Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 12/24/15

CORPORATE ED REFORM

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform: The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed“One major theme in A Christmas Carol was rooted in Charles Dickens’ observations of the plight of the children of London’s poor. In 1839 it was estimated that nearly half of all funerals in London were for children under the age of ten. Those who survi

by mike simpson / 2h 

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith: Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & FailuresYou say my school is failing. You label my students as failing. You call me a failure. Then you shake hands with profiteers who wear fancy suits and promote edperialism and atestoc

by mike simpson / 3h 

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue: School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a BindWith her ill-informed remarks on school closures, Hillary Clinton set off a bit of a firestorm among education activists. Her full remarks have been posted by Valerie Strauss, so there is no question what she said, and as Peter Greene points out, context does not help much. She clearly

by mike simpson / 7h 

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or Blessed

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or BlessedThese celebrations are among those that will happen this year: Ramadan (Muslim)Eid al-Fitr (Muslim)Saint Nicholas Day (Christian)Eid'ul-Adha (Muslim)Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexican)St. Lucia Day (Swedish)Hanukkah (Jewish)Christmas Day (Christian)Three Kings Day/Epiphany (Christian)Boxing Day (Australian, Canadian, English, Irish)Kwanzaa

by mike simpson / 7h 

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org: Why NonProfits Can't Lead The 99%Above Photo: From BlackAgendaReport.com.A seasoned movement elder examines what happens left organizations are led exclusively by college-educated professionals answerable to self-perpetuating boards and philanthropic funders, what happens when union leaderships free themselves from their memberships, and w

by mike simpson / 7h 

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper: A Reading List for Hilary CandidatesDespite the fact that NEA and AFT “endorsed” Hillary Clinton, she is not, IMHO, a strong supporter of public education.Her math mistake in Iowa (misunderstanding the meaning of average) notwithstanding, she believes that closing schools will help…well…somehow. She said,Now, I wouldn’t keep any school

by mike simpson / 9h 

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect: Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political DisconnectMerry Christmas! Today I am writing about illusion and how K-12 education, despite some cursory remarks, is still ignored by Presidential candidates.If you haven’t already noticed, while there are many topics discussed at Presidential debates, there is never,

by mike simpson / 9h 

CURMUDGUCATION: IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining + NY: USED Rattles Sabres

CURMUDGUCATION: IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining: IN: Let's Try Solo BargainingIndiana State Senator Pete Miller is not the first guy to have this idea, but he's the one currently floating it in a state legislature-- let's do away with collective bargaining and let every teacher negotiate her own individual contract.This is Miller's idea for fixing the teacher shortage. Let's treat teachers fairly, h

by mike simpson / 9h 

NYC Educator: Leaving Hillarytown

NYC Educator: Leaving Hillarytown: Leaving HillarytownHillary Clinton opened her mouth the other day, and said she wouldn't keep open any school that wasn't better than average. She later clarified to say she meant good, rather than better than average. To me, that was not much of a distinction. I work in a good school, even by reformy standards, but I don't delude myself that it's because we are

by mike simpson / 9h 

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t. - The Washington Post

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t. - The Washington Post: Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t.Can students pray in school? A Wyoming school district has learned what’s legal and what isn’t — and the truth may surprise some people.In October, several students at a Wyoming high school formed a c

by mike simpson / 9h 

Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform - The Washington Post

Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform - The Washington Post: Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reformEducation Secretary Arne Duncan has only a few days left before his official exit on Dec. 31. Though his designated successor, John King, the former education commissioner of New York State, will have about a year in the job, the education legacy fro

by mike simpson / 10h 

State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools - The Jackson County Times-Journal: News

State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools - The Jackson County Times-Journal: News: State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools JACKSON— There was a brief discussion during a Jackson Board of Education meeting regarding the downfalls of charter or community schools, some of which are online programs.According to Jackson City Schools Superintendent Phil H

by mike simpson / 10h 

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015 - Yahoo Finance

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015 - Yahoo Finance: Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015Every year, Bill Gates puts out his annual list of the year's best news on his blog GatesNotes.It's a nice feel good message, especially since 2015 also ushered in so many negative things, like the rise of extremist terrorist groups, the Paris attacks, the ongoing Syria

by mike simpson / 10h 

Education Reform and the Asian Values Debate

Education Reform and the Asian Values Debate: Education Reform and the Asian Values DebateIn Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, tutoring businesses are popping up like mushrooms in the forest after a rain. The Kumon Math and Reading Center near the local elementary school, for instance, promises to “give your child the academic advantage to compete in today’s world.” Unlike the nearby

by mike simpson / 10h 

There Could End Up Being Little Difference Between No Child Left Behind and the ESSA - The Atlantic

There Could End Up Being Little Difference Between No Child Left Behind and the ESSA - The Atlantic: No Child Left Behind Is Gone, But Will It Be Back?The new law could mean it will still be business as usual.For years, there has been talk of leaving the 2002 “No Child Left Behind” law—the first real attempt by the federal government to hold schools accountable for helping all students learn—behin

by mike simpson / 10h 

Mayor Emanuel's political weakness is opportunity for Chicago Teachers Union - Opinion - Crain's Chicago Business

Mayor Emanuel's political weakness is opportunity for Chicago Teachers Union - Opinion - Crain's Chicago Business: Emanuel vs. the teachers union? My money's on the unionMayor Rahm Emanuel is the weakest he has ever been since assuming City Hall. Expect the Chicago Teachers Union to use that weakness against him in the coming months—not just in negotiating a new contract, but also to push for prog

by mike simpson / 10h 

2015's Top Florida Education Stories | Sunshine State News | Florida Political News

2015's Top Florida Education Stories | Sunshine State News | Florida Political News: 2015's Top Florida Education Stories2015 was a year of adjustment -- and readjustment -- for Florida’s education system. It marked the end of the state’s long running standardized test, the FCAT, and was the first full year of the Florida Standards. Here's what made headlines in education this year:Testing, Testin

by mike simpson / 10h 

YESTERDAY

Will @HillaryClinton go all in with us or Wall Street? | Cloaking Inequity

Will @HillaryClinton go all in with us or Wall Street? | Cloaking Inequity: Will @HillaryClinton go all in with us or Wall Street? Are you mad at Secretary Clinton about the “school closure” comments? I get it. You don’t want to be Barack Obama’d on education. We were promised hope and change and thought that would extend to education. Instead Arne Duncan took the reigns from George W. Bush, Rod P

by mike simpson / 20h 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Was Hillary misquoted? Taken out of context?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Was Hillary misquoted? Taken out of context?: Was Hillary misquoted? Taken out of context?"I Wouldn’t Keep Any School Open That Wasn’t Doing A Better Than Average Job”Let me start by saying, I don't think Hillary Clinton has either the will or the power to close half of America's schools. But her recent comments still deserve a strong critical response.When I po

by mike simpson / 23h hide  //  save

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 12/23/15

CORPORATE ED REFORMSchools Matter: Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up?Schools Matter: Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up?: Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up?Hillary Clinton with Eli Broad at the pre-ball dinner hosted by Eli Broadat the Inauguration Ball of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.Hillary Clinton has caused a major scramble by her supporters after she spo

by mike simpson / 23h 

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform:

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed

“One major theme in A Christmas Carol was rooted in Charles Dickens’ observations of the plight of the children of London’s poor. In 1839 it was estimated that nearly half of all funerals in London were for children under the age of ten. Those who survived grew up without education or resource and virtually no chance to escape the cycle of poverty. Dickens felt that this cycle of poverty could only be broken through education.” (Perdue)

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

(The Spirit of Christmas Present then asks the question at the heart of the attitude of the so-called Christian legislators and general public of Scrooge’s era who chose to either ignore the children of others or to determine which children “deserve” to receive food, healthcare and education. Bob Cratchit’s son, Tim, would heal, be cured and flourish with The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform:

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith:

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures

You say my school is failing. You label my students as failing. You call me a failure. Then you shake hands with profiteers who wear fancy suits and promote edperialism and atestocracy. These profiteers and elitists you embrace send their kids to expensive private schools, so their children don’t have to endure the policies stuffed full of educational malpractice you collaborated to create. They sit cozy in offices and devise untested business theories for application to the humanity that is education. You let them steal our tax dollars, and you praise them as philanthropists for their astronomical failures in education. It’s time you change your narrative. It’s time you change your proximity.

Do you really want to know what it’s like to be a public school teacher in an economically devastated & segregated neighborhood in one of our nation’s cities? Neither you nor the profiteers and policy makers really want to know. People like you want to keep judging and labeling, but you don’t want to admit that you helped create the suffering and disadvantage. You don’t want to claim the role and responsibility that you bear for the disasters you’ve created for other people’s children. Come take a look at my joyful, sad, sweet, angry, helpless, and hopeful students and tell them they’re failures to their faces. Come see me and my colleagues in our classrooms working 10-12 hour days and look us in the eyes and tell us we’re failures. Tell the families who rely on the existing public neighborhood schools we have left that they’re failures raising failures.

Does that seem harsh? It should.

But you have no problem preaching about “failing schools” full of “failing students” while you’re perched in expensive offices in skyscrapers, or as you muse about education in affluent and gated neighborhoods. Change your proximity and see if your narrative still feels all cozy, warm and righteous. See if you still possess the courage or ignorance to make bold declarations about failure when you’re looking into the eyes of hungry six-year-olds who suffered through childhood traumas and lead-filled homes in one of our nation’s cities. Can you look into those sweet, helpless faces and tell a little girl that she’s a failure?

Yet, that is what you do every time you or your education reformer/deformer friends and contributors suggest competition and privatization orclosures, instead of addressing the poverty, historic and systemic racism, andepic failure of our society to care about other people’s children.  The real failures among us fill boardrooms, legislatures, executive offices, non-profits, and cabinets all over this country. They aren’t in my classroom. They aren’t in my school. And they aren’t the families in my city.  They’re people like you.  And I have the courage to state that directly.  Now, I challenge you to stand in Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith:

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue:

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind

With her ill-informed remarks on school closures, Hillary Clinton set off a bit of a firestorm among education activists. Her full remarks have been posted by Valerie Strauss, so there is no question what she said, and as Peter Greene points out, context does not help much. She clearly thinks that if she is elected it will be her responsibility to enact policies that close low performing schools, much as her predecessors, Presidents Obama and Bush did.

There are few things more dear to corporate reformers than the idea that schools with low test scores should be closed. There are several reasons for this. On the ideological front, the possibility of closure (and the threat of displacement and unemployment for the teachers and administrators that work there) is seen as an essential element of accountability. One of the indictments “accountability hawks” level at public schools is that while failing businesses must go bankrupt and close their doors, “failing schools” can continue to function unless the rules force them to close. According to this way of thinking, people are not properly motivated without the threat of unemployment hanging over their heads.

The other big reason school closures is so precious to corporate reformers is that the chief vehicle for privatizing public schools has become charter schools. Closing down schools with low test scores gives the state the power to forcibly shift students from public schools into semi-private charter schools.

So far in all the explanations of what Clinton meant to say I have yet to hear anyone suggest that school School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue:

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or Blessed

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or Blessed

These celebrations are among some of those that will happen this year: 

Ramadan (Muslim)

Eid al-Fitr (Muslim)

Saint Nicholas Day (Christian)

Eid'ul-Adha (Muslim)

Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexican)

St. Lucia Day (Swedish)

Hanukkah (Jewish)

Christmas Day (Christian)

Three Kings Day/Epiphany (Christian)

Boxing Day (Australian, Canadian, English, Irish)

Kwanzaa (African American)

Omisoka (Japanese)

Yule (Pagan)

Saturnalia (Pagan)

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org:

Why NonProfits Can't Lead The 99%

Above Photo: From BlackAgendaReport.com.

A seasoned movement elder examines what happens left organizations are led exclusively by college-educated professionals answerable to self-perpetuating boards and philanthropic funders, what happens when union leaderships free themselves from their memberships, and when community organizations become government contractors.  Only membership supported and membership-driven organizations, he suggests, can actually lead the 99%.

Warren Mar has written a provocative piece on the role of Community Based Organizations and Worker Centers in the working class movement. He explores controversial issues of the funding and democratic control of these organizations which have filled a vacuum in organizing particularly among immigrant workers.

The author entered community and labor organizing in the late 60’s and early 70’s during the second resurgence of a left alternative to capitalism. Many new left activists entered the labor movement during this time, hoping that American Unions would finally represent the entire working class, and not only those workers under a specific work place contract.

Even at its peak in 1953 the AFL-CIO unions only represented 33% of American workers. This year coincided with continuing legal Jim Crow segregation in the South, excluding African Americans from unions, and years of Asian and Latino exclusion from unions on the West Coast. Therefore the 33% reflected on longingly by union old-timers may have represented a majority of white males concentrated in heavy industry and the skilled construction trades of the Midwest and Northeast. This was the geographic concentration of the majority of union members during the height of the AFL-CIO. Not until the late 60’s and early 70’s when public sector unions were formed and – and public sector civil service jobs were integrated – did large numbers of women and minorities become card-carrying AFL-CIO union members even in the most liberal of northern cities.

The above serves as a context to what we are seeing in liberal urban areas today. Unions, even those that survive, are too insignificant to have a large impact on organizing and popular culture. At 6% density in the private sector, most young workers have no chance of stepping into a union job, so the benefits of union membership is an ideological abstraction. In contrast, many baby boomers were able to step into private sector union jobs, fresh out of high school in the early 1970’s. My first union job allowed me to rent my own apartment, in San Francisco, by making five times the minimum wage. I also had a full medical plan, paid vacation and holidays off, something my immigrant parents never obtained in the era when they were excluded from most unions and specific industries. While I fought against the racism and cronyism of unions I never faltered in my support of them. Even in liberal San Francisco, the difference between a union job vs. a non-union job meant a real living wage. I learned to work union whenever I could right out of high school because it allowed me to pay the rent and later carry the mortgage on my first home in one of the most expensive cities in the United States.

What has stepped into the void with the demise of unions?

It would take another long article to discuss the demise of unions in this country and in particular urban areas. That is not the purpose of this article. Rather, I want to look at the rise of Community Based Organizations (CBO’s), all of whom are chartered as Non-Profit Organizations. They have stepped into the void left by unions as the main and sometimes only organizers of low wage immigrant workers. Some organize workers explicitly through the moniker of being a “workers center”. Many started by representing workers that traditional unions would not touch such as transient immigrant workers who moved from industry to industry or who lacked documentation. The day laborer programs come most readily to mind and they have sprouted up in all urban and agricultural areas where a concentration of Latino or Asian migrants seek casual work, without the benefit of documentation. Others have arisen to redress violations of local progressive workers ordinances such as increases in the minimum wage, paid sick days, private contributions to health care, etc. These progressive policies, usually enacted in left-leaning urban areas, came into being without any enforcement mechanism and when there were written regulations they were remanded to municipal departments woefully understaffed and often Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org:

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper:

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates

Despite the fact that NEA and AFT “endorsed” Hillary Clinton, she is not, IMHO, a strong supporter of public education.

Her math mistake in Iowa (misunderstanding the meaning of average) notwithstanding, she believes that closing schools will help…well…somehow. She said,

Now, I wouldn’t keep any school open that wasn’t doing a better than average job. If a school’s not doing a good job, then, you know, that may not be good for the kids.”

Like other politicians, she believes that closing a school solves problems which result in low achievement. For the most part those problems are based on high levels of poverty. Schools with large numbers of high poverty students need more support. More support equals more tax money. Closing public schools to open charters, or diverting money to private schools through vouchers won’t solve the problems. Shifting students from one school to another won’t solve the problems. Blaming teachers and parents for the low income of families in a school neighborhood won’t solve the problems. What Mrs. Clinton should have said was, “Instead of closing schools we need to bring people out of poverty and A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper:

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect:

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect

Merry Christmas! Today I am writing about illusion and how K-12 education, despite some cursory remarks, is still ignored by Presidential candidates.

If you haven’t already noticed, while there are many topics discussed at Presidential debates, there is never, and I mean NEVER, any mention of the vast concerns about the privatization of America’s public schools, or other volatile issues surrounding K-12 education.

Here are two scenarios to illustrate my point and put a holiday spin on it.

This time of year always brings back memories, and one of those, for me, is of my daughter, when she was young and believed in elves. About a week before Christmas I would slip little treats under the Christmas tree. One night I put some cookies near a few gifts, and when I looked up there she was, big round eyes staring at me in disbelief.

We talked about it. I suppose there is a debate about whether you should lead children on with Santa and elves, but when you are a child (and parent) it sure is a lot of fun. And most kids accept reality when they get older.

That is, unless they are politicians running for President, union leaders and education Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect: