Category Archives: unions

An Educator for Chancellor…what a concept…

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Bill de Blasio better check with ole’ slick Willy and Hilly to rethink his choice for Chancellor.   He must be mistaken, because Bill, Hillary, Michelle Rhee, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates don’t approve of actual educators being involved in…you know…education administration.  De Blasio obviously didn’t get the memo that he needs to appoint an investment banker, technology terrorist, or some other profiteer to run the schools.  /very snarky

Opposing Enbridge

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Warrior Publications has this up on the curious fact that people opposing the Enbridge pipeline are not the radicals that the Oil industry and the politicos would like you to think.

Like I’ve said before, there are a lot more people in favor of protecting the environment but are afraid to be categorized as terrorists or radicals, so they remain silent.  It really came home to me when I wrote an op-ed for my local paper talking about environmental concerns, including GMO labeling.  I had people call me and talk to me in person (in a low voice, no doubt so no one else could hear the conversation) about how they agreed with me.  But they didn’t take that next step and write their own op-ed on how they, too, wanted to protect the environment.

The oil industry and others have done a bang up job of portraying *all* environmentalists as radical, violent people….when only a small number of people have done things that are disagreeable to the rest.  And I’m sure there were agent provocateurs amongst the violent ones.

The following isn’t related to the environmental protests, but it is helpful in understanding that it isn’t paranoia on the part of protestors:

 

Third Way

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You might remember this post with a quote that says the words “third way”.  Not long after I posted it, Ed on the Ed Show (MSNBC) mentioned the Third Way.  I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was negative and the segment intrigued me.

I’ve just now gotten around to doing a bit of research on Third Way.  Whew…do you smell a rat??  Me, too.

Red flags are going off with Elizabeth Warren being attacked by supposed Democrats for…speaking out against selling us out to the 1% by cutting Social Security and other social programs….calling them “populist”. Um-hmmm…that and the word “entitlement” are key words for the “I’ve-got-mine-screw-you” crowd. 

Now, getting back to the previous post with Hillary Clinton’s religious leader saying those words:  third way…and how they wanted to do away with New Deal programs:

It emerged, he [Reverend Don Jones] says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal’s labor-based liberalism.

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Social Security. Public Schools.  Medicaid.  Medicare.  Public employees like fire fighters, police.  Public Libraries.  A decent living wage.

I know that it’s hard to believe they want to destroy it all, but all signs are pointing towards that very end.

Elizabeth Warren stands in the way of that.

Here’s a humorous video up on it:

Please, please run for President, Elizabeth.  Please!!  I’ll go knocking on doors…whatever needs done to help get you votes.  Hillary Clinton is nothing but a Goldwater Girl doing the dirty work of the bankers, warmongers, education profiteers, Big Oil, Monsanto, and no doubt countless other organizations that don’t give a crap about Americans or America, the poor, the elderly, the children, the environment, nor the middle class.

Please run, Elizabeth.

School Colocation

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Yeah, I didn’t know what “colocation” meant, either. The former post on Bloomberg at Diane Ravitch’s has led to a great discussion on it and there is a   charter school troll there advocating Success Academy, a charter.  A poster supplied a link to an insightful post here.

This is just absolutely wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Another link provided a report on Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy receiving preferential treatment from the DOE.  Good Grief, can they be any more of an enabler?

More  here,

The preceding also has a link to Juan Gonzalez’s column on the sardine-like atmosphere in the colocation schools.  Shocking cannot even describe the overcrowded conditions that led to an autistic child disappearing.  Good God.

…and $1300 on marketing…per child….are you kidding me??  That money could have been used for public schools in more education-oriented ways.  It’s just mindboggling how dense and misguided this misuse of funds is…

…and how the public is being ignored:

Moreover, it is also clear from the abundance of comments at public hearings that the vast majority of parents oppose these proposals – and these parents’ choices are being ignored.  Just check any of the Public comment analyses on the DOE webpage.  In many of these summaries, every single parent who spoke opposed the co-location, as well as representatives of the Community Education Councils and elected officials.

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The public, that pays the taxes for the public schools, is…ignored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why won’t public schools just go away already?

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(said very snarkily)

Jan Ressenger has this up on the recent nominee to the Dept of Education.  Yeah, if you were hoping that President Obama had somehow seen the light about the U.S. education fiasco, well, you (and I) were sadly mistaken, because he’ s nominated another corporate takeover twerp.

Be sure to click on the link to the Nation’s report:

In addition, [Ted]  Mitchell serves as an adviser to Salmon River Capital, a venture capital firm that specializes in education companies. Mitchell sits on the board of Parchment, an academic transcript start-up that is among Salmon River Capital’s portfolio. Salmon River Capital helped create one of the biggest names in for-profit secondary education, Capella University.

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Italics mine.

That, my friends, should read as a rap sheet.

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In other Education News, School Matters has this blog on the lack of transparency for the State of Indiana….so what else is new?

I agree that individuals should probably not be named, but there absolutely needs to be an accounting of how many students went to school B, and how much money was diverted from School A.

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School Finance 101 has a good report on the lies and statistics of mis-edumucation.  One can make statistics say anything you want, if you know how to skew the data…or leave out the data that doesn’t agree with your goals.

Boiling the frog…

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Idle No More has a virtual “teach-in” up on the web (scroll down) by Sharon Venne.   It’s a really interesting piece on the historical treatment of the indigenous and how s-l-o-w-l-y their culture and their land has been “disappeared”.

As she says in her talk, it goes on over such a slow period of time, that one doesn’t realize what is happening until it’s almost too late….like the frog put in a pan of water that the heat is turned up so slowly that the frog doesn’t realize it’s being boiled to death.

It’s really worth watching it all the way through–she has such a good story to tell of her own struggle to get an education.  She tells the story of not being able to read until going to university.  (By the way, Literacy Volunteers are out there to help folks learn to read–check with your local library). She was continually kept in stress mode by them not sending her monthly stipends on time so she could pay her rent.  God Bless the administrator who helped her.

She makes an important point at about 29:00 minutes in– of what sounds like the precursor to “corporations are people, too”.  If anything, we need to pay better attention to what is going on in other countries…especially to the poor and minorities…because it seems to be a worldwide power grab–given that there have been austerity measures all over the globe and attacks on teacher’s unions and such.  More here.

And here.

Rick Berman: gun for hire

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Deutsch29 has an excellent blog up on the *cough* Center for Union Facts (CUF) running a full page ad in the NY Times. Upon closer examination, our old friend, Rick Berman, gun for hire, is behind CUF, among other organizations.   Note the letter from his son, David.  Pretty sad, eh?

AFT has a short video up on the 5 myths about school performance.

 

Choice-i-fication

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Edushyster has another amusing blog up on the fiasco of schools-as-profit-driven-edumucation-centers for Choice-i-fication. (hat tip Diane Ravitch)

From the Reuters link:

Ahead of elections next year, politicians of all stripes are questioning the role of such firms, accused of putting profits first with practices like letting students decide when they have learned enough and keeping no record of their grades.

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Letting students decide when they’ve learned enough??  Seriously??   They should be hanging their heads in shame for their irresponsibility.   I would have quit my sophomore year in high school if it would have been allowed…things were not going well and it would have been easier to give in.  This is especially true for the young–who don’t have enough experience to determine what is best for them.  For me, I will always regret that I didn’t take the college prep courses in high school.  I could not see that my circumstances might change in the future and I would be able to go to college.  Allowing these young folks to decide when they’ve learned enough is criminal, in my view.

And then there’s the unintended consequence:

Sweden replaced one of the world’s most tightly regulated school systems with one of the most deregulated, leading to scandals like the 2011 case of the convicted paedophile who set up several schools quite legally.

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I have no words.

What I don’t understand is near the end of the article, they say they don’t want to go back to the old way, which left parents with no choice.  WTH?  Given the choice between the new way and the old….I personally would take the old.  For-profit schools are not schools…they are centers for making kids look busy with a poor imitation of knowledge.