Category Archives: wages

Education News

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A Chicago Alderman has proposed drones in Rahm Emanuel’s Safe Passage routes.  I kid you not.  If you continue with the next blog of Fred Klonsky, he questions the “none of your business” attitude of CPS on emergency preparedness plans.  At the end, there is another link “continuing the story” which has this:

In a written statement, CPS officials insisted that every school in the district does, in fact, have a plan but said they were limited to “management level staff within the Office of Safety and Security,” building principals and assistant principals, and officials of the Chicago Police and Fire Departments.

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This is ridiculous.  The schools that I have taught at had plans the teachers knew and the children went through drills so they would know what to do.  It is important because their teacher may be incapacitated, so the children all the way up to the principals need to know the plan.    I found it highly ironic one year when we had a small earthquake while I was teaching.  I asked the kids if they knew what to do in case of an earthquake, which they didn’t, so I told them to stay under their desks until the shaking stopped, and then we would leave the building in the usual emergency route.  One of the regular instructors thought that I had needlessly worried the children….all the while they have been  put in “lockdowns” for some terrorist going to attack the school.  <sigh>
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The Indignant Teacher has a post up on a petition to remove David Koch from the board of WGBH Boston’s PBS station.  I have always admired WGBH and WTTW PBS stations, and now that Kochs are trying to control the media, it is even more imperative to get them out.
More moneyed influence on campaigns of the anti-public school crowd.  Good God, this guy is a liar.  A bold-faced one at that.
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More here on John Pelto’s blog that Diane links to:
The evidence is clear that income inequality is a major factor in educational inequality. Children living in poverty experience prolonged stress that affects their brain development in the regions associated with learning. There is a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and standardized test scores. As proven by Stanford’s Sean Reardon, the widening of the achievement gap results from additional opportunities affluent parents provide their children out of the K-12 environment: high-quality pre-K, tutoring, and after-school and summer enrichment. Reardon demonstrated that the test score disparity between low-income and high-income children is not the result of schools.
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See, the pro-Charter $$ folks would prefer to ignore this important fact that impacts learning….it’s much more fun to blame unionized teachers…and watch them scramble to put out fires the Charter proponents deliberately set.
This is pretty powerful.  He puts it so well–that every child develops in different ways and at different speeds and those differences should be honored, not ridiculed by failure of a “skills” test.  (hat tip to Diane Ravitch)
Finally, a wonderful history lesson here by Diane.  She was there on the March on Washington.

The Moyers Program

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Well, I was right about Bill Moyers’ program being eye opening….

African American folks who think Bill Clinton is pro-African American might want to pay close attention to who he associates with:  Haley Barbour was governor of Mississippi when Katrina hit.  I was still in the town I grew up in at the time and the local radio station was collecting donations for the victims of Katrina.  They made sure to note that the donations would be going to a certain town or county in Mississippi.  I asked a blogger that I knew to see what the demographics were–it was repub and white.  Yep.

Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton’s brother…um-hmmm…Gulf Coast Funds Management...raised money from overseas.

You know, a representative (vice president, I believe) of an fighter jet manufacturer was on CSPAN talking about one of the bombers that costs us millions of dollars to build and maintain, and the VP stated during the conversation that these bombers weren’t only for the U.S. forces…but were also necessary for U.S. allies.  Read that again–we are spending millions of dollars for fighter jets so that other countries can benefit from American technology…as the American taxpayer foots the bill.

In other words, we order the plane to specs…plane is built…..taxpayers pay $$$$$ for the plane….company then sells the plane to other countries….courtesy of the American taxpayer.

At  about 16:00 in, it is noted that the joke is “we’re all Patriots…”   The contempt here being that they are not representing the American public, but the corporations who will pay and pay and pay…they don’t give a shit about the country….it’s all in how much money they can make….

Mark Leibovich’s statement on The White House Correspondents Dinner really causes one to pause–rewarding the media for being on television, basically.  The mix of nooz and glamour is stunning.  Although he mentions Tom Brokaw railing against it, he fails to mention that George Clooney, via his father, thanked Brokaw for speaking out.   And what is really bad is that none of the so-called “serious” news outlets mentioned Clooney or Brokaw’s sentiments….quite telling, isn’t it?

As Leibovich brings up the massive PR campaign of BP after the oil spill, my mind flashes to all the commercials aired nightly on the nooz–BP, Big Pharma, Big Energy…rinse, repeat.  And I think of all the major problems facing the nation right now and how this lack of true coverage of these important issues have left the American public without crucial information.  Our democracy is fragile and the Press is in the thick of it–and they don’t give a shit that they are aiding the demise of that democracy.  Hey, they’re on TV!!  They’re very important people!!  And this is why they attacked Edward Snowdon for doing what they should have been doing.

…and there are still those who blame the American public for not knowing what is going on in their government.  <sigh>

Go Virginia!

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Virginia has had enough of dismissive politicians who circumvent the people whom they represent and they have filed suit against what is basically taxation without representation.

 

In other education news,  Diane reposts about the Gesell Institute’s take on Common Core…waay back in 2010.

From the statement:

We urge the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to respect the individual developmental differences of children and revise the K-3 standards based on research and the advice of experts in the field of early childhood.

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In the comments, someone provided a link to Bill Moyers’ program on Glitz and Greed in D.C.  I haven’t viewed it yet, but knowing Bill Moyers, it will be eye-opening.

Segregation persists in Texas schools

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Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig has a post up on his findings of segregation in Texas schools.  He asserts that there is a third segregation–by language.  Non-English speaking children are in the low socioeconomic group and racially segregated schools.  Poverty is the number one reason children don’t do well in school–it’s hard to think when you’re hungry or your family may have to move that night to another area….and another school district.

And if you cannot understand English, it’s a given that you’re not going to learn.  It’s hard to learn anything when your teacher sounds like Charlie Brown’s.  All one has to do is listen to the spanish-speaking video to understand the problem.

Criminally Homeless

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In South Carolina news, not to be outdone by North Carolina, we have criminalizing the homeless. 

Instead of devising a way to either provide jobs so these folks can provide for themselves…they’d much rather have them go through the humiliating experience of being picked up by the police and taken to a shelter.  The shelter may harbor criminals or the mentally ill (who are not in control of themselves), or be so crowded that sleep is impossible—let alone the hygiene issues like getting a shower.

Or, what about funding something like Earthships that could build a relatively cheap sustainable house for folks to live?

Nah….we can’t have that…that would take all the fun out of being mean, petty, and heartless….

 

 

NCLB is a failure…

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….so the natural thing to do is require it for colleges and universities, too. /snark

Be sure to click on the link Diane has provided.  The speech she gives is outstanding in outlining exactly what is wrong with testing, testing, testing.

One of her points is that they are subjective social constructs.

Another important point she makes is that we can’t fully comprehend what will happen when children are subjected to  this nonsense testing year after year, trained like Pavlov dogs to get the “only” correct answer.  And the weight of the world upon that  “only” correct answer–if they are fond of their teacher, their principal, their school, but fail to get the correct answer and that teacher loses her/his job, and the school is closed…well, that’s a lot of pressure to put upon a child who will then blame him/herself for failing a test that was designed for them to fail.

About ten minutes in, Diane brings up the very important point that a university professor would expect the student to come to college prepared for it–to be able to comprehend complex texts and use critical thinking skills to analyze the ideas.  She states that the students won’t be able to ask “why”?

I don’t know about other universities, but Purdue was already gravitating towards lecture-only courses that were not designed to have robust classroom discussions.  That was one of the things I looked forward to when I began my college career….I was very disappointed with the lack of classroom discussion on the subjects–very few of the courses I took made sense to have lecture-only.  Most would have enriched the subject and expanded one’s worldview by new ideas being discussed.  As I write this, I can only think of five classes where we had good discussions.  And one of those classes–sociology, where I had open classroom discussion, had changed when one of my children took the very same class—it had been turned into ALL lecture and she did not have to read the five books I was required to read for it.  I was shocked.  Diane touches on this point at about 20:00 in to the speech–cram as many students you can into a lecture hall to have cost savings and….more profits.  Meanwhile….we’ll build a million dollar new sports stadium….

Diane brought up something the charter school movement would rather people not hear–that teachers are demoralized by the testing, too.   They hate what it has done to their profession.  In other words–teachers care and want their students to do well.  And it’s not because of the pay!

As I’m listening to this, it pops into my head what my college adviser had told me when I said I wanted to be a teacher–she discouraged me because she said there would not be that many jobs.  How did she know this?

And I for one cannot figure President Obama out–I know that he cares about this country.  I know he is an intelligent man.  What I can’t figure out is why he is promoting this failed policy?  Why isn’t he listening to these impassioned teachers?

James O’Keefe at it again? **edited

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This *cough* surfer guy sure does resemble James O’Keefe—the guy who brought down ACORN with his pimp impersonation and who also tampered with Mary Landrieu’s phone system.

This hit piece is just another Reagan-Cadillac-driving-welfare-queen smear to incite hatred towards food stamp recipients.  There is no waaaay someone on food stamps could survive buying lobster and other expensive grocery items in this video.  When his $200 is gone…it’s gone.

One would have to buy chicken, beans, rice, etc., to survive.  And fruits and vegetables to stay healthy.  But again, this video sneakily ignores that…

God these people are evil.

**edited to add link. Geesh