Reclaim Reform has this somber post up on the worldwide attack on the teachers, the teacher’s unions, and free speech, as well. The last video (world wide) really got to me–treating these folks like animals! Take note that World Bank demanded the austerity measures….
Category Archives: education
The Good Enough Student
Assailed Teacher has a great blog up on a student “Tammy” who does okay in school….but is struggling to pass a global test. She must pass this one test in order to graduate. Again, the “good enough” mothers analogy of Phyllis Chesler passed into my head…and I thought that “Tammy” is a “good enough” student. Not perfect, but okay. What really bothers me about all of this is that they are labeling kids as stupid who are quite all right. They’re fine. They understand concepts appropriate for their ages. And yet, they are being put in categories that are not a true definition of their abilities.
Also, beneath this piece is an “interview” with Arne Duncan that’s pretty funny. Too bad that it gets a little too close to the truth.
The witch hunts of teachers
The latest from Teacher’s Letters to Bill Gates. Queen Melinda seeks to rule education high atop her perch in her gated castle.
I’m glad that someone else has noticed the disturbing similarities between the Puritan witch hunts of Salem and what is happening to teachers.
Again, I say that it has been happening in the private sector for awhile now, but unrecognized by others. As I read this disturbing piece, from the above link, the “good enough” mother espoused by Phyllis Chesler** popped into my head. Teachers will never be perfect. None of us will ever be perfect, even though some of us might try to reach for it. Again, there are disturbing similarities between the demands for teacher perfection and motherhood perfection. The demands against mothers has largely gone unreported and unnoticed by the mainstream media…except to pile on the negative. Mothers and teachers both have been pilloried by the media.
**A side note~ Wilson mentions in her article that uppity women and lesbian/bisexuals are likely to lose custody. One doesn’t even have to be a lesbian in order to lose custody–all the ex has to do is allege she is lesbian in order to lose custody. A woman who does not have a gentleman friend can be alleged to be a lesbian….and on the flip side, if she is a party girl and has dated frequently, she will also lose custody. In other words, if she isn’t screwing around, there’s something wrong with her. If she is screwing around, there’s something wrong with her. She can’t win.
Also mentioned in the Teacher’s Letters articles are the tent cities. They’ve been on my mind, lately, especially with all the happy, happy news that the economy has turned a corner and the jobs are flowing again….yeah, I’m not seeing it, either…
Here’s a list of Bush/Clinton cities.
A good article here.
Another here:
They fail to go into more depth about all the factors leading to the economic collapse, which is so important because those factors–deregulation of the banking/insurance industry, NAFTA, ignoring antitrust laws, not taxing corporations nor the rich, 40% of the budget going towards the defense department, and stagnant wages–have not been dealt with and the economy will not become robust again without correcting them.
Cheap Real Estate – your local school **edited
Jan Ressenger has this disturbing link to a Philly.com article on investors buying school building cheaply. She also has this link to a Valerie Strauss report in the Washington Post.
Strauss reprinted a report by Helen Gym:
For more than 10 months, Parents United for Public Education and our lawyers at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia have been fighting to make public the Boston Consulting Group’s list of 60 schools recommended for closure and the criteria it used for developing the list. In 2012, BCG contracted with the William Penn Foundation to provide “contract deliverables,” one of which was identifying 60 public schools for closure. William Penn Foundation solicited donations for this contract, including some from real estate developers and those promoting charter expansion. The “BCG list” was referred to by former Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen in public statements. But District officials refused to release the list, saying that it was an internal document and therefore protected from public review.
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Does anybody else smell ALEC involvement? I mean, the playbook of hiding what should be public information is sooo ALEC.
Gym makes the point that these records, although termed “internal” are shared with philanthropic organizations and stakeholders. I would like a definition of stakeholder—because from where I sit, the public IS a stakeholder.
And she is right on with the query: is Right to Know now Pay to Know?
**edited to correct attribution. Oops.
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Diane Ravitch has a link up to this excellent article by DSWright. Notice how Duncan ignores the racist remark and patronizes people once again by dismissing it as just awkward delivery of the message. He again lies about how our kids are doing in schools–they are not failing, No Child Left a Mind and Race to the Bottom are failing!! Common Core is an outrageous legalized plan of child abuse that requires kids to answer questions that are above their psychological development.
Duncan also slips into the conversation how “partnering” with corporations is being promoted. The lines are being blurred between public and private sectors.
Nowhere in Duncan’s speech does he talk of better educated kids for well-rounded citizens to sustain a democracy. The promotion of the corporate octopus into public education will use schools as their personal training centers (more than they already are)—NOT for democracy. Well educated people ask too many questions. They know too much to take whatever is dished out.
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Because young, hopeful, eager teachers need any spare change you can give…. (hat tip to Diane Ravitch).
I wish I could say this is just happening to the teaching profession, but alas…it’s been going on in the private sector, as well, for, oh, at least seven years. It was just understood that you didn’t take breaks. What? You need a lunch? Well, okay, but be quick about it. What? You need a bathroom break? Well, okay, but you’ll have to clean it, too, while you’re in there….
Yep. It’s the dirty little secret nobody talks about. (The above was reference to a store owned by people professing to be progressive Dems, too. Um-hmm..)
Yes, the teaching profession was insulated from this for awhile, but alas, it too, has been sucked into the black hole that was once this magnificent country….bankrupted by bankers who produce nothing and corporate CEO’s who actually think they’re worth the millions paid to them.
I was trying to think of a profession this hasn’t hit–the medical profession and the lawyers, the bankers, and, of course, Congress, who never seem to have to pay their dues with the rest of us; are the only ones I could think of.
Bank tellers, however, have been impacted, along with others.
So…I went looking again for stuff made in the United States of America…in fear that perhaps nothing is made here anymore…only slightly cynical…
I found this very cool fabric manufacturer. I soooo want to buy that fabric!
And this. (Note the theme of organically grown crop)
Here’s one for fleece.
And one for wool.
Another organic cotton manufacturer. Man, my mood has lightened up considerably. 🙂
More here.
Finally, for my newer readers, this website is terrific for finding stuff (Christmas gifts?) still made here. Enjoy.
Knowing history
(woke up yesterday with a migraine-like headache from the stupid chemtrails. Thought it best that I not post.)
At about 12:30 today, I asked the kids if they knew what happened this day 50 years ago…hoping that they knew. Nope. I told them what happened (briefly, no gore), and then told them some of the things JFK did.
It was disheartening that they knew so little of the circumstances or about John F. Kennedy. I’ll bet they are very aware of presidents who promote war, however. (cynical, I know, but the over-emphasis on war in textbooks and the absence of praise for peace is glaring.)
It all seems like it happened yesterday to me. And they have no comprehension of how this day changed everything. I wished I could have gone into more detail with them, but that would not have been appropriate. And as I write that, i’m thinking….these kids witness more violent acts than any generation before them….why would this not have been appropriate….? I clumsily tried to explain to them that our society is more violent now than it was then–how could I convey that to them when they have no idea how that act, and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the rest were out of the ordinary? They hear about violence daily. They experience bullying at school. They’re being pressured to perform like circus animals at school. Their world is so far removed from Camelot….it’s like trying to explain colors to someone who is blind.
Another reason the kids need schools…
Education News
Here’s a great post on what is happening to the kids. You know….those kids that the reformers say they are concerned about??
G2 put a comment linking to this post. I found this passage especially poignant:
It is imperative, therefore, that we make school a supportive environment free of the extreme stress that can harm healthy development. Some stress is productive and promotes growth. However, especially for children living in poverty, creating an unnecessarily stressful environment has long-term damaging effects.
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To label schools as “just” a place to get an education is a short-sighted, narrow view. Children in poverty are already stressed out by worrying that they won’t have enough to eat that day…that Mom will be crying again because she doesn’t know how she’s going to pay the bills…
…and the one thing that can make that child feel worth something? Knowing the answer to a question the teacher asks. Getting an “A” or even a “B” on a test. Having a teacher provide a treat on his/her birthday….which he/she might not get at home because there just isn’t any extra.
School can be the difference between a poor kid seeing beyond their environment and reaching beyond their little world.
More here:
Child-development experts have decried the age-inappropriateness of the Common Core. In 2010, more than 500 people signed a statement stating that the “standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.”
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A reminder of the nonsensical approach of Common Core.
This just says it all:
The U.S. Department of Education hyped the Common Core as creating a “national market” for “educational entrepreneurs.”
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Makes you sick, doesn’t it??
One of the commenters said that homeschooling is the next step. Yes and No. If you’re wealthy enough that one parent can stay home, you can do that. And we would lose so much of the connectedness that school encourages. We would be further isolated from each other. I just can’t wrap my brain around that–our children and grandchildren will be living in the same neighborhood, but regarding the others as strangers. I see kids out playing in the neighborhood and it makes my heart sing. If this continues, there won’t be the shared experience of discovering new things together, of sharing their personal stories in class discussions (finding common ground or discovering other cultures), of class plays, of singing together, of inspiration…
Bring it on, Arne. She’s referring to this by Duncan. Oh.My.God. Did he really say that?? Did he really just insult a group of women who know their children and know their schools and know their teachers? Is he really that condescending and arrogant? And racist? I mean, really, if it was stated that a group of “angry, black women” were not accepting their failing schools, it would be seen as the racist statement that it is.
There’s another link here, to a report on Common Core playbook, from the Perdido site.
There’s more but this is making me so depressed I need to step away for the moment.
Education News
First, the bad news. Blessings to you, Diane, for healing. Take care of yourself–your body is telling you to take it easy. Believe me, I understand better than most. Having said that, your contributions to fighting the good fight are truly inspiring…you are needed as never before….but it can wait until you are rested.
This from Seattle Education. Pretty depressing that Wall $t. has turned its eye$ toward$ the school$….how much can we wring out of them?
The sidebar says it all:
The Professional Teacher
Assailed Teacher has this excellent blog on how a professional teacher makes teaching look easy….but wait….not so.
Eagle 
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