Category Archives: voters

Obama and the Education Fiasco?

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One of the commenters on Diane Ravitch’s site has this link up .  An excellent timeline on what has been going on behind the scenes with *cough* education reform.

I really, really, hope that Barack Obama has changed his mind regarding this–as Diane Ravitch did when she came to realize that education reform was actually turning schools into for-profit centers.

From the link:

“When teachers are given powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional growth and recognition for outstanding achievement, we see increased student achievement in TAP schools,” Lowell Milken said in a December 2008 press release. “Chicago TAP schools are off to a strong start in continuing efforts to achieve these goals.”

Milken, unmentioned in most accounts, has a vested financial interest in school reform efforts and “fixing failing schools.”

That’s because Milken is a major investor in K12 Inc., a corporation traded on Wall Street that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. Milken invested $10 million in K12 Inc. in 2000, a stake that is now worth over $125 million, according to a July 2008 article in Forbes.

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Milken is full of it, to put it bluntly.  Nobody who knows anything about teachers and education would ever make such an idiotic statement.  Most teachers are in the profession because they want to see children learn, NOT because they want “career advancement”.  Their professional growth comes with experience….there is no substitute for that and no amount of money can magically *poof* experience.

Truly, to say that a student’s achievement is the teacher’s achievement is, in my view, taking away from the student’s hard work.  A good teacher is only part of the student-parent-teacher equation.  ALL of them play an important role in how well the student does.

When I first went to college, I wanted to be a teacher.  When I discussed this with my college advisor, she discouraged me from going that route–she said the jobs wouldn’t be there.  I wonder what she knew and when she knew it??  Anyway, I decided to go into Communications so that I could make documentaries and still somewhat “teach”.

However, when I was on what was supposed to be a progressive jobs website, there was Teach for America.  I applied, writing in my application how I had helped my daughter overcome dyslexia and learn to read.  I wanted to teach in inner city schools, I told them, so I could help the little ones with such learning hurdles.

I was turned down flat.  Not even an interview.

Knowing what I know now, it is obvious they were never interested in educating kids.  They didn’t want folks who were passionate and truly wanted to help kids learn.

When you couple this with the military in schools, it’s truly scary, indeed, on what is happening to our schools.  God help us.

Rep. Brown: Shame On You

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Like I posted previously, I’m pretty upset and words fail me, but Rep. Brown speaks for me. 

I think we need to stop spending money on these….useless eaters. (Hillary Clinton and Rush Limbaugh have both reportedly stated such)  ….so I’m trying to find information confirming that Hillary or Bill made the statement, and it’s interesting all the stuff that I came across….one of which is a statement that Cecil Rhodes of the Rhodes scholarship fame, was a racist who called Africans “useless eaters”.  (Interesting that Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar.)

This, for instance.  Well, now.

And then there’s this (2010).  Isn’t it interesting that wherever Clintons go, there is disaster….and they’re always “my bad”   “oops”   “sorry bout that, folks”….and they’re still praised out the wazoo….for doing what, exactly…?  Somebody please tell me.

More on food from Raj Patel here.

Here’s a link Patel mentions in his blog on the hunger summit.

Wow:

So it’s hardly surprising that almost 200 African farmers’ and campaigners’ groups have rejected the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, calling it a “new wave of colonialism” in a statement sent to G8 leaders earlier this week. Their analysis is clear: “Private ownership of knowledge and material resources (for example, seed and genetic materials) means the flow of royalties out of Africa into the hands of multinational corporations.”

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The real causes of hunger are inequality of wealth and power, not a lack of big business.

 

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Word.

We don’t want your GMO’s.  We don’t want your money.  We want decent, livable wages to pay our own way.

 

 

More on Fort Wayne Vouchers

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Karen Francisco, of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, made a comment on Diane Ravitch’s blog that was outstanding.

It pretty much outlines what these creeps are getting away with–robbing the public schools of funds while laughing all the way to the bank:

Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease.

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Napolitano leaving

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Janet Napolitano is leaving the Dept. of Hysterical Security to head up….wait for it…the University of California, including Berkeley.…

While reading the article, I again ask myself, “why is one person head over natural disasters, the CDC,  as well as security?”

Indiana Charters: Show me the money

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Diane Ravitch has a blog up on the Indiana Charter schools playing the shell game of accountability.  Now you see it, now you don’t…well, you never really did see accountability…

The financial profits aspect turns my stomach to no end…

And Gates Foundation being involved….well, there’s a red flag if there ever were a red flag.  My blogs on Gates here and here and here and here, on the Gates Foundation and Brookings Institute that tossed Diane Ravitch aside when she began to question what was happening to public education.

 

$382 million withheld from affordable housing funds

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A lawsuit has been filed alleging that millions of dollars have been withheld from affordable housing funds.

More from Housing Authorities around the country:

New York.  Okay, I’m a little confused, because the folks in Fort Wayne were having budget cuts even before sequestration….some forty percent was reported.  It was supposed to be nationwide, so I’m wondering why NY wasn’t cut previously?

Seattle, Washington.  This report is more in line with what Fort Wayne is going through–they have had to close the Section 8 (Voucher) program many times because they are just flooded every time they open it up.  They have had as many as 4,000 people on the waiting list (If I recall correctly, that was for both  Voucher and Public Housing).

From the report:

At the same time, the waiting list for Housing Choice Vouchers remains closed, and the agency is unable to issue new vouchers at all. Nearly all vouchers are in use (99.6 percent), and the 1,552 households still on the waiting list remain stuck there. Total waiting lists exceed 25,000, and 884 new households were added in January alone. At a time when need is growing dramatically, the Seattle Housing Authority is unable to expand to meet that need.

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Here’s a good article from The Nation on the stupidity and callousness of cutting a housing budget when there is so much need.

From the article:

Although housing assistance takes only one penny of every federal budget dollar, right-wing ideologues since at least the Reagan years have long used “deficit reduction” as a pretext for achieving their dream of eliminating government housing aid. Reagan infamously slashed the housing budget at a time of recession and the emergence of modern homelessness, while the deficit exploded. There’s no question that when it comes to housing assistance, the Reagan legacy lives on. This year the Cato Institute outlined a plan to tackle the budget deficit that would, among other things, “terminate” the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And Reagan’s Tea Party descendants in Congress promise further chops of the budget ax for housing and other safety net programs.

If you read on down, it mentions the Trust Fund created in 2008….but yeah, no funding.  Cruelty by dangling a carrot to the caged rabbit.
3.5 million homeless Americans….

Growing concern over super bugs and super weeds

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common dreams has this link up on the octopus of GMO corn and the emerging super bugs that are resistant to the pesticides….

…and of course, their answer is to….throw more pesticides after them.

We all saw this coming, so why are Monsanto and Syngenta still allowed to market this monster?

Congress, can you hear the American public that you love to  *quote*  all the time?  Can you hear us above the *clink* of money in your pocket? (Be sure to click on the media link and its pathetic and sometimes belittling coverage).

Vilsack, can you cut your ties with Monsanto and do what is right for the environment and our health?

Here’s a report about GMO’s in the waterways in my own backyard.  This is a freaking nightmare.

As a side note, here’s an article on aerial spraying and untested chemicals.  Gees-o-pete, does anyone stand up to the chemical industry??

Rewriting history

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Is what seems to be happening in the last few weeks of the “George Love In”….with the *cough* George W. Bush library that re-programs, er I mean, explains to the public  how it really was when he was president…