“Sustainability” for Financiers: What Climate Marchers Need to Know About the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

“Sustainability” for Financiers: What Climate Marchers Need to Know About the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

“Sustainability” for Financiers: What Climate Marchers Need to Know About the UN Sustainable Development Goals

I’m writing the day after the climate strike. With so many people taking to the streets, it made me wonder how much people actually know about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)? Why is that important? Well, there are powerful interests seeking to misdirect people who want to do the right thing. If we go down the wrong path, irreversible harm will be inflicted in the name of “carbon trading,” “green” growth, “financial-inclusion,” and “resilient cities.”

Source

In 2009 the UN advanced a Global Green Deal. The policy brief was prepared in the aftermath of the housing crisis with the intention of directing stimulus money into “green” economic activities managed through the World Bank, centering technology and innovative finance. 2009 was also the year the Global Impact Investment Network was founded, having been shepherded along by former University of Pennsylvania president Judith Rodin and the Rockefeller Foundation. It now has over 20,000 members.

Today, the United Nations Development Program is working in cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to set global standards for impact measurement that will drive investment, in part, into SDG projects. This effort, the Impact Management Project, has too many participants to list (2,000!) but includes Ronald Cohen’s Social Finance, Bain spin-off Bridgespan, and Larry Fink’s Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world.

Clearly there is an endless supply of money to throw at the environmental crisis, but only if profit can be readily captured for those who already have most of the resources. Capturing that profit means data, and in today’s CONTINUE READING: “Sustainability” for Financiers: What Climate Marchers Need to Know About the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

Now In the Minority, A School Board Member Changes His Tune

Now In the Minority, A School Board Member Changes His Tune

Now In the Minority, A School Board Member Changes His Tune

“The means of one’s success can become the means of one’s downfall.”

As the Vice-President of the LAUSD School Board, Nick Melvoin constantly reminded the minority members of their status and how if they wanted a say they would need to win elections. This majority pushed through the hiring of Superintendent Austin Beutner without bothering to build consensus and asked the district attorney to investigate Scott Schmerelson when in an act that promoted transparency he dared to tell the public about what went on behind the scenes during the hiring process.

With the conviction of Ref Rodriguez and the election of Jackie Goldberg to replace him, Melvoin’s block has lost its majority status. Now, the lawyer from the West Side is singing a different tune. Apparently, policies should no longer be dictated by the majority. Instead, we should have “collaboration.”

Melvoin sits on the LAUSD Board because supporters of the California Charter School Association (CCSA) spent millions on a dirty campaign against former Board President Steve Zimmer. This race wasn’t based on policy. Instead, the charter school industry was not CONTINUE READING: Now In the Minority, A School Board Member Changes His Tune

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

ALEC Issues A Report Card, But Still Fails

41by Peter Greene / 1d

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the corporate Match.com for wealthy mover-shakers and legislators looking for someone to do their homework together. Among their many favorite issues is education, and to that end, ALEC trots out a report card every year rating the states. It is not unlike a sort of businessperson's prospect overview, and it contains a mountain of thinly sliced b

Why Directing Community Theater Is Like Teaching

56by Peter Greene / 2d

Readers of this blog generally get a dose of whatever is on my mind, and what's on my mind at the moment is theater. I'm coming down to the wire on one more community theater production; The Music Man opens one week from tomorrow (by all means, feel free to stop by ). I've been doing this and school theater for thirty-some years, and yes, it's an awful lot like teaching. Once we get the obvious ou

SEP 18

PA: Zombie Board Says Charter Free To Do Whatever The Heck It Wants

56by Peter Greene / 3d

In education, as in most things, Philadelphia is its own little state-within-the-state. The public system has a long and messy history , including a state takeover. The district is often used as Exhibit A for pro-choice legislators ("But we must give the poor children of Philadelphia a way to escape their terrible school system even as we refuse to adequately fund that system!") and is consequentl

SEP 17

OH: Meaningless School Grades And Money

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

Over at Cleveland.com , Rich Exner has done yeoman's work taking Ohio's school ratings and connecting them with census information from the US Census Bureaus 2017 American Communities Survey. Ohio is another one of those states that believes it can reduce the entire issue of a school's quality to a single letter grade. This is a dumb idea, and there is no state that has ever implemented it in whi

Yes, Teachers Are Spending Money On Their Own Classrooms

33by Peter Greene / 4d

Like the cost of a romantic date at Valentine's Day or the price of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the amount of money that teachers spend on their own classroom has become a reliable seasonal story. This year the word is that o n average teachers spend, depending on your source, somewhere between $400 and $500. But that's not the whole story. The Economic Policy Institute has crunched the numbers

SEP 16

Chiefs For Change Would Like You To Shut Up

100+by Peter Greene / 5d

Chiefs For Change caused a brief flurry of attention by whinging a demand that people talk nicer about their pet projects . It's just one more sad episode for a group that was supposed to be Jeb Bush's Educational Justice League of America. It's been over three years since the last time I noticed they were headed downhill: That's how you glower! Pity the Chiefs for Change. They were destined to be

SEP 15

ICYMI: My Wife's Birthday Edition (9/15)

39by Peter Greene / 7d

Happy birthday to one of the best people ever to walk on the face of the earth! But you can have cake and read some worthwhile education pieces as well. So here you go-- AI in Education Hype John Warner takes a look at one more technological product in search of a problem to "solve." Effects of the Flipped Classroom An Annenberg working paper suggests that there are no big benefits to flipping, a

SEP 13

DeVos Saying The Quiet Parts Out Loud

500+by Peter Greene / 8d

Betsy DeVos will be kicking off her "Back To School" tour next week. And it will start by announcing loudly and clearly what her preferred goal for education is. No reading between the lines will be necessary. The announcement notes that she will head to Milwaukee, "home of the first-ever education freedom program that allowed parents, no matter their income, to select the school that was the best

Dammit, Chan-Zuckerberg! Not Elmo, Too! (And Not Philanthropy, Either.)

100+by Peter Greene / 9d

If you haven't been paying particularly close attention, you may have missed the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative slowly inserting its hyper-wealthy proboscis into a hundred different corners of modern life, using its not-quite-philanthropy LLC 

CURMUDGUCATION

Pennsylvania: Speaker of the House Berates Public Schools and Their Teachers, Praises Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Pennsylvania: Speaker of the House Berates Public Schools and Their Teachers, Praises Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Pennsylvania: Speaker of the House Berates Public Schools and Their Teachers, Praises Charters

Once again, we are reminded that charter schools are a Republican cause, and their champion is Betsy DeVos.

Mike Turzai, Republican Speaker of the House in Pennsylvania, was on his way to a meeting with Betsy DeVos when he encountered some public school teachers, who were picketing with signs saying they loved their public schools.

Turzai found this deeply offensive, and he proceeded to lambaste the teachers as a “special interest group” defending a “monopoly.”

In the video, Turzai praised charter schools, which receive government funding but operate independently of the public school system, saying that in charter schools. “you have to care about each child, not about the CONTINUE READING: Pennsylvania: Speaker of the House Berates Public Schools and Their Teachers, Praises Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Louisiana Educator: Help Break the Grip of Special Interest Lobbyists Over BESE!

Louisiana Educator: Help Break the Grip of Special Interest Lobbyists Over BESE!

Help Break the Grip of Special Interest Lobbyists Over BESE!

Should we continue to allow special interest lobbyists to rule over K-12 education, when the evidence proves they have failed?

How is it that we, the citizens of Louisiana, have allowed a non-educator, big business lobbying group to almost totally control our public education system? The answer is big $. For the past two terms, the Louisiana Association of business and Industry and their donors from both Republican and Democratic PACs  have dominated the elections for our board of Elementary and Secondary with huge campaign contributions supplemented by out-of-state mega-donors. As a result, LABI has dictated the operation of our K-12 public schools and diverted our tax dollars to charter and private schools.

Both Republican and Democratic legislators and most BESE members have supported the LABI reforms
 LABI, which usually clashes with the Democratic party, has found a major ally in the group called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). DFER uses a PAC called Education Reform Now Advocacy Inc. to make contributions to BESE candidates. I just received an expensive brochure in the mail for the LABI endorsed candidate in the 8th BESE district paid for by Education Reform Now Advocacy Inc. Voters all over the state will soon be receiving similar advertisements for candidates who claim to be for teacher pay CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Educator: Help Break the Grip of Special Interest Lobbyists Over BESE!

Betsy Devos is using anti-Muslim, anti-Black bigotry to threaten diversity in higher ed programs | Eclectablog

Betsy Devos is using anti-Muslim, anti-Black bigotry to threaten diversity in higher ed programs | Eclectablog

Betsy Devos is using anti-Muslim, anti-Black bigotry to threaten diversity in higher ed programs

Betsy Devos has done it again. On August 29th, the Department of Education sent a letter to the Consortium for Middle East Studies departments at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, claiming that the program “disproportionately portrays ‘the positive aspects of Islam'”. They threatened that if the schools do not make amendments to the program by September 22nd, they could lose their federal grant.

What this shows us first and foremost is that the Trump administration has never held a positive view of Islam to begin with, nor of the millions of people who follow the faith. It’s very rare that we hear positive portrayals of Islam in academic settings or in the media. And where higher education institutions have started to take it upon themselves to revise their curricula to be more inclusive and diverse, Betsy Devos is doing everything in her power to continue to proliferate discrimination both in schools and beyond.

Betsy Devos is no fool. She understands the importance of education and the role it plays in shaping students. She knows that in ensuring that schools perpetuate a negative view of Islam, students (especially white students) have little opportunity to open their eyes to the vision of society that many people of color fight for continuously. It’s a society that would allow them to feel as though their worth is the worth of those who have traditionally held power at all levels. It’s a society that would free them from the judgmental stares, microaggressions, and overt racism and discrimination they face everyday.

And don’t forget about the Muslim students who have enrolled in these programs – the federal government is telling them that no matter what they do, they are going to be viewed as a threat CONTINUE READING: Betsy Devos is using anti-Muslim, anti-Black bigotry to threaten diversity in higher ed programs | Eclectablog

First desegregation order in 50 years hits Marin schools - Los Angeles Times

First desegregation order in 50 years hits Marin schools - Los Angeles Times

A tiny Marin County district got California’s first school desegregation order in 50 years 

MARIN CITY, Calif. — 

The hillside school with the dreamy view of San Francisco Bay seems to practically shout e pluribus unum. A racially diverse group of children play an afternoon game of capture the flag. Teachers and parents proclaim their inclusivity with lapel buttons: “All cultures. All faiths. All races. All abilities. All gender identities ... The future is welcome at Willow Creek Academy.”

The kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus in Sausalito, which opened in 2001, has won fierce commitment from parents and staff. It has been recognized as one of California’s top charter schools.

But now Willow Creek is at the center of an emotional battle that has brought fresh attention to long-festering racial inequities in liberal Marin County. Last month, the tiny Sausalito Marin City School District was hit with the state’s first school desegregation order in half a century.

The district has just two schools: Willow Creek, with an enrollment of 361, and Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, a traditional K-8 campus located a little more than a mile away in Marin City, across U.S. 101. Its 104 students are predominantly African American and Latino.

A state review found that Bayside MLK students have suffered under years of rapid staff turnover, inadequate class offerings, excessive discipline and substandard academic performance. As a result of the desegregation complaint by California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, the district is under a court order to end the unequal treatment of students who attend Bayside MLK.

A new school board agreed to reforms to address past inequities and hired a new CONTINUE READING:  First desegregation order in 50 years hits Marin schools - Los Angeles Times