Well, those of us following the Education fiasco already knew this, but perhaps the doubters will finally realize the school profiteers have wanted to close public schools all along.
“For the next several years, 5% of public schools must be named as failing – even if those schools weren’t failing by current standards. With few exceptions, schools that failed for three years would be required to close or be operated by an independent private charter management company with a minimum five-year contract. Local school boards would have little authority over this company for five years. For Milwaukee, this change would apply to schools that failed for just one year.”
Diane Ravitch has a great blog up today on one family’s monopoly on charters in Minnesota and the resulting segregation.
A great comment by Reteach for America explains just how charters actually give parents less choice…and less power…when it comes to their child’s education:
Charter schools have no civic responsibility.
[…]
Many parents don’t realize this lack of democratic representation or really any say whatsoever in their children’s school is a serious issue until they have a concern about the charter and the charter tells them they are welcome to shop for another school. When they turn to the district for help, they’re often told the same thing. You don’t like McDonalds? Go to Burger King.
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So, imagine that your town no longer has independent restaurants, but only McDonald’s, Burger King, or any other national chain….you dislike the fast food and wish for a home-cooked meal that fits your diet…none of these chains have decent food, so you no longer have a choice. You either eat the stuff that resembles food, or you stay home. They don’t care about you, as an individual, but only YOU as a collective group to profit off of…
….this is essentially what charters like the ones in Minnesota are doing. McSchools.
Indignant Teacher has a story up on the ridiculous test, test, test, mentality of the Department of Education…which turns to cruelty when a child who is dying and a child with only a brain stem must.be.tested. Good God.
Apparently, my communication through her that he was in hospice wasn’t enough: they required a letter from the hospice company to say that he was dying. Every day that she comes to visit, she is required to do paperwork to document his “progress.” Seriously? Why is Ethan Rediske not meeting his 6th-grade hospital homebound curriculum requirements? BECAUSE HE IS IN A MORPHINE COMA. We expect him to go any day. He is tenaciously clinging to life.
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This just makes me angry. How utterly insane and cold and unfeeling to put this additional burden upon this mother whom is going through the most horrible thing a mother should ever have to endure–the death of her child.
Warrior Publications has this up on a report of yet another pipeline rupture that was buried since 2009. Accidentally, of course…/snark
Nathan Lemphers says “it’s hard to guess intentions” as to why this report was buried….
…yeah, I’m not buying it, either, that it was an “oversight” that the damning report was never to see sunlight. There are too many incidents of the oil industry interfering with freedom of the press and freedom of speech for it to be unintentional.
Let’s not forget the Arkansas oil spill that we wouldn’t have heard about, if it were up to the mainstream media. Or the massive devastation of the Gulf that BP tried to hide (and unfortunately, did a pretty good job of interfering with photographers and having dead dolphins carted away before they could document them.)
The tide was turned against the Vietnam war through the media…once one sees how devastating it is, it makes it harder to look the other way.
…and so it is with the devastating effects of the energy companies on the environment….hard to look the other way once one sees how devastating it is to the Earth and to the wildlife.
Neil Young’s song and the accompanying video haunt me–it shows in stark contrast how beautiful this Earth truly is until the oil and gas companies move in…
Ed Shultz (MSNBC) has now two nights in a row yelled into the screen about how we should be in favor of the XL pipeline for *cough* safety reasons. Um-hmmm…
You know, I might have believed him if he wasn’t leaving out one important factor of tar sands: pet coke. Pet coke being the highly toxic byproduct of tar sands….which they want to dump in my already toxic state…
He is adamant that the “oil is going to come out, anyway” so it might as well be us, because if China or anyone else does it, well, it’s just not going to be as environmentally friendly.
I say let them. It will be blood on their hands, not ours.
Better yet, leave the oil in the Earth where it belongs. As the Sierra Club stated, if the XL is not built, then there is high probability that the tar sands will remain in the Earth.
Additionally, I thought it was disingenuous of Ed Shultz not to mention the Mi’kmaq or other First Nations of Canada whom have rights to the lands that are being destroyed.
Not a peep. That speaks volumes!
And it also speaks to why MSNBC and Ed Shultz are still trying to convince people, almost on a daily basis, that Hillary Clinton is the front runner for the 2016 presidential race. Hillary Clinton is all for the XL.
Lastly, Ed and his backers would still like to downplay how devastating XL would be on the environment.
He says we “have to” have XL in order to turn on our lights…and other scare tactics.
I don’t think we have *even* begun to truly use our brain cells to discover sustainable ways of creating energy.
…and Ed, we can always light a candle instead of cursing the dark…
What did Big Oil know and when did they know it. Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, thought the pipeline was dangerous to the environment…bwahahahahaha *snort* /just a little joke there, folks
Finally, Democracy Now! featured the XL in a debate with an industry insider and Friends of the Earth:
I have to hand it to Bob Braun–the hits just keep coming. He has yet another great report up on how the Christie/Anderson plan of trashing public education via closing public schools and pushing children into charters may be illegal, according to New Jersey law.
I am so happy that at least someone is fighting for them. I wish we had them here….Indiana’s public schools will close before Hoosiers wake up to what is really happening…
**note that the 5 principals that were fired…er, put on indefinite layoff…were reinstated. Woot.
Diane Ravitch has this up on the destructive policies designed to push for charter schools that will ultimately mean the demise of public schools through siphoning funding away.
By the way, HB1320, has passed. By the legiscan link, it’s hard to tell whether it passed in the legislature or just the committee. Either way, it doesn’t look good.
Diane Ravitch has this up on Tennessee teacher Laura Hopson speaking out on what teachers really want–funny thing is they don’t want what the self-appointed education gurus say they want…
What a bombshell…the United States Department of Education is taking dirty money from Bill and Melinda Gates.
For a “collaboration conference” April 2012
Another “collaborative” effort to implement Common Core, December 2013
Note the “shared responsibility” white paper….and the focus is on labor collaboration…nothing about a well-rounded education as a robust part of democracy….the focus is on labor and business.
Note the paper states that the Dept. of Ed. is under “immense pressure” to implement labor-management collaborative…um, yeah, I don’t remember asking for more corporate involvement in public schools, have you…?
This sentence is telling:
To advance this collaborative theory of change the Department has been using both its convening and
grant making powers.
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(I have no idea why the font changed to smaller size…must be the pdf.)
…in other words, the Dept. of Ed. has been coercing schools to adopt the policy through grants and legislation…
n February 2012, the Department
announced the launch of the RESPECT Project.
RESPECT stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching.
The project’s purpose is to directly engage with teachers across America in a national conversation about transforming the teaching profession by
dramatically changing the way teachers are recruited,
credentialed, supported, compensated, promoted,
and retained in the profession.
The near-term aim of the RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices in shaping federal,
state, and local policy, with a long-
term goal of making teaching one of America’s most respected professions.
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This is such a joke. Respect means you pay teachers a decent wage that reflects their professional education and their experience. Respect means you do not bash teachers and teacher’s unions.
“…the…aim of RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices…” Unless, of course, those voices are in passionate disagreement with you:
Finally, I found this wonderful video that takes on “Waiting for Superman” and all the false claims made by the education profiteers and their allies:
$7 BILLION dollars to the biggest welfare queens…McDonalds and Walmart.
Peter is an unethical toad. He never mentions the $$ executive pay that could easily be cut to allow for a decent livable wage. And preying on the mentally challenged? I have no words.
This LA Times article talks about income inequality and executive pay:
Unlike most SEC regulations, the CEO rule isn’t really designed to provide information for investors. Rather, it’s designed to provide information for the larger community — for society, if you will. Its aim is to provide ammunition for the argument that the share of corporate profits going to top management, and by extension corporate shareholders, has gotten out of control.
That’s a sound argument, shared by many management experts and economists who argue that the diversion of corporate resources from workers to executives and shareholders is a major contributor to rising income inequality in the U.S., as well as to other social and economic ills.
This information would be very helpful to folks who wish to invest but want to do so with a conscience. Even if I had the money, I would think twice before investing again–I would not want to invest in a company that paid the execs 350% more than workers, nor one like Johnson, who was sooo overcompensated for….failure. That’s poor management, in my opinion.
This piece states that companies were supposed to notify shareholders of environmental impacts…it’s been awhile since I had invested in stocks, but I don’t recall ever receiving notice of what a company did environmentally. And would those reports be worth anything? If a company is polluting, and does not wish to alert shareholders, they could skew the statistics towards a favorable view. They could also use jabberwocky language to confuse people.
A better option would be independent inspectors sending stockholders reports of all the above to hopefully get an unbiased opinion.
Eagle 
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