Category Archives: equality

Go Virginia!

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Virginia has had enough of dismissive politicians who circumvent the people whom they represent and they have filed suit against what is basically taxation without representation.

 

In other education news,  Diane reposts about the Gesell Institute’s take on Common Core…waay back in 2010.

From the statement:

We urge the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to respect the individual developmental differences of children and revise the K-3 standards based on research and the advice of experts in the field of early childhood.

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In the comments, someone provided a link to Bill Moyers’ program on Glitz and Greed in D.C.  I haven’t viewed it yet, but knowing Bill Moyers, it will be eye-opening.

Segregation persists in Texas schools

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Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig has a post up on his findings of segregation in Texas schools.  He asserts that there is a third segregation–by language.  Non-English speaking children are in the low socioeconomic group and racially segregated schools.  Poverty is the number one reason children don’t do well in school–it’s hard to think when you’re hungry or your family may have to move that night to another area….and another school district.

And if you cannot understand English, it’s a given that you’re not going to learn.  It’s hard to learn anything when your teacher sounds like Charlie Brown’s.  All one has to do is listen to the spanish-speaking video to understand the problem.

Oh….the irony…

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Let’s play “Spot the Irony”  today.    I’ll put up three stories in the news and you can guess at the irony….

First, in what is entirely too common, we have a woman in a military/police occupation being sexually harassed.  Why should she or the others who complained have to resign their positions?  What about the mounties who harassed her?  Meanwhile, there are stories over the net of gang rape and assaults against women**…the police, who are doing their own share of harassing are supposed to investigate these incidents in a fair and just way??

Secondly, women who are breastfeeding their infants are asked to use the bathroom to nurse their child.

Meanwhile….a Victoria’s Secret store opens in B.C.

See…nourishing your child is something to be ashamed of while sexy lingerie that promotes boobies are perfectly fine….just as long as you don’t pop one out.

Oh…the irony…

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**I am in awe of her courage–as one commenter put it:  a warrior woman!  Not only that, but the two bears showing up and not harming her also leaves me in awe.

A Charter Founder Indicted

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I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not.  These folks are greedy opportunists who look at schools and our children with $$ in their eyes. 

I AM surprised and disappointed that more of them aren’t indicted….if not for these schemes, but for seeking to get rich and destroy public education. 

Criminally Homeless

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In South Carolina news, not to be outdone by North Carolina, we have criminalizing the homeless. 

Instead of devising a way to either provide jobs so these folks can provide for themselves…they’d much rather have them go through the humiliating experience of being picked up by the police and taken to a shelter.  The shelter may harbor criminals or the mentally ill (who are not in control of themselves), or be so crowded that sleep is impossible—let alone the hygiene issues like getting a shower.

Or, what about funding something like Earthships that could build a relatively cheap sustainable house for folks to live?

Nah….we can’t have that…that would take all the fun out of being mean, petty, and heartless….

 

 

North Carolina memory hole on voting rights

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Well, if there was any doubt that repubs are trying to interfere with voting rights….this should pretty much take away that doubt.

How is this not a violation of civil rights?  As Rachel brings up—this is why we need newspapers and the media.   Granted, they’ve not done the best job of keeping people informed, but it’s never been more clear that they are just as important as ever.

If you don’t have a newspaper that does its job, then take it upon yourself to record public meetings as was done here.   If you’re not available for all public meetings, then form a co-op of news where a group of folks take turns recording public meetings.  Of course, you need reliable folks who are dedicated to get to the truth, no matter what, and will stick to the facts.  They can write their own opinion about the facts, in an editorial,  but the facts need to be put out there for everyone to draw their own conclusions.

What if someone had not recorded this meeting?  What is happening to other states where the meetings are not being recorded and there is no proof of these crooks?  This goes back to the damage Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton caused with consolidating media and removing the Fairness Doctrine.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

NCLB is a failure…

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….so the natural thing to do is require it for colleges and universities, too. /snark

Be sure to click on the link Diane has provided.  The speech she gives is outstanding in outlining exactly what is wrong with testing, testing, testing.

One of her points is that they are subjective social constructs.

Another important point she makes is that we can’t fully comprehend what will happen when children are subjected to  this nonsense testing year after year, trained like Pavlov dogs to get the “only” correct answer.  And the weight of the world upon that  “only” correct answer–if they are fond of their teacher, their principal, their school, but fail to get the correct answer and that teacher loses her/his job, and the school is closed…well, that’s a lot of pressure to put upon a child who will then blame him/herself for failing a test that was designed for them to fail.

About ten minutes in, Diane brings up the very important point that a university professor would expect the student to come to college prepared for it–to be able to comprehend complex texts and use critical thinking skills to analyze the ideas.  She states that the students won’t be able to ask “why”?

I don’t know about other universities, but Purdue was already gravitating towards lecture-only courses that were not designed to have robust classroom discussions.  That was one of the things I looked forward to when I began my college career….I was very disappointed with the lack of classroom discussion on the subjects–very few of the courses I took made sense to have lecture-only.  Most would have enriched the subject and expanded one’s worldview by new ideas being discussed.  As I write this, I can only think of five classes where we had good discussions.  And one of those classes–sociology, where I had open classroom discussion, had changed when one of my children took the very same class—it had been turned into ALL lecture and she did not have to read the five books I was required to read for it.  I was shocked.  Diane touches on this point at about 20:00 in to the speech–cram as many students you can into a lecture hall to have cost savings and….more profits.  Meanwhile….we’ll build a million dollar new sports stadium….

Diane brought up something the charter school movement would rather people not hear–that teachers are demoralized by the testing, too.   They hate what it has done to their profession.  In other words–teachers care and want their students to do well.  And it’s not because of the pay!

As I’m listening to this, it pops into my head what my college adviser had told me when I said I wanted to be a teacher–she discouraged me because she said there would not be that many jobs.  How did she know this?

And I for one cannot figure President Obama out–I know that he cares about this country.  I know he is an intelligent man.  What I can’t figure out is why he is promoting this failed policy?  Why isn’t he listening to these impassioned teachers?

Eli Broad maintains grip on Los Angeles schools

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Diane Ravitch has this up on Eli Broad’s continued influence on Los Angeles Schools.  Clearly, if his candidates for school board have not been endorsed by the public, then it’s safe to say the public is not behind Broad.

More sleazy education news

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Arne Duncan appears to be actively promoting for-profit schemes for public education.  The link to the Hill is just jaw-dropping.  Blatantly promoting schmedumacation profiteering.

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In other education news, the educators sounding the alarm were/are being monitored.  For what??

The link provided to the smear piece by Huffington post reporter Peter Cunningham, a former DOE employee, doesn’t include the comments, so I’ll post the link here:

huffingtonpost.com/peter-cunningham/ravitch-redux_b_3768887.html

This comment from the Cunningham piece tears down his arguments:

nypoet22
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this article criticizes ravitch for making ad hominem arguments, cherry-picking data, setting up straw men, distorting language, taking comments out of context and ignoring sound evidence that conflicts with her point of view. then the article proceeds to do each and every one of those things.

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People have asked why Huffington Post would be so anti-public education…assuming that because they are reportedly “progressive” that they would not buy into the nonsense that is charter schools.

Ariana Huffington once said “we want the purple people.”  “purple people” meaning those of us who actually think and don’t subscribe to sheep-ism by following party lines blindly.  Purple being the combination of conservative (red) and progressive (blue)…

…but in reality, they want the purple vote, but do not want the purple “voice”…for example–the abortion debate–women who believe in equality but didn’t believe in abortion were marginalized–denied a voice.