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!
Warrior Publications has this up from John Kane on relearning what our ancestors knew…
Some folks are so far removed from nature that they don’t have even the very basic knowledge of…living. Living in harmony, that is…
We’ve been fed this false belief that technology is superior to nature…when nothing trumps nature. Just look at the powerful force of nature during any storm…and how technology takes a hit every time.
Technology has put up a wall between us and nature. We lose that connection. We lose the talent of our senses without engaging them daily. (Think of folks walking into water fountains or walking into traffic while talking on cell phones.)
…and when we lose that connection, we lose the ability to value nature–to understand nature. And as the post says–we lose the ability to know our place within nature and our time here.
Being poor helps with that–washing clothes by scrubbing them on a washboard gave me a sense of accomplishment–I knew that I could do a decent job of it; learning how to manage on so little helps one really learn how to prioritize on what is important–you learn what is fluff and what is substance; and the biggest re-connect with nature is your own sense of self-worth and pride in that you made it. You survived. And nature is better for it because the balance of give-and-take is restored. You no longer take and take, but realize you must give, too. Not easy…but ohhh so worth it, in the end. You gain something so much more valuable.
This week’s pics of beautiful Canada. I was thinking about Neil Young’s song and the video of the Earth before the energy companies move in, and how much is lost that cannot be regained after they’re done stripping the land…
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…
So…Joe Donnelly was on the local radio station getting free air time, er I mean, informing the public…
…when he was laying into President Obama for the executive order to force the minimum wage to $10.10 for federal workers.
Donnelly casually mentions that George W. Bush did this (and so did several other presidents, including Reagan and Clinton, who were neck and neck with executive orders). More here on Mike Pence (now Indiana’s governor) who thinks executive orders are just fine for George W. Bush.
Donnelly stated that President Obama “should have tried to work with us…and he jumped the gun…”
bwahahahahahaha
Um, he has tried to work with Congress. Members of Congress have had a secret agreement to deliberately thwart Obama and block nominees, legislation, etc.
They have blocked raising the minimum wage for as long as I can remember. While they complain that they need an automatic pay raise every year, Congress looks the other way while people go hungry, lose their homes, go without medical care, and live under constant stress of deciding whether to pay the light bill, mortgage, heat bill, or put food on the table.
You might remember Donnelly phrased cutting food stamps as “savings” when on the radio just before Thanksgiving….absolutely callous while ignoring waste and fraud and bloated budgets in other areas, such as Defense spending.
(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.
…you will ever see is here.
It is just mindboggling how the Koch brothers have their tentacles in every aspect of society: union busting, voting rights, livable wages, social security, corporate taxes, healthcare, etc….
Not only that, but equally troubling is how easily Congress and politicians can be bought.
They are more than willing to endorse the racist ideas of the Kochs by a stealth way of re-segregating schools, interfering with one’s right to vote, and dumping toxins in poor and black neighborhoods. The only thing missing from this documentary is how BP is right there with Koch and will most likely accept the petcoke byproduct of tar sands at the Whiting, Indiana refineries. Indiana always seems to get lost in the concerns of pollution.
Another troubling aspect of this documentary is how Ed Shultz is featured as being against the Kochs, but he is for XL pipeline….which the Kochs are behind! One can only wonder how much the Kochs have paid to MSNBC or to Shultz (which I would find it hard to believe, but Kochs seem to go on the belief that everyone has a price…and they only need to find out what that price tag is…) since Ed has changed his tune, and the Kochs are known for greasing palms to buy people’s silence or worse, it’s not without merit to question if they have paid somebody off to get Ed to promote the pipeline.
I’m glad, however, to say that some of us care about the environment and our health and our children’s health and are resistant to this dirty money…
Eagle 
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