, a criminal openly running on “retribution” and “dictatorship on Day 1,” who you all know would rape your wife and daughter and force them to have an abortion after getting rid of Roe v. Wade.

You’re going to line up meekly and pathetically behind the idol who defiled your religion and turned it against Jesus Christ Himself.

If you are enjoying the news from Florida, open the link and keep reading.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Democracy, DeSantis, Economy, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Trump
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