Vote on DeVos looms as Democrats raise more concerns

Vote on DeVos looms as Democrats raise more concerns:

Vote on DeVos looms as Democrats raise more concerns

Washington — The top Senate education committee Democrat wants to postpone Tuesday’s planned committee vote on the nomination of Michigan’s Betsy DeVos for education secretary, saying Democrats had not received answers to questions they asked of DeVos weeks ago.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington State, ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, urged Chairman Lamar Alexander to delay the vote a second time. The committee was originally set to vote Jan. 24.

A spokesman for Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said the answers to Democrats’ 837 questions were delivered mid-morning on Monday, and the vote would take place Tuesday as scheduled.

Murray’s request followed a weekend of protests in DeVos’ hometown of Holland and elsewhere over her selection to head the U.S. Department of Education. Some demonstrations were organized by public school teachers, whose unions have opposed DeVos.

“People across the country have been making their voices heard with serious concerns about the nomination of Betsy DeVos and the impact she would have on their children and schools if confirmed,” Murray said in a statement. “I share their concerns, and I believe there are still many unanswered questions remaining about her tangled finances, potential conflicts of interest, and plans to privatize and defund public education.

“I call on Chairman Alexander to not rush into a vote tomorrow and allow senators on both sides of the aisle the time and information we need to do our jobs for students and parents across the country.”

Murray has also said DeVos hasn’t provided unspecified “missing information” related to the financial paperwork she submitted to the committee.

Alexander last week rejected a formal request from committee Democrats for a second hearing to question the west Michigan businesswoman about her complex financial holdings after DeVos, a billionaire from the Grand Rapids area, finalized her financial disclosure statement and signed an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics.

DeVos, 59, is the GOP mega donor who twice chaired the Michigan Republican Party. Her ethics agreement says she intends to divest within 90 days from 102 companies and holdings that pose potential conflicts of interest.

Democrats were not satisfied last week, sending twoletters urging further disclosures about investments DeVos would retain that could present conflicts, according to Democrats. A DeVos spokesman says she has met all legal requirements to be clear of potential conflicts of interest.

Teachers unions in particular are opposed to DeVos’ nomination, arguing she would undermine the public school system to promote charter, private and other education options. The National Education Association says members and other advocates Vote on DeVos looms as Democrats raise more concerns:

U.S. Senate Oppose Confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education - The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Oppose Confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education:

U.S. Senate Oppose Confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights/The Leadership Conference Education Fund

View the PDF of this letter here.

Dear Senator,

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the 247 organizations listed below, we urge you to oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos to be the next U.S. Secretary of Education. All parents and students in this country – a majority of whom are of color or are low-income ^[i] – want the best education, support and dignity for their own children. We stand with them and cannot support a nominee who has demonstrated that she seeks to undermine bedrock American principles of equal opportunity, nondiscrimination and public education itself.  

The Secretary of Education’s role as an enforcer of education and civil rights laws^[ii] is central to advancing our shared vision of an inclusive and diverse system of high-quality public education that enables every student to live up to their potential. DeVos has demonstrated no previous commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunity in schools. Moreover, in her hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on January 17, 2017, she failed to demonstrate that she is capable of and committed to enforcing the law – as is required of the agency’s chief executive. 

Betsy DeVos’ deference to state flexibility, even with regard to compliance with federal civil rights laws such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); her claim that demonstrating support for Title IX enforcement guidance would be “premature;” and her lack of support for accountability for all schools receiving federal funds only serve to reinforce our conclusion that her inadequate previous experience and missing record of support for students’ civil rights make her unfit to serve as Secretary of Education.

When compared with Secretaries of Education throughout the history of the department, DeVos’ lack of experience stands out. She has never been an educator or worked directly with children and families in public schools. She has never led a school, district or state agency tasked with educating students. She has never been a public school parent or a public school student. This lack of experience makes her uniquely unfamiliar with the challenges and opportunities facing the nation’s students, families, educators and schools.

The U.S. Department of Education is responsible for implementing and enforcing laws protecting students from discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex and disability and those laws that provide for educational opportunity from early childhood through graduate school. The person responsible for leading that department must absolutely be committed to enforcing federal laws on behalf of every single student in this country – without regard to LGBTQI status, family income, race, ethnicity, home language, gender, religion, disability or immigration status. Our nation’s Constitution, economy, future and children deserve no less.

Sincerely,

National (101)

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
The Advocacy Institute
African American Ministers In Action (AAMIA)
All Our Children National Network
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
American Atheists
American Dance Therapy Association
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Federation of Teachers
American Friends Service Committee
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
Americans for Religious Liberty
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA)
Black Women's Blueprint
Center for American Progress
The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA's Civil Rights Project
Center for Law and Education
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers
Champion Women
Children's Defense Fund
Clearinghouse on Women's Issues
Communications Workers of America
Council of Administrators of Special Education
CREDO
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring (DREAM)
Equal Justice Society
Equal Rights Advocates
Equality Federation
Family Equality Council
Feminist Majority Foundation
Four Freedoms Forum
Franciscan Action Network
GLSEN
Harriet Tubman Collective
Healthy Teen Network
Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of the Deaf (HEARD)
Hispanic Federation
Immigration Equality Action Fund
In Our Own Voices, Inc.
Jewish Women International (JWI)
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Know Your IX
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of United Latin American Citizens
Learning Disabilities Association of America
Legal Aid at Work (formerly Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center)
MANA, A National Latina Organization
NAACP
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
National Action Network
National Alliace of Black School Educators
National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)
National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Association of Social Workers
National Black Justice Coalition
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Council of Gray Panthers Networks
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of La Raza
National Council on Educating Black Children
National Council on Independent Living
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Immigration Law Center
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Urban League
National Women's Law Center
OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates
The Opportunity Institute
Parent Advocacy Consortium
Partners for Each and Every Child
People Demanding Action
People For the American Way
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Progressive Congress Action Fund
Project KnuckleHead
Roosevelt Institute
Saving Our Sons & Sisters International
School Social Work Association of America
Secular Coalition for America
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
Southern Poverty Law Center
Stop Sexual Assault in Schools
Students Resisting Trump, a project of Students for Education Reform Action Network
TASH
Teaching for Change
The Trevor Project
United Spinal Association
Women Enabled International
Women's Intercultural Network (WIN)
World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law
YWCA USA

State and Local Groups (147)

ADAPT Montana
Advocates for Children of New York
ALSO Youth, Inc
American Federation of Teachers/North Carolina
American Samoa Alliance against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families
Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center
Brain-Body Health Technology Institute, LLC
Bright Futures LLC CO
California Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition
California Foundation for Independent Living Centers
CDCRC Inc.
Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc. (CPACS)
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Federation of Teachers
Chesapeake Down Syndrome Association
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
Citizens Against Government Overreach
Citizens for Educational Awareness
Citizens for Public Schools
Coalition for Equal Access for Girls
Collaborative Parent Leadership Action Network
Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Community 4:12
Community Resources for Independent Living
Connecticut Alliance of School Social Workers
Creative Learning Enterprises, Inc.
Dayle McIntosh Center
Deb Davis Advocacy
Decoding DyslexiaMD
Directions for Youth & Families
Disability Action Center
Disability Policy Consortium of Massachusetts
Education Law Center-PA
Education Opportunity Network
Elmhurst Action for a Better Tomorrow
Faculty Senate, Wheelock College
Fannie Lou Hamer Center For Change
Florida Association of School Social Workers
Florida Council Against Sexual Violence
Fort Wayne Urban League
Girls Inc. of Long Island
Grow Your Own Teachers Illinois
Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline (Gwinnett SToPP)
Illinois Association of School Social Workers
Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco
Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault
Institute for Women's Studies and Services, MSU Denver
Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Iowa School Social Workers' Association (ISSWA)
Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence
JF STEM Institute
Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center
Knoxville Area Urban League
Latino Engagement and Action Council
Lesbian Health Initiative (LHI)
LGBT Center of Raleigh
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Los Angeles Urban League
Loud Voices Together Educational Advocacy Group
Louisiana Association of Special Education Administrators
Louisville Urban League
Made in Durham
Manhattan, Community Board 2
Maryland Multicultural Coalition/State Chapter of NAME
Michigan Alliance for Special Education
Michigan Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence
Michigan NOW
Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network
Minneapolis Urban League
Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Minnesota School Social Workers Association
Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Mountain State Centers for Independent Living
National Association of Social Workers, CT Chapter
NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault
NCJW Peninsula Section
Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault
New York State School Social Work Association
Nollie Jenkins Family Center, Inc.
North Carolina Justice Center
Ohio School Social Work Association
Open Arms Rape Crisis Center & LGBT+ Services
OUT in the High Country
OutReach LGBT Community Center
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape
Placer Independent Resource Services
Planned Parenthood Keystone
Public Advocates Inc.
R.E.A.C.H. (Resources for Educational Advocacy and Classroom Help)
Resource Center
Restorative Schools Vision Project (RSVP)
Rich Educational Consulting, LLC
Rockland County Pride Center
Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center
Ruth Ellis Center
Sacramento LGBT Community Center
Sandy Mislow LLC
SC Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
SHK Global Health
SKIL Resource Center
Southwest Pennsylvania National Organization for Women
Student Advocacy Inc.
Teachers Unite
The Chicago Urban League
The DC Center for the LGBT Community
The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach
The LOFT LGBT Community Services Center
The Pride Center at Equality Park
The Urban League of Greater Atlanta
Tri-County Independent Living
Urban League of Greater Madison
Urban League of Hampton Roads, Inc.
Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Voices for Schools
Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Women's City Club of New York
Women's Law Project
Wominsport
Youth Justice Coalition
YWCA Allentown
YWCA Aurora
YWCA Binghamton and Broome County, Inc.
YWCA Bradford
YWCA Greater Austin
YWCA Greater Lafayette
YWCA Greater Portland
YWCA Kankakee
YWCA La Crosse
YWCA Mount Desert Island
YWCA National Capital Area
YWCA Northcentral PA
YWCA of Asheville and WNC
YWCA of Kaua`i
YWCA of Rochester and Monroe County
YWCA of the Greater Capital Region
YWCA Pierce County
YWCA Princeton
YWCA San Antonio
YWCA South Hampton Roads
YWCA Spokane
YWCA Union County
YWCA Warren
YWCA Yakima

Oppose Confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education:

Nearly 250 Education-Related Groups Urge Senators to Reject Betsy DeVos - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Nearly 250 Education-Related Groups Urge Senators to Reject Betsy DeVos - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Nearly 250 Education-Related Groups Urge Senators to Reject Betsy DeVos

50+ Organizations Working to Defend and Improve Public Education

CLICK HERE

Well over two hundred national, state, and local groups working in education have signed a letter urging U.S. senators to reject Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump's nominee to be secretary of education.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which previously announced its grave concerns about DeVos, issued the letter Monday, one day before the scheduled Senate education committee vote on DeVos' nomination.

The American Federation of Teachers, the Children's Defense Fund, GLSEN (which advocates on behalf of LGBT students), the NAACP, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals are among nationwide groups to register their official opposition...Nearly 250 Education-Related Groups Urge Senators to Reject Betsy DeVos - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

 

John Thompson: Teaching Our Minds to See (and Touch) Anew | The Huffington Post

Teaching Our Minds to See (and Touch) Anew | The Huffington Post:

Teaching Our Minds to See (and Touch) Anew

The New York Times Magazine article about the lead poisoning of Flynt Michigan’s water supply used a phrase that is shared in medical schools and, in the wake of the 2016 election, it should hit home hard. The Times cites Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha’s wisdom, “The eyes don’t see what the mind doesn’t know.”

In this post-fact environment, Americans must wrestle with the inability of different peoples’ eyes to see what their neighbors’ eyes see. We must also ask how our minds learn about diverse worlds.

Fortunately we’re being offered a full range of journalistic enquiries into why Americans are talking past each other. The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell inventories the absurd claims that the majority of Trump supporters see as true. Even after a North Carolina man, armed with an assault-style rifle, charged into a D.C. pizza joint which was supposedly the site of a child sex ring which Hillary Clinton helped run, nearly half of Trump supporters continued to see Mrs. Clinton as guilty as charged.

Rampell further describes other incredible charges that are believed by about half or more of Trump supporters, as well as urban myths that are accepted by significant numbers of Clinton voters.

Texas journalist Bill Bishop anticipated today’s crisis in The Big Sort. Bishop described this new form of segregation by choice, as well as economics. It is social fragmentation created by consumerism and personal tastes, where Americans divide themselves into discrete, like-minded enclaves. “The Big Sort” fosters separation based on lifestyle, personalities, and income. It also creates homogenized environments where it is all too easy to see only what other like-minded people see, and it reinforces alienation on a large scale.

To understand the deeper question of how our minds can wrap themselves around today’s diverse and complex worlds, we must take a longer historical and philosophical view. We should recall the climax of Jacob Bronowski’s magnificent The Ascent of Man. He displayed an curved ancient stone sharpened into a blade and concluded, “The hand in the cutting edge of the mind.”

Too many young people have grown up in a completely post-industrial, digital world and many of them struggle to understand Bronowski’s wisdom. Many of today’s realities are grounded by no more than bursts of electricity darting through computer server systems. These technologies can foster a primitive mind-body dualism. And too many parents have failed to teach their children digital ethics and media literacy. In fact, polling data indicates that in the recent election, it was older voters who became the most divorced from the real world and trusted the fake news that was circulated across social media.

We live in a post-modern world where too many of the physical rites of passage into society are gone. There was a lot wrong with the 20th century’s blue collar economy where young adults were introduced to physics by swinging a hammer, slingin iron, hauling hay, and/or hiking and fishing. But, those physical activities provided an Teaching Our Minds to See (and Touch) Anew | The Huffington Post:

The Achievement Gap: Now Closed by the Alternative Executive Order | BustED Pencils

The Achievement Gap: Now Closed by the Alternative Executive Order | BustED Pencils:

The Achievement Gap: Now Closed by the Alternative Executive Order

Amidst all the furor (Did I spell that right?), the derisive snickering, and those silly pink cat hats that surrounded the water coolers during these first few days of the new administration, it went virtually unnoticed that the Trump administration’s greatest triumph thus far is the end of the Achievement Gap.

It’s sooooo over. Over.

What? You missed it? The solution was nothing short of a stroke of genius and best of all, it will cost absolutely nothing to implement. Nothing. Even the Mexicans are off the hook.

It requires no new legislation, no rewriting of standardized tests, and no skillfully crafted executive order.

You can keep all those standardized tests if you feel like it, or throw them all in the trash. It doesn’t matter. The Achievement Gap is dead. You can come out from under your desk now.

For all of you who somehow missed President Trump’s presidential adviser, Kellyanne Conway, talking to Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, the conversation quickly turned to White House Communications Director, Sean Spicer.  Chuck asserted that Spicer flunked his first test as White House press secretary when he greatly overstated the size of the crowd on the Washington Mall during President Trump’s inauguration speech. With more than a bit of righteous indignation on behalf of journalists everywhere, Chuck pointed out that there was sufficient evidence to find Spicer’s assertions dead wrong.

Chuck must have missed the memo that all of our wrongs have been righted. America is The Achievement Gap: Now Closed by the Alternative Executive Order | BustED Pencils:

KXNG CROOKED – “Alternative Facts” | 2DOPEBOYZ - https://2dopeboyz.com/?p=398426 on @2DopeBoyz

CURMUDGUCATION: PAC Makes Final DeVos Push

CURMUDGUCATION: PAC Makes Final DeVos Push:

PAC Makes Final DeVos Push

America Rising is a super PAC created by Republicans back in 2013 when the RNC determined that they needed a group that did "nothing but post inappropriate Democrat utterances and act as a clearinghouse for information on Democrats.” You may remember them as the folks that followed every single Democratic candidate around and taped everything they ever said.

These masters of opposition research have turned their money on Herr Trump's cabinet nominees, and they felt the need to make one last push for Betsy DeVos through their division called America Rising Squared. The weakness of the video underlines the weakness of the nominee.

The spot is thirty seconds long, and it doesn't have much to say.

"If elected, I will not seeeeeerrrvvveeeeeeeee....."

Over a greyed-out image of Beloved Leader, we get the words "Americans sent a clear message." This seems disingenuous at best, since three million more Americans sent the message "I will pick the Democrat-favored Lesser of Two Evils." Because first, Trump lost the popular voe and eked out an electoral college win. And second, all sides should remember that this was the election in which "Earth hit by comet" was a contender. This face-off between the two most unpopular candidates in ever may have done many things, but it was never going to deliver any sort of clear message.

We want to fix what is broken.

Maybe that's supposed to be the message?But no-- I think it's supposed to be a lead-in to the next sentence, which arrives over a big picture if Randi Weingarten speaking in front of a crowd in front of a garish screen with her name, her title, and "working Americans."

But Senate Democrats are taking orders from the BIG UNION allies

As a dues-paying NEA member, I'm wondering why MY president isn't up there looking like an evil CURMUDGUCATION: PAC Makes Final DeVos Push:

ACT NOW: Reject Betsy DeVos' nomination for Secretary of Education! | MomsRising's Blog

ACT NOW: Reject Betsy DeVos' nomination for Secretary of Education! | MomsRising's Blog:

ACT NOW: Reject Betsy DeVos' nomination for Secretary of Education!

We are still reeling from yesterday's events - the day started with families being turned back at our borders and ended with thousands protesting this horrible policy at airports across our country. This is not acceptable and sadly we must keep standing up for families, children, and our nation on many fronts because our work is not done.

Like many of you – I am a mom to amazing kids - and at school, my boys are learning the skills they will need for life – reading, math, science and social studies, and for my deaf child – this is possible because the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which ensures that all children have access to the supports they need to fully participate in public schools.

But after the Senate hearings for Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, I am seriously worrying about what will become of our nation’s public schools and my kids’ education.

**Join me in reaching out to your Senators TODAY and ask them to reject Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education!

Here’s what’s happening: When Betsy DeVos had her confirmation hearing in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and my jaw dropped at her answers. It showed a serious lack of experience and a pay-to-play outlook of the world that belongs no where near our schools.  She could not answer basic questions about education policy and declined to commit to protecting funds for public schools. (1) She would not commit enforcing gun-free zones at schools, (2) to enforcing laws designed to prevent and punish sexual assault on college campuses,(3) and to supporting measures that would help ensure that children with disabilities are well-served by our schools.(4)

This is not ok! Our kids deserve better! We need to tell our Senators to speak out for the education and future of our children. **Sign on to our letter to tell  your Senators to vote “NO” on Betsy DeVos’ confirmation to be Secretary of Education.

Honestly, Betsy DeVos in charge of my child’s education scares me. Before the IDEA was passed only 1 in 5 students with disabilities received a public education.(5) We cannot go back to those harmful days. We need to ensure that our Secretary of Education is dedicated to improving our public school system for all children and is qualified and competent to head this essential department.The vast majority of children in this country attend public school. It would be a grave disservice to them – and to families, our economy and our country’s future – for the Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos as United States Secretary of Education. 

Join me in opposing her nomination today!

ACT NOW: Reject Betsy DeVos' nomination for Secretary of Education! | MomsRising's Blog:

How Jeff Sessions helped kill equitable school funding in Alabama

How Jeff Sessions helped kill equitable school funding in Alabama:

How Jeff Sessions helped kill equitable school funding in Alabama

Ryan Gabrielson
 Posted with permission from ProPublica

In the early 1990s, children across Alabama’s large rural stretches still attended faltering public schools, some with exposed wiring and rainwater leaking into classrooms. The education was in disrepair, too. Teachers couldn’t assign homework for lack of textbooks. A steel mill announced it would no longer hire local high school graduates because most tested below the 8th grade level.  In short, Alabama’s most economically disadvantaged students, primarily black children and those with disabilities, were missing out on a basic education.

Then, for a moment, change seemed possible. A civil rights lawsuit challenging the system for funding Alabama’s schools succeeded, and the state’s courts in 1993 declared the conditions in the poor schools a violation of Alabama’s Constitution. Gov. Guy Hunt, who had battled the litigation, accepted defeat, and vowed to work with the courts to negotiate a solution for equitably funding all of Alabama’s schools.

“This is a unique and timely opportunity to make historic improvements in Alabama’s public schools for our children,” Hunt said at a news conference in 1993, “and we will not miss this opportunity.”

Jeff Sessions had other ideas.

Sessions, elected Alabama attorney general just a year after the courts had begun review of reform measures, didn’t think the state’s courts should have any role in deciding how Alabama educated its children. He hired expensive private lawyers to fight the findings of the court — first at the district level, later at the state Supreme Court level. He succeeded in removing a judge sympathetic to the plight of poor students from the case. He filed appeal after appeal, insisting he be heard even after the state’s highest court issued final decisions. He fought every effort by the court to require that schools in the state’s poorer communities be funded at the same levels as its wealthier ones.

Sessions’s efforts won out — both in the short term, and in the end. His legal jousting across his two years as attorney general effectively prevented any overhaul to the way schools were financed in Alabama, and as a result helped drag out a case that would ultimately collapse years later when the makeup of the state’s top court turned over.

ProPublica tracked down and reviewed thousands of pages of court filings from the school funding case in Alabama. The legal argument Sessions made — again and again, and in the face of repeated rebuffs — turned on his view of the separation of powers. Only the 

How Jeff Sessions helped kill equitable school funding in Alabama:

Going To Notrump: The Meaning Of Resistance – redqueeninla

Going To Notrump: The Meaning Of Resistance – redqueeninla:

Going To Notrump: The Meaning Of Resistance

Let me explain why a vote for Steve Zimmer in the LAUSD fourth board district, is like bringing to life an avatar for RESISTANCE.

Apply to the County Registrar before the close of February for your ballot to be counted here!

Point of order:

‘Resisting’ means here: Refusing to be manipulated deviously by plutocrats (who are defined as a person whose power derives from their wealth).

Resisting signifies here: Refusing to abdicate your vote, which is your portkey to democracy.

Several “Independent Expenditure”s (IEs) have been made by Political Action Committees (PACs), and unlike forcing notrump in the game of Bridge, these are no paeans to subtlety or finesse.

Everyone should be aware that former-mayor Richard Riordan just plunked down $1m to establish a PAC brazenly titled “LA…Opposing Steve Zimmer For Schoolboard”.

Remember Dick Riordan? He’s LA’s octogenarian, thrice-divorced, Iris-American, Republican, self-styled “tough-guy”, the 39th mayor, who reigned from 1993-2001. He has been agitating to emasculate Los Angeles’ popularly elected schoolboard for decades. He’s not the only major contributor to IEs opposing Zimmer, and there are more such crocks of gold. Riordan contributed $15,000 to an IE for Nick Melvoin and donated $22,000 (total), the maximum allowable personally to each of Steve Zimmer’s other two LAUSD4 opponents. Like this race, his political machinations are nonpartisan.

And unbounded by moral compunction either; just last summer Riordan was fined $11,250 by LA’s Ethics Commission for shenanigans of incomplete disclosure during the previous LAUSD elections.

Dick Riordan’s net worth is estimated at a mere $100m which sadly doesn’t put him anywhere near Forbes’ Fortune 400 list, home to so many of today’s other Going To Notrump: The Meaning Of Resistance – redqueeninla:

Dear New York Times | radical eyes for equity

Dear New York Times | radical eyes for equity:

Dear New York Times

It is the end of the month, and as I click on what appear to be important articles in my social media feed, you, The New York Times, alert me that I have exhausted my free access to your news and commentary, including options for subscribing to your publication.

For a long time now, those messages have, frankly, irritated me because I have been blogging extensively as an educator about how your publication as a leader in mainstream media as well as other highly regarded outlets such as NPR and Education Week has been using my field of education as toilet paper.

Mainstream media consistently misrepresent the quality and problems with public education and teachers; routinely honor reform advocates, politicians, and organizations/think tanks with essentially no credibility; and remain trapped in vapid “both sides,” so-called objective, and press-release journalism.

Since I am just a blogger, only an 18-year veteran of public school teaching, and a current college professor and scholar of education, race, and poverty, I realize you really do not care about my informed positions, but since you are soliciting my money and my support, let me simply remind you here of some of my work highlighting your truly careless and harmful reporting:

• UPDATED: Mainstream Media in (Perpetual) Crisis: More Education Meat Grinder
• The New York Times in an Era of Kool-Aid Journalism
• Mainstream Media, Not Fake News, Spawned Trumplandia

However, I am not addressing this open letter to you, The New York Times, to rail yet again about your failures as a major aspect of the free press in the U.S.

For the first time, when you blocked access to an article and waved your subscription options before me, I paused because unlike NPR, you have done something that many are calling “bold,” but is actually what you should have always been doing: In a Swirl of ‘Untruths’ and ‘Falsehoods,’ Calling a Lie a Lie, Dan Barry.

If I may be so bold, let me counter your solicitation of my patronage with a Dear New York Times | radical eyes for equity:

Welcome 2017!! | Bill Ayers

Welcome 2017!! | Bill Ayers:

Welcome 2017!! 

So long 2016—all your surprises, twists and turns, heartbreak and hope are behind us now. Everything was possible on January 1, but nothing is possible any longer. You are finished, and it’s done. Fresh surprises are up ahead, and new vistas are opening—do you see that small figure gesturing wildly from that distant and indistinct shore? Let’s dive into the wreckage and swim as hard as we can in the direction of our dreams. Let’s stay all the way human.

Frederick Douglass escaped slavery, became a major force in the Abolitionist movement, worked for Black Reconstruction, and lived long enough to see the sell-out and destruction of Black Freedom, the rise of the KKK, and the terror unleashed on an entire people as the afterlife of slavery rose up and asserted itself. What did he do then? Did he retreat into a life of cynicism and despair? He did not. He got busy building the next steps in the Freedom Movement. We can do no less.

I resolve in 2017 to become a better organizer and to once more be guided by the rhythms of activism: Opening my eyes and paying attention every day; allowing myself to be astonished at the beauty and the ecstasy in every direction as well as the unnecessary pain and suffering all around; I’ll rise up and do something about it, say something about it, act out, write it down; then I will doubt, rethink, and start again.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I’ll try to gather with people in my community and work place, to take the measure of ourselves in order to name and act within this political moment; talk to strangers every day; knock on doors; read everything; distribute information; display my politics in the public square; listen as hard as I can with the possibility of being changed and speak as clearly as I can with the possibility of being heard; learn from my mentors; follow the young; take to the streets; fight the power; encounter art; eat only what I need; ride my bike everywhere; house the homeless; dance the dialectic; stand up for joy and justice, peace and love.

Another world is surely coming, but there are no guarantees that it will be a better world—work camps and slave states are possible, and nuclear war is an increasing possibility. But peace and freedom are possible as well. The choices are stark: socialism or barbarism, chaos or community, the end of capitalism or the end of the earth.

We had better get busy.

I’ll do my best in 2017 to build an anti-fascist united front as the Trump junta executes its soft coup, to contribute to the movement for peace in this Spartan military garrison, for racial justice and freedom in this bastion of white supremacy, for economic justice in the heartland of predatory zombie capitalism, for women’s equality and gender justice in this male supremacist bazaar. And that’s not all…

Black Lives Matter!

Stand with Standing Rock!

Undocumented and Unafraid!

Free Palestine!

Gender Justice and Full Equality!

Save the Planet!

Reparations for Theft and Slavery!

Education Matters—Free Minds/Free People!

Children’s Rights are Human Rights!

Welcome 2017!! | Bill Ayers:

Eleanor Stein

by billayers / 1h

http://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/elab-extra-4-transition-new-york-world/

What a Group!

by billayers / 1h

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/the-only-10-women-to-make-the-fbis-most-wanted-list/news-story/d6dd1d4519550e4ca586bf8aef6c4fc3

Keeanga on the need to Organize NOW!

by billayers / 1h

Think the Women’s March Wasn’t Radical Enough? Do Something about it Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor January 24, 2017 The Guardian (UK) The women’s marches in Washington DC and around the country were stunning, inspiring and