Monday, March 4, 2019

Alex Caputo-Pearl: UTLA Endorses Jackie Goldberg for LAUSD School Board! | Diane Ravitch's blog #VOTEJackieGoldberg #TEAMGoldberg

Alex Caputo-Pearl: UTLA Endorses Jackie Goldberg for LAUSD School Board! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Alex Caputo-Pearl: UTLA Endorses Jackie Goldberg for LAUSD School Board!


This was just released by Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, which endorsed Jackie Goldberg for the vacant seat on the LAUSD school board. 
The special election is tomorrow, to fill a seat left empty when a member who happened to be a charter school founder was convicted of money laundering charges.
Jackie was a teacher for many years; a member of the Los Angeles City Council; a member of the LAUSD school board; and a member of the State Assembly, where she was chair of the education committee.
Her knowledge and wisdom would be a huge benefit for the LAUSD board.
If you live in District 5, please vote for Jackie!
Alex Caputo-Pearl writes:

Educators and parents who walked our picket lines in January have been walking precincts for Jackie Goldberg. The reason is simple.  Jackie will continue the battle for more school funding and against privatization. That’s why everyone in Los Angeles Unified School District Board District 5 must vote for Jackie Goldberg tomorrow, March 5.
Jackie exemplifies our struggle.  She has been a teacher and she has trained teachers.  She has been an LAUSD parent and is an LAUSD grandparent.  She has fought for students and working families as an elected member of the LAUSD School Board, LA City Council, and California State Assembly.
Jackie can beat the millions from the billionaire privatizers in this 2019 special election, and she can do it again in the November 2020 regular election for the same seat.  It takes a particular person to stand up to this – Jackie is one of these people.  If no one in the field of 10 candidates gets over 50% of the vote this Tuesday, March 5, the top two candidates will go into a run-off for May.  If that comes to pass, it won’t matter who the candidate is running against Jackie in the run-off — the charter industry privatizers will put millions behind that person.  That is how mercenary the billionaires are – they’ll bankroll anyone to prevent Jackie from getting elected.
We need to end this on Tuesday, March 5, by getting Jackie over the 50% threshold.  We need to close the door on the billionaire privatizers NOW.
Jackie builds movements.  Whether through her bold leadership for the living wage or her fights for immigrant rights and racial justice, Jackie inspires and develops new leaders.
Jackie is with us on the issues.  She has been a fierce advocate for class size reduction, most recently penning an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that influenced the debate on class size during the strike.  She initiated a grassroots organization calling for transparency, equity, and regulation in the charter school sector.  She has relentlessly fought for more social and emotional supports for students, after-school programs, and more say for educators and parents in the curriculum.  She knows from experience how to fight the fight in Sacramento for more school funding, and will push unapologetically for progressive redistribution of wealth to get it.
The victories of the LA strike give us tremendous opportunities.  Jackie will walk shoulder-to-shoulder with us to implement every single one of them.  She will work with us to make sure the district implements every single aspect of the class size reduction wins, and brings in every single one of the new nurses, librarians, counselors, and other health and human services staff for our students.  Jackie will work with us to make sure the district follows through on its commitment to reduce standardized testing by 50% and broaden the curriculum for our students.  Jackie will work with us to ensure LAUSD follows through on its MOU to invest in Community School programs that bring more supports to students and families, and involve parents from the ground level.  Jackie is the perfect voice to ensure LAUSD is full-throttle behind both local and state measures to increase school funding, and to press Sacramento relentlessly for a charter school cap, which there is now legislation supporting.
We must continue building our movement to reinvest in public education.
Eloisa Galindo, a parent founder of Eastside Padres En Contra De La Privatizacion, is getting out the vote for Jackie for Tuesday in the Eastside BD 5 precincts.  Fidencio Gallardo, BD5 resident, teacher at South Gate High School, and Mayor of Bell, is getting out the vote for Jackie for Tuesday in the southeast cities.  Karla Griego, BD5 resident, teacher at Sotomayor Learning Complex and UTLA North Area Chair, is getting out the vote for Jackie in the northeast parts of the district.  And, long-time labor leader and State Senator Maria Elena Durazo and labor and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta are getting out the vote all over the district for Jackie.
We all must join them.  Let everyone you know from Eagle Rock, Atwater, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Glassell Park, Highland Park, South Gate, Bell, Huntington Park, El Sereno, Cudahy, and surrounding areas to vote for Jackie tomorrow, Tuesday, March 5.  This is the most important action they can take to build on the LA strike, support students and educators, and fight for more school funding and against privatization.
We all have a part to play.  Let’s continue building this movement.
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Los Angeles: Tomorrow, Vote for Jackie Goldberg for School Board | Diane Ravitch's blog #VOTEJackieGoldberg #TEAMGoldberg

Los Angeles: Tomorrow, Vote for Jackie Goldberg for School Board | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Tomorrow, Vote for Jackie Goldberg for School Board 

Tomorrow is the day when voters in Los Angeles will pick the swing vote on the school board.
Mid you live in District 5, please vote for Jackie Goldberg.
She is the most experienced and most knowledgeable candidate in the race. She will speak out against the billionaires who hope to control the board. She will speak up for students, teachers, parents, and public schools.
To learn where the money is coming from and who is getting it, read the latest from Sara Roos, the Red Queen in LA.
Los Angeles: Tomorrow, Vote for Jackie Goldberg for School Board | Diane Ravitch's blog
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Elizabeth Warren Calls Betsy DeVos “The Worst Secretary Of Education This Country Has Ever Seen” – Mother Jones

Elizabeth Warren Calls Betsy DeVos “The Worst Secretary Of Education This Country Has Ever Seen” – Mother Jones

Elizabeth Warren Calls Betsy DeVos “The Worst Secretary Of Education This Country Has Ever Seen”
A report from two Democratic lawmakers makes the case.



In her first year overseeing the Education Department, Secretary Betsy DeVos has been “a boon for for-profit colleges, student loan companies, and advocates of school privatization,” while harming public school students of all ages, according to a report released Thursday by two Massachusetts Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Katherine Clark.
“Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education this country has ever seen—by a large margin,” Warren said in a statement. “Secretary DeVos has spent her first year bending over backwards to allow students to be cheated, taking an axe to public education, and undermining the civil rights of students across the country. Secretary DeVos has failed in her job and she must be held accountable.”
The report found that DeVos:
Has looming conflicts of interest: Before she joined Donald Trump’s cabinet, DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, evangelized for school choice. Her ethics agreement disclosure, unveiled after her memorable confirmation hearing, revealed that she had at least $580 million in assets and had to divest from 102 financial holdings that conflicted with her work as education secretary—including stakes in a student loan debt collection agency, a for-profit college operator, and other education-related companies. She still holds three family trusts and “has yet to disclose the assets in two trusts,” notes the report. “By ignoring longstanding ethical norms for powerful public officials, Secretary DeVos has left the possibility that she has used this power to enrich herself and her family wide open.” 
Hired department officials with ties to the for-profit college industry: In her pursuit to roll back regulations at the Education Department, DeVos has focused on reversing for-profit college guidelines put in place by the Obama administration. Weeks after she was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, DeVos hired Taylor Hansen—who spent years working as a lobbyist for the Career Education Colleges and Universities, the largest association of for-profit colleges—as her special assistant. Hansen had long rallied against the so-called gainful employment rule, an Obama-era provision that lets the government stop giving loans to for-profit colleges whose graduates are unable to make enough money to repay their debt. After ProPublica reportedon Hansen’s past affiliations, he resigned—but not before the department rescinded an Obama-era rule that prevented loan collectors known as “guaranty agencies” from charging fees on student borrowers who default and agree to repay the loans. Hansen’s father was running one such agency, United Student Aid Funds, when it sued the Education Department over the rule in 2015. (The company has since changed its name to Strada Education Network and denies its involvement in reversing the rule.)
That same month, DeVos tapped Robert Eital as her next special assistant. The report points out that Eital, who worked as vice president of regulatory legal services for Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit college operator, remained employed by Bridgepoint for two months while he was working as DeVos’ assistant. Bridgepoint had been under federal investigation, and it recently settled a lawsuit alleging deceptive lending practices. Last April, Eital became DeVos’ special counselor, overseeing the department’s regulatory reforms. In August, DeVos brought on Julian Schmoke Jr., a former dean of the for-profit DeVry University, to oversee the department’s chief enforcer against fraud in higher education. 
Overhauled and delayed regulations on for-profit colleges: Within the CONTINUE READING: Elizabeth Warren Calls Betsy DeVos “The Worst Secretary Of Education This Country Has Ever Seen” – Mother Jones



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Providing police over school counselors leads to disastrous consequences

Providing police over school counselors leads to disastrous consequences

OPINION: 7 million students attend schools with police but no counselor — ACLU report
Over-policed schools increase a student’s likelihood of entering the criminal justice system

LOS ANGELES — Teachers are demanding more counselorsand mental health support to better meet the needs of students, with Oakland’s educators becoming the latest to join in the red wave of those striking for better conditions.
Here in California, many counselors are responsible for supporting more than 1,000 students each, and this is quadruple the ratio recommended by the American School Counselors Association. In Los Angeles, teachers launched a historic strike in January, in part because 80 percent of elementary schools do not have a full-time nurse.
Why don’t schools hire more counselors? A report out today from my organization, the ACLU, shows that schools are indeed hiring: police officers. Instead of spending their money on a long-proven solution, counseling, they are putting their resources into enforcement and discipline, even though there’s little evidence that these measures keep students safe, much less improve their emotional well-being. When educators fail to address students’ record levels of depression, anxiety and trauma, schools become a conduit into the justice system, and then into prisons, instead of to a better life.
The U.S. Department of Education, for the first time in history, recently required every public school to report the number of social workers, nurses and psychologists employed. Our study is the first to analyze and compare some of this data at the state and national levels. We found that more than 90 percent of the 93,000 public schools in our analysis failed to meet professionally recommended student-to-staff ratios in the 2015-16 school year.
The nation­al student-to-counselor ratio was 444:1. This suggests counselors are seriously over­worked, with student caseloads 78 percent greater than what is recommended by experts. Arizona (758-to-1), Michigan (693-to-1) and California (682- to-1) had the highest CONTINUE READING: Providing police over school counselors leads to disastrous consequences



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The Money In LAUSD5’s Mouth – redqueeninla #VOTEJackieGoldberg #TEAMGoldberg

The Money In LAUSD5’s Mouth – redqueeninla

The Money In LAUSD5’s Mouth


From Los Feliz to Southgate, voters need to show up on Tuesday to fill LAUSD’s swing school board seat with Jackie Goldberg.

The fifth LAUSD Board District is wedged in the middle between educators and privateers; between board members ensconced by financiers interested in charter schools as a lucrative investment (Garcia-Melvoin-Gonez), and a couple old-time school superintendents (Schmerelson-McKenna-(Vladovic)).

The last dude from LA Board District 5 was so focused on securing the approbation of his Charter paymasters that he transformed a perfectly legal if ginormous monetary contribution to his own campaign, into a felonious obfuscation of monies and manipulators. The whole quagmire of the last election for this school board seat extracted such a toll on integrity, truth and democratic representation, that this week’s choice ought to be plain to bear:  stay far away from the dirt, influence peddling and crooks that sullied LAUSD’s recent past elections.


Tuesday presents two clear ideological extremes, between the civil rights activist,Jackie Goldberg and the Charter acolyte, Greenwood-Bajracharya. In between where once were more than a dozen candidates, remains now just eight in the wake of several who endorsed Jackie Goldberg, stepping aside in deference to LAUSD’s immediate, time-sensitive need for Goldberg, the battle-tested legislator.

Among the top seven fundraisers are two quite similar political functionaries, Repenning and Ortiz. Both – and to a lesser extent the Arts Commissioner Valdez, have all simply gained appointment to a political position as part of a political, self-sustaining, patronage machine. They are cringingly light on knowledge of Education and embarrassingly laden with massive, mechanized, quid-pro-quo gifts. Acceding to this machinery of bully-pulpit kingmaking betrays the vast awakening of public consciousness regarding peril to our public education system through privatization, hard-won just these six weeks past during January’s UTLA strike.


Similarly candidate Cubas is a charter-lite version of Greenwood-Bajracharya, CONTINUE READING:The Money In LAUSD5’s Mouth – redqueeninla



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West Virginia Teachers’ Rapid Strike Victory Shows Why Progressives Must Join Fight Against Privatization

West Virginia Teachers’ Rapid Strike Victory Shows Why Progressives Must Join Fight Against Privatization

West Virginia Teachers’ Rapid Strike Victory Shows Why Progressives Must Join Fight Against Privatization



West Virginia’s most recent statewide teacher walkout came and went so quickly there was too little time and attention to comprehend and appreciate the impact the teachers’ actions will likely have long-term on changing the narrative of the teacher movement and how politically progressive advocates and candidates relate to it.
In the very first day of the strike, teachers squelched new state legislationthey objected to and then held out an additional day to ensure it would die. The day after schools reopened, the teachers got what they wanted—a “clean” bill increasing teacher pay five percent.
But, unlike their largely successful labor action from last year, this time the teachers weren’t making pocketbook issues the focal points of their demands. Instead, it was all about stopping school privatization through charter schools and a new voucher program. The point of the strike was to oppose a Senate bill that included bringing charters and a voucher program to the state even though the measure included the pay raise teachers wanted. Teachers accompanied their protests in the capitol building with chants of “Hey-hey, ho-ho, charter schools have got to go.”
This was a huge gamble for the teachers, not only because they risked a confrontation with the wealthy establishment that backs charters and vouchers but also because they could alienate the coalition of progressive activists who had supported teachers in the past but had never forcefully opposed charter schools.
Teachers Take a Risk
“There had been no widespread debate on charter schools in West Virginia until now,” Gary Zuckett tells me. Zuckett and the West Virginia Citizen CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Teachers’ Rapid Strike Victory Shows Why Progressives Must Join Fight Against Privatization


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Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears

Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears

Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing
The image above was taken at a fall 2017 protest at the ribbon cutting for the Vaux Big Picture School in the Sharswood neighborhood of North Philadelphia, a HUD “Choice Neighborhood.” The middle school was closed for several years and reopened under the management of a private operator (though titularly still a “public” school). Big Picture is an international franchise and partner in the first education social impact bond in the UK. Additional information on the Doncaster / Big Picture SIB available at the Innovation Unit, UK website here. What is taking place in the 5th City Council District of Philadelphia is part of a much larger move towards the global financialization of public services, including education. It is imperative that we talk about this.
The 5th Council District of Philadelphia embodies economic inequality. Extending from North Philadelphia, a bastion of Black culture battling an onslaught of post-redlining gentrification, to Rittenhouse Square, a district of penthouse views and high-end retail; it contains neighborhoods where parents can raise $100,000 to pay for extras that have been cut from school budgets AND Black and Brown communities where most of the neighborhood schools have been closed or taken over by charters.
It runs east from the Rocky statue, through Spring Garden, Yorktown, and Northern Liberties, ending in the hipster enclave of Fishtown. “Investing in Opportunity Zone” census tracts spread across Brewerytown, along East Fairmount Park, and up North Broad Street (interactive map here, zoom in). Real estate development and new businesses launched within these zones and held for ten years pay NO capital gains tax upon sale. Temple University exerts a powerful influence over the northern part of the district, its overreach resisted for decades by vigilant community activists, the most recent wave led by Stadium Stompers and the No Stadium, No Deal Coalition.
It is a district of gourmet food halls and food deserts; unsheltered people dying in underground corridors of transit stations a stone’s throw from CONTINUE READING: Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears

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Can Scholars Be Too Literal in Post-Truth Trumplandia? | radical eyes for equity

Can Scholars Be Too Literal in Post-Truth Trumplandia? | radical eyes for equity

Can Scholars Be Too Literal in Post-Truth Trumplandia?
Recently, I was invited to join a class discussion of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in a local International Baccalaureate (IB) high school class. For many years, I taught the novel in my Advanced Placement course, and in 2007, I published a volume on teaching Atwood’s writing.
During the discussion, one very bright and engaged student eagerly noted that Atwood evokes elements of communism in her novel. The use of the term “communism” prompted me to offer a gentle reframing—that the student probably was recognizing elements of totalitarianism, elements often blurred into the mainstream American pejorative use of the word “communism” (see also “socialism” and “Marxism”).
This is an important moment, I think, in understanding how academia works: Language and the teasing out of ideas are often laborious, if not tedious. While teaching first-year writing especially, but in most of my courses, I stress that college students need disciplinary awareness—how each discipline functions and why—and typically emphasize that academics are prone to carefully defining terms, and then holding everyone to those precise meanings.
Political, media, and public discourse, however, tend along a much different path. Language and terminology are treated with a cavalier disregard for meaning. Misusing a term or making a false claim is quickly glossed over before railing against the initial false claim.
Because of that gap between academia and the so-called real world, some educators and scholars call for the importance of public intellectuals grounded in academia. Public scholarship, however, remains controversial within the academia and tends to be received with disdain and CONTINUE READING: Can Scholars Be Too Literal in Post-Truth Trumplandia? | radical eyes for equity
Related image


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With A Brooklyn Accent: Donald Trump's Three R's: Ruthlessness, Racism and Riches

With A Brooklyn Accent: Donald Trump's Three R's: Ruthlessness, Racism and Riches

Donald Trump's Three R's: Ruthlessness, Racism and Riches
When I learned from Michael Cohen’s testimony that Donald Trump threatened to sue Fordham to prevent them from releasing his grades and SAT scores, it not only reaffirmed my perception of Donald Trump’s character, it also gave me telling evidence of his chosen  path to success.

    Here is a person who constantly boasts of his intelligence and athletic ability who goes crazy at the thought of anyone researching whether his college record matches his rhetoric 

      As someone who is the same age as Donald Trump, attended similar colleges, and likes to think of himself as a scholar athlete, I find Mr Trump’s indignation both amusing and revealing. Anyone who knows how to use Google can find evidence of my athletic career at Columbia, the fellowships I received or the academic awards I earned. You don’t have to ask Columbia for that information, it’s all there on the internet.  By contrast, a Google  search of Mr Trump’s  college years will find no evidence of academic or athletic success. What’s going on? 

         That someone  whose record displays a modest level of athletic and academic success  ends up as a professor and the one whose record is shrouded in myth, if not outright fabrication, ends up being President is a telling commentary on where our country is at at this historical moment. 

       Although I have an extremely happy life and have  no  desire to trade places with Mr Trump, the comparison does lead me to examine CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: Donald Trump's Three R's: Ruthlessness, Racism and Riches

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[PODCAST] What is Betsy DeVos hiding? – With special guest U.S. Senator Gary Peters | Eclectablog

[PODCAST] What is Betsy DeVos hiding? – With special guest U.S. Senator Gary Peters | Eclectablog

[PODCAST] What is Betsy DeVos hiding? – With special guest U.S. Senator Gary Peters


U.S. Senator Gary Peters on Twitter: @SenGaryPeters
Sen. Peters’ website: Peters.senate.gov
Gary Peters Senate reelection website: PetersForMichigan.com
Sen. Peters’ response to Betsy DeVos firing the Education Department watchdog: Peters, Colleagues Press Secretary DeVos for Information on Attempts to Improperly Remove Department of Education Watchdog
Sen. Peters’ response to Betsy DeVos weakening civil rights protections: Peters & Stabenow Press DeVos on Department of Education Actions to Weaken Discrimination Protections
Sen. Peters’ statement on EPA’s PFAS Announcement is HERE.
Jordan Zakarin on Twitter: @JordanZakarin
Progressives Everywhere on Twitter: @Progressives50
Progressives Everywhere website: ProgressivesEverywhere.org
Help Progressives Everywhere elect progressive candidates in Pennsylvania, including Congressional candidate Marc Friedenberg, by clicking HERE. You can read Jordan’s interview with Marc HERE. More information about Marc’s candidacy is HERE.

Jordan’s new project: Election-Calendar.com
Give us a five-star review at iTunes!

The GOTMFV Show Facebook page is HERE!
[PODCAST] What is Betsy DeVos hiding? – With special guest U.S. Senator Gary Peters | Eclectablog
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Meet the candidates for the District 5 L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times #VOTEJackieGoldberg #TEAMGoldberg

Meet the candidates for the District 5 L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

Meet the candidates for the District 5 L.A. school board seat

The 10 candidates running to fill a vacancy on the Los Angeles Board of Education all want increased funding for local schools, but they differ strongly on other issues, including the growth of charter schools and the leadership of L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner.
The special election, which takes place Tuesday, will fill the seat left open last July when Ref Rodriguez resigned after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws.
No candidate claims to be against charter schools, but perspectives vary on these privately operated campuses, which are mostly non-union. Charters compete with district-run schoolsfor students — and their growing numbers in a school system with declining enrollment have been a flashpoint issue. Some candidates favor a moratorium on new charters. The most critical of charters are Jackie Goldberg and Rocio Rivas; the most supportive is Allison Bajracharya.
All the candidates have ties to children in local public schools — in Goldberg’s case, her grandchildren. But the parents of school-age children — Bajracharya, Rivas, Cynthia Gonzalez, Nestor Enrique Valencia and Heather Repenning — assert this as a particular qualification.

Jackie Goldberg, 74



Jackie Goldberg
Jackie Goldberg (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Chairwoman of the city’s local hiring working group
After establishing herself as a teacher in the Compton school district, Goldberg, who lives in Echo Park, served two terms on the L.A. school board, ending in 1991. She later served on the L.A. City Council and in the state Legislature. In her current job, she oversees efforts to help former inmates and the formerly homeless find city jobs. Goldberg says the district should do much more to raise revenue but also can find ways to make change without more funding, such as by moving more authority to parents, teachers and administrators at schools. She also says that more thoughtful effort is needed for the reform of student discipline policies — which emphasize counseling over punishment — to be successful.
What she thinks about:
  • The state of the district: She believes it is reasonably strong “given that it is so underfunded” and that the district’s budget is further challenged by declining enrollment, for which she holds charters substantially responsible. She says more work needs to be done to ensure that all children graduate from school knowing at least two languages.
  • Charter schools: She supports a moratorium on new charters and says existing charters need more stringent monitoring — fiscally and educationally — at the state and local level.
  • Austin Beutner and the school board: She opposed hiring Beutner: “I’m old-fashioned. I think educators should run school districts, not finance managers.” She also says that he’s been too secretive and did not do a good job managing events leading up to the teachers’ strike. All the same, she says, “I’m not coming on the board to fire him. My goal is to see if we can all work together.”
Endorsements and funding: The teachers union and its parent organizations have poured more than $570,000 into an outside campaign on her behalf. Her own campaign has raised about $200,000. Many other unions and a long list of current and former public officials and activists have endorsed her.
CONTINUE READING: Meet the candidates for the District 5 L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times


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