A Labor Day Reflectionby: California Teachers Association
Fri Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51:07 PM PD
|
| By CTA President Dean E. Vogel Labor Day is the one day of the year when we celebrate the historical achievements of the labor movement and honor those who contributed to the social and economic achievement of workers and the middle class. For me, though, this Labor Day is not only a chance to acknowledge what the labor movement has done in the past, but to reflect on what it can do in the present. Last year at this time, teachers, firefighters, nurses and public servants came together to do something that had been unthinkable for 20 years. We persuaded voters to pass Proposition 30, a temporary tax increase to prevent drastic budget cuts to students and public schools and to keep our economy strong. That vote was no fluke, because in the same election, voters also rejected Proposition 32, a third try at a ballot proposal that would have silenced middle-class workers and immobilized unions while strengthening the power of billionaire businessmen. Working families may not have the billions of dollars and deep pockets of big tobacco, oil companies or Wall Street brokers, but last November, we showed that Californians want to invest in public education, their communities and their future. They want to see our economy restored so that |
Friday, August 30, 2013
A Labor Day Reflection By CTA President Dean E. Vogel
Calitics California Politics Blog. California Progressive Blog. California weblog.:
A Broken Windows Approach To Education Reform - Forbes
A Broken Windows Approach To Education Reform - Forbes:
A Broken Windows Approach To Education Reform
Comment Now
Follow Comments
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 28: Freddy Walters watches a giant screen in Times Square as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech on August 28, 2013 in New York City. With the official ceremony in Washington D.C., a crowd gathered in Manhattan's Times Square to watch the President's speech broadcast live and commemorate the anniversary of what is seen as one of the most important days in the history of American civil rights. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
In America’s inner cities, the hope engendered by Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech – whose 50th anniversary we celebrated this week – quickly devolved over the ensuing decades into an epidemic of fatherless children and concomitant crime. In most urban locales, this pattern continues, even as many of the civil rights gains courageously sought by Dr. King have been met.
For decades since King’s beautiful speech, sociologists of urban decay sought remedies for the nation’s crime epidemic in increased government beneficence. This fateful commingling of civil rights with top-down social engineering was a Great Society conflation that engendered a permanent American underclass, beholden to self-serving demagogues for handouts and crippled by the sacrosanct victim status bestowed upon them by the guilt-ridden custodians of the then flush American entitlement state. This was hardly the “dream” of disciplined, faith-based, family-friendly, self-motivated, nonviolent empowerment that was Dr.
Lawmakers Begin to Connect the Dots Between Gates and Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher
Lawmakers Begin to Connect the Dots Between Gates and Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:
Lawmakers Begin to Connect the Dots Between Gates and Common Core
Common Core proponents are mounting a full court press in a belated recognition that their testing juggernaut is running into some serious obstacles around the country. Former TFA CEO Wendy Kopp shared her opinion today that the Common Core test results are a "welcome wake-up call" that will "...finally give families an accurate barometer of whether our kids are mastering the skills they need to succeed in a knowledge-based global economy, early enough that we can intervene."
Meanwhile New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that "there has to be a death penalty for failing schools, so to speak," making it clear that the dismal test scores will continue to be used to decimate schools in high poverty neighborhoods.
But some lawmakers have begun to connect the dots between the Common Core and the various people singing its praises. In Michigan, here is what representative Tom McMillin had to say two days ago, in response to testimony from Chester Finn, of the Fordham Institute, which can be counted among the architects of test-driven reform.
At around minute 25, McMillin points out that Chester Finn's colleague at the Fordham Institute, Michael Petrilli, had stated that after Arne Duncan hired four Gates Foundation staffers to high level positions in the Department of Education, "the Gates Foundation's agenda has become the country's agenda in education." Finn said he disagreed, however he acknowledged that "the Gates Foundation paid for the development of the Common Core
Stay with Common Core: "We have it right. Please don't mess it... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com
Stay with Common Core: "We have it right. Please don't mess it... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:
