The Man Who Dared to Challenge Putin

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2022 //
46

One man tried to stop Vladimir Putin.

His name was Boris Nemtsov. He formed a new political party and planned to run against Putin.

In 2015, he was assassinated. New information reported by the BBC funds that he was followed by members of Russia’s security squad, who murdered him only days before he planned to lead a public protest against Putin.

Here is his Wikipedia entry:

Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov (Russian: Борис Ефимович Немцов, IPA: [bɐˈrʲis jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ nʲɪmˈtsof]; 9 October 1959 – 27 February 2015) was a Russian physicist and liberal politician. He was involved in the introduction of reforms into the Russian post-Soviet economy.[4] In the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, he was the first governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (1991–97). Later he worked in the government of Russia as Minister of Fuel and Energy (1997), Vice Premier of Russia and Security Council member from 1997 to 1998. In 1998, he founded the Young Russia movement. In 1998, he co-founded the coalition group Right Cause and in 1999, he co-formed Union of Right Forces, an electoral bloc and subsequently a political party. Nemtsov was also a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies (1990), Federation Council (1993–97) and State Duma (1999–2003).

From 2000 until his death, he was an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He criticized Putin’s government as an increasingly authoritarian, undemocratic regime, highlighting widespread embezzlement and profiteering ahead of the Sochi Olympics, and Russian political interference and military involvement in Ukraine.[5][6] After 2008, Nemtsov published in-depth reports detailing the corruption under Putin, which he connected directly with the President. As part of the same political struggle, Nemtsov was an active organizer of and participant in Dissenters’ Marches, Strategy-31 civil actions and rallies “For Fair Elections”.

Nemtsov was assassinated on 27 February 2015, beside his Ukrainian partner Anna Durytska, on a bridge near the Kremlin in Moscow,[7][8] with four shots fired from the back.[9] At the time of his assassination, he was in Moscow helping to organize a rally against the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and the Russian financial crisis. At the same time, he was working on a report demonstrating that Russian troops were fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, which the Kremlin had been denying, and was unpopular externally but also in Russia.[10] In the weeks before his death, he expressed fear that Putin would have him killed.[11][12] In late June 2017, five Chechnya-born men were found guilty by a jury in a Moscow court for agreeing to kill Nemtsov in exchange for 15 million rubles (US$253,000); neither the identity nor whereabouts of the person who hired them is officially known.[13]

After Nemtsov’s murder, Serge Schmemann of The New York Times paid tribute to him in an article headlined “A Reformer Who Never Backed Down.” Schmemann wrote: “Tall, handsome, witty and irreverent, Mr. Nemtsov was one of the brilliant young men who burst onto the Russian stage at that exciting moment when Communist rule collapsed and a new era seemed imminent.”[14] Julia Ioffe, writing for The New York Times, described Nemtsov after his death as “a powerful, vigorous critic of Vladimir Putin”, who was “a deeply intelligent, witty, kind and ubiquitous man” who “seemed to genuinely be everyone’s friend”.[15]

Who would have wanted him dead?

Categories History, International

Steve Ruis: There Are Lies and There Are Breitbart Lies

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2022 //
20

Steve Ruis doesn’t like lies. And he understands that some lies are worse than others. This Breitbart lie, he writes, is a giant whopper.

A young man tragically took his life in Virginia. His mother went to the local school board and said he killed himself because of COVID isolation and “critical race theory.” Breitbart said so.

But what Breitbart did not say was that the young man graduated high school before COVID closed it down. And that CRT was not taught in his school.

And there is more.

Categories Accountability, Lies, Race, Virginia

National Education Policy Center: Vouchers Do Not Save Money

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2022 //
15

Recently, a pro-voucher organization released a report claiming that vouchers save money. The National Education Policy Center assigned the report to two scholars, and they found that the report’s claims were untrue. In addition, numerous studies have shown that students who use vouchers are likely to fall behind their peers in public schools, especially in mathematics. If you care about educating the next generation, vouchers are a big step backward.

BOULDER, CO (March 15, 2022)—A recent report from EdChoice argues for expansion of policies that publicly fund private schools, contending that private schools could provide equal or better outcomes at lesser cost. A review released today examines the report’s methodology to determine the soundness of its claims, and it finds the cost-saving estimates to be based on unsubstantiated assumptions.
Luis A. Huerta and Steven Koutsavlis of Teachers College, Columbia University reviewed Fiscal Effects of School Choice: Analyzing the Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America, and found its accounting procedures to be based on conjecture.

The report asserts that voucher and voucher-like (tax credit scholarship and education savings account) programs have saved state and local treasuries some $12.4 to $28.3 billion dollars as student “switchers” use those programs to leave public schools and enter private schools. The report claims that the purported savings result from the lower numbers of students in public schools coupled with lower variable per-student costs.

However, Huerta and Koutsavlis point out that the cost-saving estimates of private school choice programs are based on speculative assumptions. In particular, the report guesses in estimating the number of switchers across programs and for determining resulting variable cost fluctuations. With some limited exceptions, states operating these private-school subsidy programs do not track the previous enrollment status of students who use the vouchers to subsidize their enrollment in private schools. Such lax accountability standards mean that the number of switchers and estimated fiscal savings are necessarily based on conjecture.

Consequently, the report’s findings do not provide a sound base for policy decisions. Huerta and Koutsavlis provide suggestions for more detailed accounting procedures and more nuanced methodologies for calculating reliable variable student costs.


Find the review, by Luis A. Huerta and Steven Koutsavlis, at:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/fiscal-effects
Find Fiscal Effects of School Choice: Analyzing the Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America, written by Martin Lueken and published by EdChoice, at:
https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Fiscal-Effects-of-School-Choice-WEB-reduced.pdf

Categories Education Industry, Funding, National Education Policy Center, Vouchers

“Vouchers Hurt Ohio”

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2022 //
12

More than 100 school districts in Ohio have joined a lawsuit against the state of Ohio opposing vouchers.

Bill Phillis, former deputy superintendent of the Ohio Department of Education, now leads a pro-public school advocacy group called the Ohio Coalition of Equity and Adequacy. He and a new group called “Vouchers Hurt Ohio” have organized the campaign to have the voucher program declared unconstitutional. This is their website.

Bill Phillis posted this description of the lawsuit when it was filed in court in Ohio in early January:

Vouchers Hurt Ohio and Ohio E&A Coalition

File Lawsuit Against Private School Voucher Program

COLUMBUS – A coalition of public school districts filed a lawsuit today in Franklin County Common Pleas court challenging the constitutionality of the rapidly growing private school voucher program that is siphoning away hundreds of millions of dollars from public school students, teachers, classrooms and communities.

Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice and current Columbus City Schools board member Eric Brown said the lawsuit asks the judicial system a simple, but critical question:

“Where does the Ohio General Assembly get the power to fund private school vouchers? That power is nowhere to be found in the Ohio Constitution. In fact, the Ohio Constitution forbids it. Lawmakers have the authority and responsibility to fund “a” system of “common schools,” with common standards and resources for all of Ohio’s taxpayers, parents, and students,” Brown said at a press conference today outlining the lawsuit.

“Funding schools that aren’t for everybody is not the business of the Ohio General Assembly, and it is not the responsibility of Ohio taxpayers to pay for these private schools,” Brown said. “The Ohio General Assembly either knows they are violating the Ohio Constitution and doesn’t care or the members who support expanding the private school vouchers need a history lesson themselves.”

William L. Phillis, executive director for the Coalition of Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, was instrumental in leading the successful court challenge to the way Ohio pays for public schools during the ‘90s.

“The DeRolph school funding lawsuit was the case of the 20th century. The EdChoice private school voucher lawsuit we filed today is destined to be the case of the 21st Century,” Phillis said. “In fact, the private school voucher system is siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars from an already underfunded system of public schools. The legislature and the governor are putting our state and our public school children at risk and they admit it.”

Nneka Jackson, a school board member with the Richmond Heights School District in Cuyahoga County, said private school vouchers are making school segregation in Ohio worse, not better.

“If someone tells you this is about helping poor minority children, hook them up to a lie detector test asap and stand back because the sparks are going to fly,” Jackson said.

“About 40 percent of Richmond Heights residents are white. Before the EdChoice private school voucher program, about 26 percent of the students in the Richmond Heights School District were white and 74 percent were students of color. Today, after EdChoice, Richmond Heights is three percent white and 97 percent students of color,” Jackson said.

“Private schools are allowed to discriminate, plain and simple, based on disability, disciplinary records, academic standings, religion and financial status. These are often proxies for race and other protected characteristics. Ohio is essentially engaged in state-sponsored discrimination in admissions and retention. You know who can’t do this? Public schools. Common schools,” Jackson said.

Dan Heintz, a school board member in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, said his district lost more than $27 million to private school vouchers, and this forced voters to pass two levies to raise property taxes.

Heintz said 95 percent of our EdChoice voucher users have never been enrolled in one of our schools. 

“So, contrary to the narrative, these families aren’t fleeing a failing school.”The only thing they’re fleeing is a tuition bill. A private school tuition bill that is now being paid by Ohio taxpayers,” Heintz said.

Eric Resnick, a school board member for Canton City Schools in Stark County, said high school students receive a $7,500 voucher while public school students receive far less from the state in basic education funding.

There is no truth to the claim by voucher proponents that “the money follows the student,” Resnick said. “To those who say the money should follow the student, I ask why the discrepancy? Why should voucher students get $7,500 and some public school students get one-fifth or less than that amount? If the money was truly following the student, then each public school student would also receive $7,500.”

The complaint can be read here.

School districts in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition can be found here.

The E&A Coalition is working with Vouchers Hurt Ohio, a growing coalition of public school districts that have come together to sue the state over the unconstitutional and harmful private school voucher program. Vouchers Hurt Ohio now has nearly 100 member school districts in 47 of Ohio’s 88 counties that open their doors wide and welcoming to more than 250,000 public school students.

This is Jan Resseger’s commentary about the lawsuit.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Ohio, Resistance, Vouchers

The Delights of Vacationing in Mexico City

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2022 //
35

As you read this, I am boarding a flight from Mexico City to New York City. I have been here for a week with my partner and our 15-year-old grandson. Two years ago, we planned to take the same trip in mid-March 2020. It was our gift for his bar mitzvah. But the week we were supposed to fly to Mexico City, COVID shut down everything, including our flight and hotel.

We stayed in a centrally located hotel, from which we could walk to several museums. Our first day we went to the National Anthropolical Museum, where we learned about the Mayans, the Olmec, and the Aztecs. We saw numerous examples of their art, which was breathtaking.

Over the course of the week, we visited Frida Kahlo’s house, Diego Rivera’s home and studio, saw the breathtaking Rivera murals on the walls of the National Secretariat of Education. Because of my interest in history, I was especially eager to visit the home of Leon Trotsky, where he was brutally assassinated by a Stalin secret agent. Trotsky was always on the run because Stalin wanted him dead. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo had offered Trotsky refuge, but after his death, gave their allegiance to Stalin.

We toured the home of the great Mexican architect Luis Barrigan. I think my favorite place was the National Museum of Belles Artes, which displays magnificent murals in an elegant Art Moderne space. The building itself is a work of art.

And we visited much much more. Every night we had wonderful meals.

One interesting fact: Mexico City has a strict mask mandate. Most people wear masks outside as well as indoors. When you enter any public space, a guard checks your temperature (your head or neck or wrist).

I leave with a sense of the deep and abiding cultural pride of the Mexican people. They are connected to their past. They have a beautiful culture. The parks are magnificent and carefully tended. The public places are stunning. My grandson had the best bar mitzvah gift ever. An unforgettable experience.

Categories Personal

Frank Breslin: Why the Framers Wanted Separation of Church and State

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2022 //
23

Frank Breslin is a retired teacher in New Jersey who taught English, social studies, Latin, and German.

He wrote recently in Church & State magazine about why the Framers of the Constitution wanted separation of church and state. His article reminded me of a Tom Lehrer song in which he sang, “The Catholics hate the Protestants, the Protestants hate the Catholics, and everyone hates the Jews.” Tom Lehrer was a singer, composer, and mathematician who was popular in my college years.

He writes:

We have a long tradition in Am­erica of separation of church and state that prohi­bits government’s promotion of religion on the one hand, and interference with its free exercise on the other.

In their refusal to establish a state church or to favor one religion over another, the Founding Fathers didn’t think that religion was bad but that there was something amiss in human nature, a certain tendency, a will to power and a lust for domination, that always bore watching. It was a virus that lay dormant until its host came to power, whereupon that person or group became suddenly rabid with a mania that sought to convert, punish or persecute anyone not of their fold or persuasion. Paradoxically, the guise under which this malady manifested itself, as the history of Europe made only too plain, was religion.

The Founders thought that religion, something good in itself, could be used toward either good or bad ends, and, unless preventive measures were taken, could induce in the susceptible a madness so malignant and vicious as to destroy the very essence of religion itself. By per­secuting whoever refused to accept their religion or whose lives were deemed insufficiently righteous, those in power could impose a religious tyranny so suffocating in its grip, scope and intensity that one involuntarily thinks of barbed wire and concentration camps.

Various theories have tried to account for this bizarre aberration – the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the ascent of man from beasts, innate human depravity, the Freudian “id,” defective genes or bad social engineering.

But more important than those theories themselves is the lesson to be drawn from those institutions that promise heaven on earth. Given the weak human vessels in which this religious feeling resides, even this noble sentiment could become tragically twisted and unleash on the world unspeakable horror. Immanuel Kant’s words come to mind when considering such would-be utopians and their spiritual gulags: “Nothing was ever made straight with the crooked timber of humanity.”

In government, the need for transparency, accountability and investigative journalists – assuming they haven’t been censored, ban­­ned, imprisoned or shot – is not a casual suggestion, but the sine qua non for maintaining even a pretense of institutional integrity. Human nature is self-contradictory and prone to temptation, especially when the camera’s not running or the press isn’t present. And, no matter the institution, it’s always wise to audit the books – both the official ones and the real ones hidden in the back-office safe.

Politicians, as the saying goes, campaign in poetry but govern in prose, so that we had better distrust whatever they’re saying and doing by an ironclad system of checks and balances, fact-checking and vigilant oversight. As soon as they pass a law, they’ll invite a lobbyist to insert a loophole, recalling Juvenal’s admonition, “Who shall guard the guards themselves?”

Even religion can be dragged in the mire by persecuting those of another faith or of no faith at all until, weakened by torture, the unfortunates would end their suffering by conversion or death. So, to prevent these abuses of power as had occurred in Old Europe when Catholics persecuted Protestants, Protestants persecuted Catholics, Protestants persecuted other Protestants and both Protestants and Catholics persecuted the Jews, the Founders erected a “wall of separation” between church and state as a safeguard against such outrages.

They wanted to put an end to intolerance, bigotry and sadism that wore the flattering garb of religion and spoke in the sanctimonious accents of self-promotion. They believed that what they were doing was ushering something new into this world, novus ordo seculorum or “a new order of the ages” (see the back of a one-dollar bill). America was to be a radically new experiment in government which, like ancient Athens, would show the world that free men had no need of princes and kings but could govern themselves. No wonder the royal courts of Europe hoped this fledgling experiment wouldn’t succeed lest the contagion of democracy spread to their people.

Please open the link to read the rest of the article.

Categories History, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Arizona: School Choice Allies Back Funding Overhaul to Benefit Charters, Hurt Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2022 //
8

Whenever the school choice lobby in Arizona submits a new bill, you can be sure it will help charter schools, not public schools. As the legislative session winds down, a bill has been introduced to change the state’s funding formula. Charter schools would benefit, but many public schools, especially rural schools, would lose..

Mary Jo Pitzl writes in the Arizona Republic:

A major overhaul of school funding in the name of equitable treatment for all students is making a late debut at the Legislature, drawing complaints that it’s a hasty effort to make significant policy changes that affect half of the state’s $14 billion budget.

The 101-page plan will get its first public airing next week, a week after most committee hearings have wrapped up for the year.

At its core, the bill would increase the base amount of money the state provides for public K-12 schools, while eliminating a number of funding programs that benefit only school districts.

All charter schools, which are public schools, would benefit from the increase, while district-run schools would see a mix of winners and losers, according to an analysis from the Legislature’s budget office. Early estimates are 121 school districts would lose money, primarily in rural Arizona.

The plan proposes an additional $215 million for the state’s K-12 system in exchange for ending programs that benefit district schools, such as more money for experienced teachers. It also would convert Arizona’s program that rewards schools that score high on the state’s achievement tests into a permanent program that, estimates show, benefit higher-income areas at a much greater rate than school districts with higher poverty rates…

Key education lawmaker not in loop

State Rep. Michelle Udall, R-Mesa, is the author of a strike-everything amendment to Senate Bill 1269 that would create the new funding program. The bill builds on a study released last month by A for Arizona, a nonprofit that is a proponent of school choice and the growing charter-school movement.

“This isn’t suddenly brand new language,” Udall said, who is chairwoman of the House Education Committee. She has worked on the plan since October, she said, although traditional education groups such as the Arizona School Administrators and the Arizona Education Association only learned of it in mid-March.

State Sen. Paul Boyer, Udall’s counterpart at the state Senate, learned of the proposal from a reporter.

“If they were smart, they’d know that one vote makes a difference,” Boyer, R-Glendale, said of the bill’s proponents. That’s a reference to the one-vote margin Republicans hold in both the House and Senate, making every GOP vote vital. Boyer has not been shy about breaking from party ranks, a move which has killed numerous bills due to unified Democratic opposition.

Boyer said he has no idea what the bill says and cautioned against the Legislature moving too quickly. All people have to do is look at the mess lawmakers created earlier this month, he said, when they approved a bill that eliminated the election of political party precinct committee members, setting off a backlash that took a lawsuit to resolve.

Other groups, watching from the outside, said they’re alarmed at the seeming rush to make a change halfway through the legislative session.

“That’s the biggest red flag I have,” said David Lujan president and CEO of the Arizona Children’s Action Alliance. “They are trying to put forward major changes to school funding with very little input.”

An idea long discussed

Matt Simon, vice president of advocacy and government affairs for Great Leaders, Strong Schools, a school-choice organization, said components of the bill were long in the making….

“This isn’t the surprise they’re making it out to be,” Simon said of critics. Besides, it’s past time to update Arizona’s 42-year-old school finance system, which was created before charter schools existed and before Arizona became a leading school-choice state.

Besides, he said, when the “alphabets” (shorthand for groups such as the Arizona School Boards Association, the AEA and others) propose education measures, they cost millions of dollars. By tailoring school funding to the student, rather than a system, Simon said funding can even out over a five-year period as aspects of the bill are phased in…

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Inequity

Florida: Charter School Leader Convicted of Embezzling Nearly $400,000

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2022 //
17

You have to say this about Florida: the Republican leadership is not deterred by the theft of public funds. No matter how many charter school scandals are exposed, no matter how many charter leaders are convicted of theft, Florida continues to pour money into charters.

In the latest scandal, a charter leader was convicted of misappropriatfing nearly $400,000.

MIAMI — A former Florida charter school president was found guilty of embezzling nearly $400,000 by diverting school funds to pay for personal items, federal prosecutors said.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Jimika Williams was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury on two counts of theft of federal funds and 18 counts of wire fraud after a trial in Miami that lasted more than a week.

Williams was the president of Advancement of Education in Scholars Corporation, a Florida nonprofit organization that operated Paramount Charter School in Sunrise, the Sun-Sentinel reported. The school closed permanently in 2017, the newspaper reported. Williams was also the president of Florida Scholars Educational Services Corporation, prosecutors said.https://d-3952898977172872826.ampproject.net/2203101844000/frame.html

The school had received funding through Title 1, which is paid to a school if more than 50% of the students are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunches, according to the news release. The charter school also received state funding, which was paid through the School Board of Broward County.

Prosecutors charged that Williams transferred funds from the school’s bank account to an FSESC account, according to the news release.

The news release stated that Williams “unlawfully enriched” herself between 2015 and June 2107 by transferring $389,857 to use for personal purchases, including payments for a vehicle, a private school and other personal expenses.

The cash was also used to pay rent at a lavish Davie home, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, Scandal

Kentucky: Charter Bill Rises from the Dead, Like a Zombie

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2022 //
9

Gay Adelmann, a tenacious champion of public schools in Kentucky, especially Jefferson County Louisville) reports here on the effort by Republicans to pass funding for charter schools.

She writes:

Hello friends,

I regret to inform you that the harmful charter school legislation that we’ve managed to stave off in Kentucky since 2017, (https://www.wdrb.com/news/education/revised-version-of-charter-schools-bill-passes-kentucky-house-and-senate/article_f77f2afe-203c-56aa-9b0a-a2ac6c66eec0.html) was rumored to be awakened from the dead on March 15, and sure enough, at 8:11 PM on March 21, we learned that the Kracken would be unleashed from a different committee than it was originally assigned to at 8 AM on March 22 – with less than 12 hours’ notice.

Charters have technically been the law of the land since the bill passed on the last day of session in 2017, but not one charter school had ever opened in Kentucky because they lacked the funding mechanism, or a way for “the money to follow the child.” All that changes if House Bill 9 passes this year, where it only needs a simple majority vote because 2022 is a budget year. It passed out of Committee with ease, with the chair herself safely voting “no” to appease her base, despite every speaker who showed up for that early morning meeting having spoken against the bill. Almost as if it was a bad movie, on Tuesday evening, HB9 passed the full House by one vote.

If those maneuvers weren’t suspect enough, there were some last-minute committee member swaps and peculiar posturing from the House Education Chair herself that raised some eyebrows and even got a mention from a couple of other Representatives. And, I mean, if you’re truly opposed to charters, as we’re supposed to assume by the House Education Committee’s chair Regina Huff’s “no” vote, why did you agree to bring it out of committee in the first place? Are you playing games with our children’s lives and educational outcomes and opportunities? Especially with bills that are proven to be harmful to the very children you pretend you are trying to help?

One of Tuesday night’s “Yes” votes on the House Floor (one could argue a “deciding vote” came from KY House Representative Jason Nemes, one of Kentucky’s most controversial House Representatives, who consistently earns the teachers’ union’s endorsement, despite consistently voting against teachers and students, and especially our students of color, EVERY SINGLE CHANCE HE GETS. Good news, there’s an amazing public school champion running against him in the November election. Her name is Kate Turner, and she can be found explaining her positions on charter schools and dozens of other issues on her TikTok channel here: (https://www.tiktok.com/@kateforkentucky).

I wrote this piece regarding these events, which was published in Forward KY. Please share.

https://forwardky.com/more-charter-bill-badness-call-now/

I also did this interview with a station out of Cincinnati/Northern KY.

Charter school funding bill clears Kentucky House, heads to Senate | WKRC (local12.com)

The bill will be heard in a specially called Senate Education Committee meeting on Monday at 3 PM and, if it passes, most likely will head to the Senate Floor when they gavel in on Tuesday at 1 PM. Calling and emailing them doesn’t work. We have to show up. We almost shut them down in 2018, but since we didn’t finish the job, we have to show up Monday and Tuesday.

Entrenched white “allied” union leaders that accused some of their own members of participating in “rogue groups” and “spreading disinformation” (https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/education/2019/03/27/jcps-unions-tell-members-ignore-misinformation-rogue-advocacy-groups/3287669002/) in years past, and even had one of their lackeys write this piece that told everyone why they should not sick out on the last day of 2019’s legislative session (“JCPS sickout: Teacher says it’s not necessary for one (courier-journal.com)and not fight for pensions and for the profession, have been relatively silent this go around. What did we expect when they’ve spent more energy fighting us than they ever did privatizers? It’s almost as if they’re working for dark money groups instead of those who pay for their representation. Since ALEC and McConnell’s dark money seems to have infiltrated every nook and cranny of Kentucky’s education advocacy and communication infrastructure, we sure could use some national attention on this travesty. Our primaries are May 17 and we have a lot of people we need to replace this November, including Rand Paul (Charles Booker for KY).

#AllEyesOnKentucky #NowAreYouStartingToGetIt? #StopChartersInKY

Thanks everyone!

#KeepGoing

Gay

www.dearjcps.com

www.saveourschoolsky.org

502-565-8397

Breonna Taylor was a JCPS Graduate. We demand justice for Breonna and ALL Black JCPS Students and Educators.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Kentucky, Privatization

Shakespearean Troupe Performs in Rural West Virginia, Bringing the Bard to His Roots in Popular Culture

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2022 //
17

John W. Miller of The Daily Yonder writes about a phenomenal troupe of actors who are devoted to bringing Shakespeare to rural America, not as “cultural saviors,” but as people who love the works of the Bard. Remember that Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed. In 19th century America, actors brought Shakespeare plays and scenes to small towns, and sometimes performed in local taverns to enthusiastic audiences who knew the plays well enough to throw tomatoes when the actors messed up their lines. In his important study of Shakespeare and American popular culture, historian Lawrence W. Levine reminds us of the two rogues in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn who “pass themselves off as a duke and a king,” and plan to raise money by performing scenes from Romeo and Juliet and Richard III. The troupe described here are not rogues and they do know their lines.

Miller writes:

Jason Young, co-founder of West Virginia’s only touring Shakespeare troupe, rejects the notion that his group, the Rustic Mechanicals, might be playing the role of savior bringing culture to small-town rubes. 

In his view, the Bard already belongs to rural America, because he, as a small-town West Virginian, belongs to rural America. 

“We do this because we are the hicks who happen to know Shakespeare, and we’re making an investment in our home,” he said.

Reports of Rust Belt decline often focus on the shrinking paycheck, but the dispossession is also cultural. When a factory closes, a town loses a thousand people who could pay ten bucks to see a concert or show. Art follows the money. It’s a kind of poverty that most journalism about economic and economic geography struggles to capture. 

That’s why Young’s work is so important. The Bridgeport, West Virginia-based director and actor is busy rehearsing and in 2022 will lead his troupe of 10 or so actors on a 60-date tour of West Virginia and surrounding states. Starting in April, they’ll perform — incredibly — five different plays: Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Love Labor’s Lost. The venture is funded by fees from schools and theaters, and grant money.

The troupe is still organizing bookings and ironing out their schedule, and all details will be available on their Facebook page. 

Each play will be cut down to 90 minutes and performed with simple costumes and modern music. 

Young founded the troupe, named after rambling actors in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with West Virginia actor Celi Oliveto in 2014. Young, who was born in West Virginia’s southern coalfields, where his dad worked as a mine health and safety inspector, had been teaching high school drama for six years and was tired, he told me, of “churning out musicals so parents could clap for their kid while he’s dressed as a Dalmatian.”

The new gang started in 2014 with a seven-person production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that toured four venues, including an amphitheater attached to a Baptist church. 

Categories Arts Education, Rural Schools
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