Jan Resseger has a blog up on the report of the Chicago Teachers Union strike in September 2012. This, my friends, is what a democratically run union looks like. Other unions TAKE HEED.
The teacher’s and counselor’s passion is evident in this report. They care about these kids and what the profiteers are doing to them. Note how the police, fire, parents, and community stepped up and supported them. Good for them.
Here’s the background on the rally today at Saucedo Elementary in Chicago.
It’s pretty serious when a teacher is threatened with termination if she/he refuses to subject the kids to this form of bullying.
Fred Klonsky has this up on a rally for Chicago Teachers Union and parents against the testing, testing, testing mentality of the education profiteers and their toadies.
Rally is at 3:30 p.m. at Saucedo Elementary at 2850 W. 24th Blvd. Wear red in support!
Diane Ravitch has this link up on Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton fighting the good fight for Michigan public schools from the profiteers.
From the link:
State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who signed his authority over school reform to the experimental EAA for 15 years in 2011, asked to get it back immediately, apparently due to deep concerns about the EAA’s many failures – but EAA Chancellor John Covington refused. Given the crumbling relationship between the EAA and Flanagan, Lipton said the EAA must be brought to a halt, not expanded, as Republicans in the Legislature are seeking to do.
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and then there’s this:
And why won’t the governor, through his control over the EAA Board of Directors that hired and can fire Covington, demand Covington to immediately return control to Flanagan or be removed from office?”
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Stunning. Absolutely stunning that they signed authority over for 15 years to an uproven entity!! Who does that?!
Of course the Repubs are not only not stopping this, but trying to expand it. (Probably hoping that it will be harder to stop a speeding train). Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Koch Brothers, John Arnold, and the billionaires boys club have too much at stake to take their marbles and go home…
Ken Previtti (Reclaim Reform) has a follow up to the mother whose child was in hospice and the state of Florida was demanding he be tested. Keep the kleenex handy.
Godspeed to her and her family.
Heartless creeps.
(hat tip to scathing purple musings) Forbes, of all places, has this article up that pretty much summarizes all that is wrong with charter school profiteers.
As mentioned here before, the article notes that Bill Clinton allowed them to proliferate by giving them tax credits and not only that, but green cards for foreign investors. Yep.
As I’m reading about the for-profit scheme and how the author notes that they have not been that profitable…I’m thinking of the “classes” being given to kids via video or online “learning”…so they don’t have to pay a teacher at all. Or–they have one teacher to answer questions or grade tests for however many kids they can squeeze in….I don’t even know the answer to that and I’m not going to even try to guess. They don’t really care, anyway, if the child is getting a good education…as long as it looks something like an education, they’re just fine with that…
Lastly, I’m even more impressed with public schools after reading this–the author notes that charter schools can pick and choose their students, so they should be showing better test scores than public…less than a third do that.
So…even with the students that are autistic or mentally challenged, the public schools still outdid the charters. Here’s to the dedicated and beleaguered public school teachers….::clink::
Here are snippets of the documentary on the grip the Kochs have on policy. It’s truly heartening what happened in Wake County, a southern area, and how they were not willing to go backward.
Also, this documentary leaves out the Gates Foundation and Eli Broad and the Walton family’s influence on destroying public education…just wanted to note that important piece of this pie.
Protestors in Venezuela were blocked on twitter from posting images of the protests.
PBS, which is supposed to be free from corporate influence, is now under fire for airing an anti-Pension series sponsored by John Arnold. David Sirota’s article on it here.
In recent years, Arnold has been using massive contributions to politicians, Super PACs, ballot initiative efforts, think tanks and local front groups to finance a nationwide political campaign aimed at slashing public employees’ retirement benefits. His foundation which backs his efforts employs top Republican political operatives, including the former chief of staff to GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey (TX). According to its own promotional materials, the Arnold Foundation is pushing lawmakers in states across the country “to stop promising a (retirement) benefit” to public employees.
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…both PBS’s “Pension Peril” correspondent and the AP reporter did not mention that according to budget data, pension shortfalls in Illinois are far smaller than the amount the state is spending on expensive taxpayer subsidies to corporations.
[…]
The state is just choosing to spend that money on huge subsidies to corporations like Sears and Google rather than paying its bills or making its required pension payments.
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See…the money is there…but it’s going into the pockets of the 1%, see? Note the $4 billion per year in subsidies in New York! OMG talk about greedy, greedy, greedy!
And here we have the smoking gun of executives knowing who was funding it and refusing to disclose it:
“We were sitting in a meeting talking about another issue and (PBS officials) were drawing examples of how they were working with other campaigns, and one of their executives said they’ve got a series called pension peril coming up talking about the threat of pensions at the state and local level,” said the source. “I asked who was funding that project, and the executive said that at this point they are not disclosing who their funders are, and everybody sitting around the room kind of paused.”
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Link to Jane Meyer’s article in the New Yorker here.
In 1997, he [David Koch] began serving as a trustee of Boston’s public-broadcasting operation, WGBH, and in 2006 he joined the board of New York’s public-television outlet, WNET. Recent news reports have suggested that the Koch brothers are considering buying eight daily newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, one of the country’s largest media empires, raising concerns that its publications—which include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times—might slant news coverage to serve the interests of their new owners, either through executive mandates or through self-censorship. Clarence Page, a liberal Tribune columnist, recently said that the Kochs appeared intent on using a media company “as a vehicle for their political voice.”
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$50 for Christmas bonus? Are you kidding me? So much for trickle down economics, eh?
Meyer’s piece brings up the ABC News story on Disney hiring pedophiles being cancelled…because Disney owns ABC. If I recall correctly, the reporter of the story was asked if he was crazy for investigating it….
Even more depressing is the upcoming PBS pieces by Chitester on the “evils of the welfare system” I can hardly wait. What a bully this guy is…pick on the ones who are least likely to fight back. Creep.
…meanwhile *crickets* from the corporate owned media…
…which is why we should be alarmed at even more consolidation by the media with this deal which most certainly violates the Sherman Act of antitrust law.
I read a couple of reviews which were light and not really addressing the seriousness of the deal. Our democracy depends on a robust press that is diversified.
Let’s start with the beginning of the country–when a publisher printed unflattering things about the King of England, he had the publisher thrown in jail and the printing presses destroyed. No matter that the publisher was printing the truth. If I recall correctly, the newspaper had printed a story that the King had syphilis. He in fact did have syphilis (which there was no cure and led to madness), but the presses were still destroyed anyway.
So…if you didn’t want your printing presses destroyed (therefore, your means of income), you printed only nice things about the King. The King could accuse you of Sedition (treason, basically), and that was that.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the King of England that resorted to this:
Related — Book Burnings History
So, with Reagan and Clinton, our media has been more and more consolidated, meaning you, the American public, does not get the coverage and opposing views necessary to make an informed decision about what is happening in your country and the world, such as TPP. If it weren’t for Ed Shultz on MSNBC, you would not hear about it at all.
1987The Fairness Doctrine — the rule held since the founding of the FCC that mandated time for opposing viewpoints on significant issues of the day — is eliminated. This paves the way for the existence of entire networks (Fox and Sinclair) that proudly proclaim a one-side point of view. Thus “fair and balanced” becomes a trademarked phrase, instead of a principled and regulated way of presenting opinion. While the congress voted to extend the Fairness Doctrine, it was vetoed by President Reagan.
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The Fairness Doctrine explained here.
Only alternate sources such as commondreams, democracynow.org, and alternet.org have you heard about TPP….and even then, you’re not really informed because the White House has not been forthcoming with what is in it or allowing the press to examine it.
Additionally, more concentrated media means you don’t get fair coverage of whistleblowers like Edward Snowdon, Brad Birkenfeld, Thomas Drake, et al.
President Jefferson or perhaps it was President Madison said,”Information is Power.” when referring to the Freedom of the Press. This is why the NSA is doing all it can to gather information that it does not deserve….gathering more power.
And we all know too much power concentrated in a few hands leads to corruption.
Power corrupts. Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.
We’re dangerously close to absolute power.
Incidentally, in case you didn’t know, the American public owns the airwaves. Here’s a group explaining ways to hold the media accountable.
…in this case, the big bad teacher’s unions. They are portrayed as taking away the civil rights of children…by billionaires who are paying their parents less than livable wages…so they can have even bigger bank accounts and totally take over public education.
Meanwhile,Diane has this up on the Schools as Soap Operas, brought to you by corporate profiteers.
Additionally, Reclaim Reform has this up on the hypocrites of reform. Pretty sobering.
But wait…here is some good news–Pittsburgh schools cancel contract with Teach for America. Yay!
Eagle 
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