Category Archives: ALEC

Ethnic Cleansing in Chicago Public Schools

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Fred Klonsky has this up on the ethnic cleansing of Chicago Public Schools.  But I would go a step further and say not just ethnic, but prejudice against the poor in general.  They have made it abundantly clear that they don’t believe the poor have any worth or value or potential.

He links to the Chicago Teachers Union website.  This just says it all:

Schools slated for “turn around” include McNair, Dvorak and Gresham elementary schools. At McNair, 52 percent of the staff are African American; at Dvorak 70 percent of the teachers are African Americans; and at Gresham 65 percent of educators are African American. Black students are 97.1 percent of the student body and 98 percent of them are low-income.

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They also make note that most of the educators are in their 40s and 50s–a favorite target of the schools-for-fun-and-profit mob.  Get rid of the higher paid older folk, and you can a) pay younger ones much, much less, and b) get more compliant employees who are desperate for a job and will subject kids to enforced abusive testing because without a union to help them protest, they’re SOL.

 

 

Yet another oil spill **edited

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…off of the Texas coast.

How in the world does one collide with a barge?  It’s not like they’re speed boats zipping past one…

…looks like another drunken captain.

The words George Bush I echo the oil man’s empty promises of safety…and clean up…as we have witnessed with every freaking oil spill since then–Kalamazoo and Arkansas and the Gulf are evidence of that.  As one of the commenters said, the captain was made the scapegoat while the company escaped blame.

And Tricky Dicks’ comments?  “The Alaskan pipeline is on the way…and the environment will be saved…” Priceless.

The proponents of XL pipeline are saying it’s going to create jobs…but as this video illustrates, how many jobs are lost (income lost) by the spills?  How does one put a price tag on the oiled soil, water, and dead/impaired wildlife?  Why are they even *considering* XL after all that has happened…?

**edited to add link to XL pipeline petition.

Banned chemicals linked to autism **edited

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Global News has a post up on an SFU (? university isn’t named) professor that has linked autism with Chlordane and flame retardant PBDE-28.

Chlordane was in use in the U.S. until 1988. It has been linked to testicular cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia.

It has more widespread indications of affecting the health, however:

The non-cancer health effects of chlordane compounds, which include migraines, respiratory infections, diabetes, immune-system activation, anxiety, depression, blurry vision, confusion, intractable seizures as well as permanent neurological damage,[13] may affect more people than cancer. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has defined a concentration of chlordane compounds of 20 ng/M3 as the Minimal Risk Level (MRLs). ATSDR defines Minimal Risk Level as an estimate of daily human exposure to a dose of a chemical that is likely to be without an appreciable risk of adverse non-cancerous effects over a specific duration of exposure.[14]

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Good Grief, this stuff is uber toxic!  The fact that seizures and migraines are symptoms lends more credibility to it affecting neurological function…as in autism.  So…it’s not just mercury and heavy metals that can be linked to autism.  And multiple exposures of both just spells disaster, imo.

You know what’s missing from the wikipedia link?  The manufacturer(s). I found one of them here.  Big surprise, eh? /snark

When does Monsanto start to pay back for all the misery they have caused the world?  Anybody?

There’s a much better written article here.  Gah,the more I read, the more alarmed I get, as if I wasn’t alarmed enough.  It appears to be as persistent for remaining in the environment and not breaking down, just like DDT …

It is not known whether chlordane breaks down in most soils. If breakdown occurs, it is very slow. Chlordane is known to remain in some soils for over 20 years. Persistence is greater in heavy, clayey or organic soil than in sandy soil. Most chlordane is lost from soil by evaporation. Evaporation is more rapid from light, sandy soils than from heavy soils.

Half of the chlordane applied to the soil surface may evaporate in 2 or 3 days. Evaporation is much slower after chlordane penetrates into the soil. In water, some chlordane attaches strongly to sediment and particles in the water column and some is lost by evaporation. It is not known whether much breakdown of chlordane occurs in water or in sediment.

Chlordane breaks down in the atmosphere by reacting with light and with some chemicals in the atmosphere. However, it is sufficiently long lived that it may travel long distances and be deposited on land or in water far from its source.

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More:

Finally, some chlordane may be left over from the pre-ban days. Old containers of material thought to contain chlordane should be disposed of carefully and contact with the skin and breathing vapors should be avoided.

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Here’s what bothers me about this statement–what exactly does “dispose of” mean?  How should it be disposed of?

It’s just shuffling it from one area to another.  It’s not a solution.  It just doesn’t magically disappear.  It becomes a problem for the next hapless person who comes in contact with it, unaware of the danger. And that usually means poor people, who don’t know about their toxic environment and if they did, they don’t have the $$$ attention of politicians $$$ who can do something about removing it.

Truly, the only solution is not to allow these toxic substances into the environment to begin with.

Wall of Women stand opposed to Kinder Morgan

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First Nations and Greenpeace women stand together against pipeline expansion…

“We’re standing here together to link arms to build the wall of women to say no, we do not want that in our communities, we will not accept this in our communities, we want better,” said Nahanee. “Canada has a responsibility to protect their communities, we have the right to live in healthy environments— healthy environments to raise our children, to take care of our grandparents, to drink healthy water, to eat healthy food. It’s basic human rights.”

– Mandy Nahanee

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Who would have thought that we would actually have to protest keeping our water clean and healthy??

Good on the women standing together, protecting the Earth. She needs us.

School Bullies?

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Has it really come to this?  That a mother has to assert her child’s civil rights to be let alone from government intrusion, via the pro-Common Core/anti public schools mob??    That a child can be interrogated by Chicago Public Schools for opting out of an abusive test?

Who are the bullies in this scenario? Because it ain’t the kids…

NPE Twitter storm

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Reclaim Reform has a post up on the twitter storm demanding Congressional investigation into the profiteering of standardized testing.

From the link to NPE:

How good are the tests?

Problems with the actual content of tests have been extensively documented. There are numerous instances of flawed questions and design, including no right answer, more than one right answer, wording that is unclear or misleading, reading passages or problems that are developmentally inappropriate or contain product placements, test questions on material never taught, and items that border on bizarre, such as a famous example that asked students to read a passage about a race between a pineapple and a hare. Tests are not scientific instruments like barometers; they are commercial products that are subject to multiple errors.

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Linda Darling Hammond testifies

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Diane Ravitch has a post up on Linda Darling-Hammond testimony at the Vergara trial.  She outlines the criteria for evaluating teachers for tenure and helping struggling teachers:

“Well, it’s important both as a part of a due process expectation; that if somebody is told they’re not meeting a standard, they should have some help to meet that standard.

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Absolutely.  If a teacher is abusive or grossly inadequate, you want them out.  But if a teacher is good in some areas, but needs help in others, by all means, they should get support and encouragement in those weak areas.  In any line of work, you would expect some guidance from those more experienced.  Why should the teaching profession be any different?

More:

And the third reason is that when you create a system that is not oriented to attract high-quality teachers and support them in their work, that location becomes a very unattractive workplace. And an empirical proof of that is the situation currently in Houston, Texas, which has been firing many teachers at the bottom end of the value-added continuum without creating stronger overall achievement, and finding that they have fewer and fewer people who are willing to come apply for jobs in the district because with the instability of those scores, the inaccuracy and bias that they represent for groups of teachers, it’s become an unattractive place to work.

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Word.

This comment by Teacher Ken gets at the heart of teaching and tenure:

I have been the cooperating teacher for five student teachers from the University of Maryland at College Park, three from the undergraduate program and two from the masters’ program. The only one who failed to ‘make it’ was a 4.0 student who refused to listen to the notion that he had to meet the kids where they were in order to be able to inspire/entice them to move further. He dropped out before doing his full load of student teaching.

I have been a building union rep and have served as an informal mentor to both beginning and struggling experienced teachers. I have helped some turn around and have counseled others out of the profession. I have as a union rep helped remove a tenured teacher (who never should have gotten tenure) who was not merely ineffective but a danger to students.

We have those who should never go into teaching – they don’t like kids.

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This can’t be stated enough–the pro-Charter, anti-public schools, anti-Teacher’s union mob would like to play on people’s emotions and say that bad teachers get a free ride once they get tenure.

As Diane has stated in the past, tenured teachers are not guaranteed a job, per se, but are guaranteed the right to a fair hearing if charges are made against them.  That seems reasonable to me.

However, I have heard of instances of bad teachers being kept on because the principal was afraid to confront them.  They feel they had to have mountains of evidence to get rid of a bad teacher. It might also be just a clash of personalities…where the child is better suited for another teacher.  The teacher isn’t necessarily bad and the kid isn’t necessarily bad, but they just butt heads.

On the other hand, I would not want to see a teacher sacked over gossip (lack of solid evidence)…because I’ve seen that happen, too, where some big mouth started a rumor and the good teacher left.  He was one of those teachers that really connected with the kids, too.  The gossipmonger was probably jealous of his ability to connect and the resulting popularity.

And Teacher Ken’s point about the 4.0 teaching student is spot on.  You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you don’t like kids and can’t get down to their level to help them learn, you’re in the wrong profession.  (Gee…why does this describe Bill Gates to a “T”…??)

Teachers’ Letters to Bill and Melinda Gates

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This is one of the most compelling letters I’ve read so far.  It’s sickening how these little children are being forced to perform at levels above their comprehension and emotional growth.  It’s abuse, plain and simple.  Bill Gates is a child abuser…why isn’t he held accountable??

Kids had to solve 8+6 when the answer choices were 0-9 and had to DRAG AND DROP first a 1 then a 4 to form a 14. There were questions where it was only necessary to click an answer but the objects were movable (for no reason). There were kids tapping on their neighbor’s computers in frustration. To go to the next question, one clicks “next” in lower right-hand corner…..which is also where the pop-up menu comes up to take you to other programs or shut down, so there were many instances of shut-downs and kids winding up in a completely different program.

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Some of the links in the letter:

Gates dining with 80 Senators. Eighty.  Unfortunately, it stops short of naming names. So, I went looking for other reports to try to find out the senators’ names…no such luck.  All that I could find were quoting Politico.

On Politico’s site, I found this little tidbit:

SPOTTED: Political odd-couple Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) having dinner last night at Bistro Bis just off Capitol Hill. Sen. Joe Donnelly later strolled over with a big group to say hi. (h/ts: @ZStoller and @dsamuelsohn) Pic here: http://bit.ly/1qyM4dx

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Wanna bet Joe Donnelly was one of those senators that dined with Gates?

And from this link:

There is a growing body of evidence that the Common Standards are not the solution to make America more competitive, to make kids smarter in math, reading and science, and any of the other ills that have been cast upon the education system.  I’ve reported on this blog that independent research questions the efficacy of a standard-based approach to education as it is now conceived.  The standards-based system is a top-down authoritarian system that disregards the professional decision-making ability of classroom teachers.  I’ve reported research by Wallace that shows that this authoritarian accountability system is a barrier to teaching and learning.

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….the Gates Foundation has invested about $2.3 billion into the Common Standards and related efforts.

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Bill and Melinda Gates are not educators.  Why does their $$$ opinion $$$ matter more than those who are educators and don’t wish to abuse children?!

Getting us into yet another war

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John I-don’t-know-how-many-houses-I-own McCain is once again banging the war drum…although he is careful to not make it sound that way.

Let’s take a look back, shall we?

My blog here on the media’s culpability in getting us into Iraq.

John McCain on Iraq here.

I want the Ukraine people to have their democratic government, but I am not willing to go to war over it. I am sick of wars and I’m sick of warmongers like McCain and Clinton who slobber at the thought of going to war.  One has to wonder how much they are invested financially in defense contractors or other war profiteering.

Let’s not forget the lie of the reasons to go to war…as she smiles and says “it’s the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make…”  Utter bullshit

And this video on Hillary Clinton’s views on the media and exchange of free information is chilling.  Without a free exchange of ideas, without the media uncovering greed & corruption, and violations of our Constitution, our democracy is lost.    Why is Hillary so afraid of that?

Finally, my Russian reader has not been back since Putin clamped down on the media.

My hope is that he/she will be back when things settle down.  I hope so….please know that not all Americans are like Clinton and McCain…we value peaceful solutions to conflict.  We are all connected.  Peace to you.

And this is heartening…a journalist quits the Russian media in protest of Putin.  Bless her.