Category Archives: communications/media

Bill Gates hasn’t destroyed public education yet….

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…but damn,he sure is trying with everything he’s got.

<sigh>  I was all ready to rip into Gates once again… but I’m halfway through the article of Chronicles of Higher Education….and this one sentence that Gates “just wants to get more people through the system with college degrees so that it will lift them out of poverty…”

bwahahahaha.  That’s rich.

Then, further down, they disclose that Gates Foundation is supporting the Chronicles of Higher Education financially.  I think I’ve already read that somewhere, but alas, the brain didn’t bring it up…the article is clearly a promo by Gates…so yeah….

So…I’ll have to refer to previous blogs on Gates…

Here.

Here. Silencing teachers.

Here. Supporting Brookings Institute that dismissed Diane Ravitch

Here. Not content with just controlling education, but the food supply, as well.

Here.

Indianapolis schools target for charter takeover

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Diane Ravitch has this up on the continuing guttering of public schools….now with Indianapolis in its sights.

This sentence pretty much tells you they’re up to no good:

Kloth’s been loath to share the NEO Plan with taxpayers through Indy’s media. He especially didn’t want this columnist to have a copy.

Keep out the press so that we can do our dirty work in the dark before the public knows we’ve taken their key to a better life away from them and given them junk instead.

And then there’s this:

Since African-American researchers were forbidden to participate in NEO, I did my own research.

And this:

African-American students have a greater higher risk of attending a low performing school in Indianapolis/Marion County than whites and Hispanics.

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Black folks should be all over this.  A clever way to get Separate but Equal schools.

Good for you, Suri

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Suri Cruise gave the stalkerazzi a piece of her mind.  Good for you, Suri.  And good for your mother raising you to believe in yourself and your right to privacy.

…and don’t mind the “bitch” word–you’ll hear that word when you stand up for yourself, as you have now experienced.  Embrace the word–it becomes a word of power once you realize it means you aren’t a doormat and you have set your boundaries.  Bravo.

And the Kardashians? Meh.  You can’t have a TV show exposing your every move and then claim you want privacy.  It messes with the  mind.

 

Obama and the Education Fiasco?

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One of the commenters on Diane Ravitch’s site has this link up .  An excellent timeline on what has been going on behind the scenes with *cough* education reform.

I really, really, hope that Barack Obama has changed his mind regarding this–as Diane Ravitch did when she came to realize that education reform was actually turning schools into for-profit centers.

From the link:

“When teachers are given powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional growth and recognition for outstanding achievement, we see increased student achievement in TAP schools,” Lowell Milken said in a December 2008 press release. “Chicago TAP schools are off to a strong start in continuing efforts to achieve these goals.”

Milken, unmentioned in most accounts, has a vested financial interest in school reform efforts and “fixing failing schools.”

That’s because Milken is a major investor in K12 Inc., a corporation traded on Wall Street that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. Milken invested $10 million in K12 Inc. in 2000, a stake that is now worth over $125 million, according to a July 2008 article in Forbes.

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Milken is full of it, to put it bluntly.  Nobody who knows anything about teachers and education would ever make such an idiotic statement.  Most teachers are in the profession because they want to see children learn, NOT because they want “career advancement”.  Their professional growth comes with experience….there is no substitute for that and no amount of money can magically *poof* experience.

Truly, to say that a student’s achievement is the teacher’s achievement is, in my view, taking away from the student’s hard work.  A good teacher is only part of the student-parent-teacher equation.  ALL of them play an important role in how well the student does.

When I first went to college, I wanted to be a teacher.  When I discussed this with my college advisor, she discouraged me from going that route–she said the jobs wouldn’t be there.  I wonder what she knew and when she knew it??  Anyway, I decided to go into Communications so that I could make documentaries and still somewhat “teach”.

However, when I was on what was supposed to be a progressive jobs website, there was Teach for America.  I applied, writing in my application how I had helped my daughter overcome dyslexia and learn to read.  I wanted to teach in inner city schools, I told them, so I could help the little ones with such learning hurdles.

I was turned down flat.  Not even an interview.

Knowing what I know now, it is obvious they were never interested in educating kids.  They didn’t want folks who were passionate and truly wanted to help kids learn.

When you couple this with the military in schools, it’s truly scary, indeed, on what is happening to our schools.  God help us.

Rep. Brown: Shame On You

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Like I posted previously, I’m pretty upset and words fail me, but Rep. Brown speaks for me. 

I think we need to stop spending money on these….useless eaters. (Hillary Clinton and Rush Limbaugh have both reportedly stated such)  ….so I’m trying to find information confirming that Hillary or Bill made the statement, and it’s interesting all the stuff that I came across….one of which is a statement that Cecil Rhodes of the Rhodes scholarship fame, was a racist who called Africans “useless eaters”.  (Interesting that Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar.)

This, for instance.  Well, now.

And then there’s this (2010).  Isn’t it interesting that wherever Clintons go, there is disaster….and they’re always “my bad”   “oops”   “sorry bout that, folks”….and they’re still praised out the wazoo….for doing what, exactly…?  Somebody please tell me.

More on food from Raj Patel here.

Here’s a link Patel mentions in his blog on the hunger summit.

Wow:

So it’s hardly surprising that almost 200 African farmers’ and campaigners’ groups have rejected the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, calling it a “new wave of colonialism” in a statement sent to G8 leaders earlier this week. Their analysis is clear: “Private ownership of knowledge and material resources (for example, seed and genetic materials) means the flow of royalties out of Africa into the hands of multinational corporations.”

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The real causes of hunger are inequality of wealth and power, not a lack of big business.

 

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Word.

We don’t want your GMO’s.  We don’t want your money.  We want decent, livable wages to pay our own way.

 

 

More on Fort Wayne Vouchers

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Karen Francisco, of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, made a comment on Diane Ravitch’s blog that was outstanding.

It pretty much outlines what these creeps are getting away with–robbing the public schools of funds while laughing all the way to the bank:

Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease.

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Napolitano leaving

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Janet Napolitano is leaving the Dept. of Hysterical Security to head up….wait for it…the University of California, including Berkeley.…

While reading the article, I again ask myself, “why is one person head over natural disasters, the CDC,  as well as security?”

Walmart: Always low wages…Always

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…was on a sign protesting their continued more-for-us-less-for-you campaign.  Thankfully, they were unsuccessful in their bullying tactics.

From the first link:

“From day one, we have said this legislation is arbitrary, discriminatory, and discourages investment in D.C.,” Alex Barron, a general manager for Wal-Mart whose region includes D.C., writes in a company statement. “It means most shopping dollars will stay in the suburbs, unemployment will remain in the double-digits in some neighborhoods and underserved communities will continue to have disproportionate access to affordable groceries.”

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I followed the last link to this:

The company’s hardball tactics come out of a well-worn playbook that involves successfully using Wal-Mart’s leverage in the form of jobs and low-priced goods to fend off legislation and regulation that could cut into its profits and set precedent in other potential markets. In the Wilson Building, elected officials have found their reliable liberal, pro-union political sentiments in conflict with their desire to bring amenities to underserved neighborhoods.

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I just can’t understand the thinking that losing Wal-Mart is a bad thing?  Good Riddance to a big box store that pays poor wages, encourages employees to apply for food stamps, guts entire towns that were once full of independent small business owners, and imports cheap plastic crap from China, where again, people are paid low wages (which I know are beginning to rise, but still…).