Category Archives: education

Boiling the frog…

by

Idle No More has a virtual “teach-in” up on the web (scroll down) by Sharon Venne.   It’s a really interesting piece on the historical treatment of the indigenous and how s-l-o-w-l-y their culture and their land has been “disappeared”.

As she says in her talk, it goes on over such a slow period of time, that one doesn’t realize what is happening until it’s almost too late….like the frog put in a pan of water that the heat is turned up so slowly that the frog doesn’t realize it’s being boiled to death.

It’s really worth watching it all the way through–she has such a good story to tell of her own struggle to get an education.  She tells the story of not being able to read until going to university.  (By the way, Literacy Volunteers are out there to help folks learn to read–check with your local library). She was continually kept in stress mode by them not sending her monthly stipends on time so she could pay her rent.  God Bless the administrator who helped her.

She makes an important point at about 29:00 minutes in– of what sounds like the precursor to “corporations are people, too”.  If anything, we need to pay better attention to what is going on in other countries…especially to the poor and minorities…because it seems to be a worldwide power grab–given that there have been austerity measures all over the globe and attacks on teacher’s unions and such.  More here.

And here.

Rick Berman: gun for hire

by

Deutsch29 has an excellent blog up on the *cough* Center for Union Facts (CUF) running a full page ad in the NY Times. Upon closer examination, our old friend, Rick Berman, gun for hire, is behind CUF, among other organizations.   Note the letter from his son, David.  Pretty sad, eh?

AFT has a short video up on the 5 myths about school performance.

 

Choice-i-fication

by

Edushyster has another amusing blog up on the fiasco of schools-as-profit-driven-edumucation-centers for Choice-i-fication. (hat tip Diane Ravitch)

From the Reuters link:

Ahead of elections next year, politicians of all stripes are questioning the role of such firms, accused of putting profits first with practices like letting students decide when they have learned enough and keeping no record of their grades.

~~~~~~

Letting students decide when they’ve learned enough??  Seriously??   They should be hanging their heads in shame for their irresponsibility.   I would have quit my sophomore year in high school if it would have been allowed…things were not going well and it would have been easier to give in.  This is especially true for the young–who don’t have enough experience to determine what is best for them.  For me, I will always regret that I didn’t take the college prep courses in high school.  I could not see that my circumstances might change in the future and I would be able to go to college.  Allowing these young folks to decide when they’ve learned enough is criminal, in my view.

And then there’s the unintended consequence:

Sweden replaced one of the world’s most tightly regulated school systems with one of the most deregulated, leading to scandals like the 2011 case of the convicted paedophile who set up several schools quite legally.

~~~~~~

I have no words.

What I don’t understand is near the end of the article, they say they don’t want to go back to the old way, which left parents with no choice.  WTH?  Given the choice between the new way and the old….I personally would take the old.  For-profit schools are not schools…they are centers for making kids look busy with a poor imitation of knowledge.

Mother Jones: Hypocrisy of Bill and Melinda Gates

by

Diane Ravitch has a blog up with a link to Mother Jones article on the hypocrisy of Bill (and Melinda) Gates.   It’s a really great read on how slick Billy operates.

Washington State Judge rules against Charters

by

Well, this is welcome news–a judge has ruled that public funds cannot be used for charters under private management.  Yes!!  A win for public schools!

What they really think of the old

by

Fred Klonsky has a Chicago Tribune cartoon depicting retirees as dogs that need to be muzzled.

Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

Klonsky also has a blog up on Moral Mondays.  Update here.

This from Diane Ravitch on how to starve people so they’ll accept whatever crumbs you feel like giving them…

And in my corner of the world, Glenda Ritz continues to fight for her publicly elected position that received more votes than Pence.

Charter Schools:  it’s all in the family.

Reign of Error; Kochs, et al, planning assault on Ed.

by

Patrick Walsh has a report up on Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch.

Oh, and have you heard?  It’s open season on teachers.  The climate that No Child Left a Mind and Race to the Bottom have created—to punish students for not being perfect students and their teachers, who are under tremendous pressures to not have any stupid kids (said facetiously)–has now come to fruition.  I’m sure Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee, et al, are laughing themselves silly.

Jan Ressenger put up a link to this report from the Guardian on just how far the Kochs and their comrades are willing to go….not only to destroy public education, but continue attacks on working folks and unions…

SPN’s president, Tracie Sharp, told the Guardian that “as a pro-freedom network of thinktanks, we focus on issues like workplace freedom, education reform, and individual choice in healthcare: backbone issues of a free people and a free society.”

~~~~~~~

I wonder if she could get the word “free” in there any more…was she wrapped in a flag, too??  Because that would *definitely* mean that this program was patriotic and would strengthen democracy…

...by destroying it…

“it’s for your own good” has to be the biggest lie ever told!

Side note~ someone in the comments section linked to the Yes Men video. Enjoy. (Be sure to click on Part 2–with Surviva-balls.  Hilarious.)

Someone also kindly posted a link to a list of Kraft foods.  Again…where are the antitrust laws?  Why is one food manufacturer able to control so much of the market share?  Not that junk food, which is the majority of crap that Kraft makes, is something healthy..what if folks were able to afford healthy made-from-scratch food…?  We could do some serious damage to Kraft’s bottom line if we refused to buy their junk food and bought only fresh….and we’d be healthier, too.

Center for Media and Democracy has the scoop on SPN.  (As a side note~ I haven’t been getting regular emails of the CMD for a few months now–it’s been spotty at best…interesting.  I’ll have to make a note to keep checking their website for updates.)

True to nature, they hide their lobbying disguised to avoid paying taxes.  Good Grief, these people know how to play the game of getting someone else to pay while they reap the benefits.

The mention of the Goldwater Institute raises huge red flags–Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl.  An excellent blog here on her history…er, her trying to re-write her history…and Bill’s.

The Clintons LOVE poor black people on welfare

• The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) that was dreamt up by past Republican administrations, was actually passed by Congress and signed by Clinton. This act was filled with vindictive measures aimed at the poor. Among other things, it set a five-year lifetime limit for cash assistance and gave the states power to adopt stringent restrictions in several other areas. Another key part of the Act, was the imposition for the first time of lifetime limits on welfare. Once a welfare mother uses up this lifetime limit, set at five years by the federal government, she and her children can never again receive federal cash benefits, no matter how desperate their condition and no matter what happens to the overall economy.
Bill Clinton has certainly laid his Mack game down heavy in the black community. Maybe that’s why the African-American community has been so thoroughly duped by lip service, prominent public appearances and appointments, and an office on Harlem’s 125th (although Clinton certainly hasn’t used it much).

~~~~~~~~

Ahem.   There are white people on food stamps, as well.  The Clintons, along with the Kochs, et al, don’t like POOR people.  Period.

We can’t talk about Bill Clinton’s love for his “black race” without mentioning Rwanda. You remember what happened in Rwanda? If you don’t, then I suggest you rent the movie “Hotel Rwanda” and be prepared to be thoroughly disgusted. Bill Clinton not only refused to intervene to save over one million people from being hacked to death, but he even declined to convene his Cabinet to discuss the crisis.

~~~~~~~~~

I highly recommend Hotel Rwanda.  Just don’t watch it and Schindler’s List on the same weekend.  I actually had to call my son after watching them both one weekend….I needed to talk to a sane human being…

And let’s not forget this piece on the secretive group Hillary Clinton belongs to.  As I’ve said on many occasions…it never ceases to amaze me how people who call themselves Christian act nothing like Christ.  Who would Jesus bomb, Hillary?

I’ve read this piece before, but this sentence just packed a punch:

It emerged, he [Reverend Don Jones] says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal’s labor-based liberalism.

~~~~~~~~

…a reaction against….the New Deal’s labor-based liberalism.  In other words:   unions….working folks….public education…social security…medicaid…..livable wages…(and the environment, too, but that would come later).

…and if you listen carefully to conservative media, you’ll hear subtle and outwardly snide attacks on Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Get it, now?

And this:

Niebuhr and Tillich’s combination of aggressiveness in foreign affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as “to the right of the John Birchers”), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley’s Young Republicans chapter.

~~~~~~

…she attended biweekly anticommunist meetings.  Wellesley…if the movie “Mona Lisa Smile” is any indication, is a conservative’s utopia…so Young Republicans chapter there?  Pretty hard to swallow that this was a fluke -a flash in the pan….especially when one turns a critical eye to Hillary’s record.  I mean, if they call themselves Democrats, but act as Republicans…

“Mind conservative but a heart liberal” tells me that she is like so many guys who say they’re “socially liberal, but fiscally conservative”.  What this means is:  I’m selfish and self-absorbed.  And I don’t follow my heart.  I let my purse strings do the thinking for me.   In other words, I choose money over God.  (Jesus said that we could only serve one Master–money or God.  Not both.)

Okay, there is more to write, but I’m really tired from the day and need to call it quits.