Last fall, the voters of Arizona rejected vouchers by an overwhelming vote.
But the Koch brothers and devious Doug Ducey are not giving up. They slipped through an innocuous bill to thwart the will of the people.
Stop them!
From: “Save Our Schools Arizona” <info@sosarizona.org>
Date: May 1, 2019 at 8:16:11 PM MST
To: “Barbara Veltri” <barbvbtv@aol.com>
Subject: 🚨🚨🚨 Red Alert: Stealth bill SB 1349 needs IMMEDIATE opposition
Reply-To: info@sosarizona.org
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The Washington Post FactChecker Glenn Kessler and his team announced today that Trump had passed a total of 10,000 lies. That is a record, even for him! And he still has another 20 months to go in his term!
It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.
But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.
This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.
It seems that the longer he is in the White House, the easier it is to say whatever he wants, without bothering to discern whether it has any factual basis.
Also, he has gotten rid of anyone who restrained his impulse to lie or distort the facts, like General Kelly.
About one-fifth of the president’s claims are about immigration issues, a percentage that has grown since the government shutdown over funding for his promised border wall. In fact, his most repeated claim — 160 times — is that his border wall is being built. Congress balked at funding the concrete wall he envisioned, and so he has tried to pitch bollard fencing and repairs of existing barriers as “a wall.”
Trump’s penchant for repeating false claims is demonstrated by the fact that The Fact Checker database has recorded nearly 300 instances when the president has repeated a variation of the same claim at least three times. He also now has earned 21 “Bottomless Pinocchios,” claims that have earned Three or Four Pinocchios and which have been repeated at least 20 times.
About a fifth of his lies are told at his campaign rallies, where he gets up without a speech and riffs on whatever crosses his mind, whatever makes him angry, free associates about his enemies and critics and alleged accomplishments.
When the president of the United States lies wantonly and when he calls the press “the enemy of the people,” you can see we are on a downward trajectory in which there are no truths and no objective facts, whom do you believe? George Orwell wrote about this phenomenon.
Orwell wrote in his essay, “Looking Back on the Spanish War”:
I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. In the past, people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously colored what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that “the facts” existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost anyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be a body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as “Science”. There is only “German Science,” “Jewish Science,” etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened” — well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs — and after our experiences of the last few years that is not such a frivolous statement.
Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education. She is a lifelong educator, first a teacher of Spanish, then an award-winning principal of a high school in New York.
She writes here to explain briefly why charter schools are unnecessary and are not public schools.
“When I was a high school principal, I also ran an alternative school called The Greenhouse. It was small–its average enrollment was 17 students. The students were older–juniors or seniors–who were credit-deficient or who, for personal reasons, needed an alternative setting.
Governor Bill Lee has proposed a voucher program. Teachers and parents are outraged. —but not enough of them.
When the bill moved from the House to the Senate, the number of vouchers were doubled to 30,000.
The money for vouchers will be subtracted from public schools, which educate 90% of the children of Tennessee. Expect more segregation, more bigotry, more children taught by uncertified teachers, more state-sponsored ignorance of science and history. Expect budget cuts in public schools, larger classes, no money for higher salaries, layoffs for teachers, school nurses, librarians, counselors, the arts.
Betsy DeVos visited Tennessee last week to promote vouchers, and she flatly lied about Florida’s test scores, which are mediocre. She claimed that achievement in Florida had gone up because of the $3 billion that the state spends each year on vouchers and charters. Not true. Surely she is well aware of the voucher studies in D.C., Milwaukee, Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana showing that students who use vouchers do no better or much worse in school than their peers who remain in public schools.
Florida’s performance on NAEP is mediocre, except for fourth grade, where scores are artificially inflated by the state policy of holding back low-scoring third graders.
Quote of the day:
“‘We don’t have the luxury of worrying about a handful of children,” said Knox County teacher Lauren Hobson, speaking to another crowd assembled by the Tennessee Democratic Party. “We have to worry about the 90% of the children across the country left in schools with us.”
“Hobson and other critics believe underfunding is the real battle in public schools.
“‘Our legislators actually have a constitutional duty in Tennessee to maintain and support a public education,” she said. “They have no duty to support private education.’”
Read that last line again. She is right. Republican legislators in Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, and other states are ignoring their constitutional duty “to maintain and support public education,” not private schools.
Sally Yates was Deputy Attorney General from 2015-2017. In this article in the Washington Post, she argues that Attorney General William Barr should release the full Mueller Report as soon as possible, without redactions.
She writes:
“America’s justice system is built upon one thing — truth. When witnesses give testimony, they are sworn to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The word “verdict” derives from the Latin term “veredictum,” meaning “to say the truth.” Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a public servant with impeccable integrity, was entrusted to find the truth regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election and has spoken through a comprehensive report that details the facts that he uncovered.
“Yet a week after Mueller issued his report, we don’t know those facts and have only been provided with Attorney General William P. Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s estimated 400-page report. It is time for the American people to hear the whole truth. We need to see the report itself.
“First, as the attorney general’s letter to Congress notes, the Mueller report “outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts.” Congress has a solemn responsibility to protect our democracy. Without access to the full factual record of what the special counsel uncovered, it cannot fulfill that mandate. As you read this, the Russian government is undoubtedly hard at work to undermine our next election. Each day that passes without Congress having access to the full Mueller report is a day that Congress is prevented from doing its job of keeping our elections free from Russian espionage efforts.
“Second, Barr’s letter leaves important questions unanswered concerning what then-candidate Donald Trump and his associates knew about Russian interference, and how they responded to Russian overtures to assist the campaign. While Barr’s letter states that the investigation did not establish that the campaign reached an agreement with the Russian government to take actions to impact the election in Trump’s favor, it reveals that the campaign did field “multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.” Yet President Trump and others have repeatedly claimed that they had no contact with Russians, or knowledge that Russians were acting to assist his campaign. Moreover, the Trump campaign did not bring the Russian outreach to the attention of law enforcement but secretly allowed a foreign adversary’s assistance. Remarkably, after the release of the Barr letter — which makes it undeniable that the Russians were seeking to help the Trump campaign — the president still denies it. Why?”
Nor can Congress or the public make an informed judgment about Trump’s role in obstructing Justice without seeing the report.
Barr should not take it upon himself to redact (delete) the passages of his choosing.
I wrote a post about my very pleasant experience meeting the wonderful, charming, brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Jackson Heights, and I described her as “warm, comfortable in her skin, somewhat taken aback by her sudden fame, and unpretentious.” I said that she paid attention, and that she came to listen and learn. Everyone at the meeting was thrilled to meet her, and she took the time to shake hands, take selfies, and give generously of herself to all of the people who crowded in to meet her. She is a superstar, deservedly.
I noted that “It was a bit jarring to hear AOC say that she was treated in the Yorktown schools as in need of remedial education because she was Hispanic, not mainstream, but, she said, “a-high-stakes standardized Test” revealed she was in the 99th percentile. No one stopped to point out that she could not be referring to any high-stakes test used for accountability purposes because they don’t rank by percentile. They classify students as 1, 2, 3, or 4. Her teacher must have given her a no-stakes individual test that produces a percentile ranking for diagnostic purposes. Well, she can’t know everything about everything. None of us do.” I was not criticizing her but pointing out that she probably took an Iowa test or some other kind of test that gives percentile rankings, which NCLB tests do not. When you are a student, when you are in elementary school, you are not likely to know what kind of test you are taking, whether it is an Iowa test or a Pearson test or some other kind of test.
Imagine how surprised I was to see that a number of right-wing blogs claimed that I accused AOC of “lying.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
This one is titled “Ocasio-Cortez Lied About Her Test Scores to a Public Education Group.”
This was picked up by another blog.
And yet another blog, which attacked me too, for my writings about Afrocentrism from nearly 30 years ago.
And yet another blog, called “Liberty Redux.”
This one was titled “Did Ocasio-Cortez Lie about Her Test Scores at Anti-Charter School Rally?”
This was repeated by another blog.
Probably it is continuing to spread through the fevered nether regions of the blogosphere, where mud-slinging is commonplace.
All of them made the false claim that I accused AOC of lying, which I did not. I said that she may have confused one kind of test for another, which is a mistake that any elementary school child might make. That is not a lie. NCLB state tests are not reported in percentiles, but as 1, 2, 3, 4, or below basic, basic, proficient, advanced.
All of these blogs somehow managed to find unflattering pictures of AOC, which is not easy because she is a very beautiful young woman.
Let me say this as clearly as possible so there is no misunderstanding.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez DID NOT LIE ABOUT HER TEST SCORES. AOC said that some of her teachers believed she was in need of remedial education until she took a standardized test in which she scored in the 99th percentile. I believe her. She is a brilliant young woman.
Her honesty, her integrity, her sincerity, and her genuine concern for other people shines through her.
I am old enough to be AOC’s grandmother, and I am proud to have met her. She is a shining example of the best in America.
The people who write these mendacious, lying blogs do not have the credibility to shine AOC’s shoes.
They are liars.
They are sycophants of the far-right.
They can do me a favor and not read my blog in the future.
They are spam and they will stay spam.
Paul Thomas of Furman University in South Carolina reminds us that “the crisis in reading” is a staple of American educational history. Every generation complains that young kids are not learning to read.it began long before Rudolf Flesch’s best seller “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in the 1950s.
Jeanne Chall, Reading specialist at Harvard and experienced kindergarten teacher, explored the mystery of reading in her book “Learning to Read: The Great Debate,” 1967, where she recommended early use of phonics, them a transition to engaging reading.
The National Reading Panel (1997) popularized the idea of a “science of reading,” and the myth refuses to die.NCLB codified it into law, but the “crisis” persisted.
Thomas exposes The Big Lie.
Mississippi is the latest example of a state falsely claiming that it has used the “science of reading” to raise scores.
Mississippi hasn’t broken the code. Neither has Florida.
Thomas writes:
“The “science of reading” mantra is a Big Lie, but it is also a huge and costly distraction from some real problems.
“Relatively affluent states still tend to score above average or average on reading tests; relatively poor states tend to score below average on reading tests.
“Some states that historically scored low, under the weight of poverty and the consequences of conservative political ideology that refuses to address that poverty, have begun to implement harmful policies to raise test scores (see the magenta highlighting) in the short-term for political points.
“It is 2019. There is no reading crisis in the way the “science of reading” advocates are claiming.
“It is 2019. Balanced literacy is the science of reading, but it is not the most common way teachers are teaching reading because schools are almost exclusively trying to raise scores, not students who are eager, joyful, and critical readers.
“It is 2019. Political and public efforts to do anything—often the wrong thing—so no one addresses poverty remain the American Way.
“It is 2019. It is still mostly about poverty when people insist it is about reading and reading policy.”
Remember the stories about the long waiting lists to get into charters?
Baloney.
In Los Angeles, more than 80% of all charter schools have vacancies.
Yet the billionaires are still spending to try to open more charters, in the absence of need or demand.
Please read this article in California-based Capital & Main, which contains a fascinating statistical analysis of charter school saturation.
The evidence suggests, writes Larry Buhl, that charter schools are now stealing students not only from public schools but from other charter schools.
Total student enrollment across the Los Angeles Unified School District has been declining for years, due partly to the high cost of living, which is pushing out families from the city. The latest LAUSD Superintendent Budget showed an overall enrollment decline of approximately 100,000 K-12 students districtwide — at the same time enrollment in charter schools increased dramatically over the past 14 years.
According to the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), 118,820 students are being served at 249 charter schools throughout LAUSD. The CCSA also reports that there are more than 16,000 students on a wait list for charters authorized by LAUSD, and nearly 20,000 on wait lists for all charters in greater Los Angeles. The waitlist estimates are based on reported counts given by charter leaders; CCSA says that its estimates take into account duplicate students applying to multiple schools.
Unless there are a few standout charters that every student is applying to, those wait list figures are hard to square with district data that show widespread under-enrollment across LAUSD charters.
A November 2018 LAUSD interoffice memorandum on charter school enrollment showed that more than 80 percent of the 224 district-authorized independent charter schools were under-enrolled:
* * *
With more charters chasing fewer students, marketing and outreach have become increasingly crucial to enrollment.
More money for marketing means less money for instruction. This is insane. It is very expensive and wasteful to maintain a dual school system.
Want to know which charter schools failed to meet their enrollment target. Look here.
During last spring’s historic teacher walkout in West Virginia, which closed every school in the state, Governor Jim Justice promised to block charter legislation.
He lied.
The legislature is set to pass both charters and vouchers.
Trachers in charters won’t need certification. Vouchers will include home schooling. Both bills mean less funding for the state’s underfunded public schools.
Gov. Justice could veto the bill but would it have gotten this far without his support?
He lied.
Diane Ravitch's blog 