Serial Killers! Don’t call the cops! | Bill Ayers

Serial Killers! Don’t call the cops! | Bill Ayers:

Serial Killers! Don’t call the cops!

I’m re-reading Herman Melville and thinking about Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Kajieme Powell—and the serial killing of young African Americans that characterizes America today.
In Melville’s Benito Cereno a New England sealing ship operating off the coast of Chile in 1805 comes upon a Spanish frigate with a figurehead shrouded in canvass bearing the painted slogan: “Follow your Leader.” The ship is moving forward somewhat aimlessly with tattered sails and a distressed crew. Hoping to assist, a small party led by Captain Amasa Delano boards the ship in order to assess the situation. There they encounter a skeleton crew and a diminished cargo of slaves as well as Captain Benito Cereno who explains the troubles that had brought them to this point: terrible storms, disease and fevers that had taken the lives of several including the slave master Alexandro Aranda, ill fate and bad luck.
Captain Delano spends hours aboard the ship talking with Benito Cereno who is always in the company of his loyal slave and servant, Babo, while observing a series of strange events—urgent whispering among crew and cargo, a few Africans carrying knives and an occasional physical confrontation with Spanish crew members. Benito Cereno is pale and weak, often near fainting, always insisting that Babo stay close. At the end of the visit, as Delano prepares to return to his own ship, a desperate Benito Cereno leaps from the deck into the departing long boat and the truth becomes clear: Babo is running the ship and Benito Cereno is his prisoner; Black insurgents—slaves no more—have taken control and are demanding a return to Africa; the shrouded figurehead is the bones of Alexandro Aranda, the painted slogan a targeted threat to the crew.
The entire day had been a complex performance put on by the Serial Killers! Don’t call the cops! | Bill Ayers:

NYC Educator: Role Model Among Role Models

NYC Educator: Role Model Among Role Models:

Role Model Among Role Models

Ask yourself this--what do you do when your own kid fails classes? Do you talk to them? Get them extra help? Take away some electronic device? Well, if you happen to be principal of the school they attend, you have other options. You can simply change their grades. After all, you have the super-duper master password to the school computer. Who's gonna question you? Some teacher who you can fire after two ineffective ratings?

The only real flaw about this line of thinking is you can get caught, which is never good. But it's not that bad either. You get fined 7,000 bucks and get reassigned. Of course this is inconvenient, because you can't change your kids grades anymore. You're out seven grand and looking at paying tutors. You can't bully the teachers in your school to tutor them and you've obviously failed at bullying them into passing the kids for no reason already.

But at least you aren't a teacher. Can you imagine the stink Campbell Brown would raise if you'd been a teacher and done that? It would surely be all over the tabloids instead of just Chalkbeat NY. Hopefully your neighbors don't read that anyway.

If you were a teacher you'd surely be facing 3020a for this. Thank goodness the Tweedies haven't changed since Bloomberg and are still slapping administrators on the wrist. When they see a school in trouble, they pick someone like you to run it. That's how much they care about schools in trouble. Undoubtedly that's why they were able to close so many schools in the first NYC Educator: Role Model Among Role Models:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Talking violence, trauma tonight on WGN

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Talking violence, trauma tonight on WGN:

Talking violence, trauma tonight on WGN

LATE-NIGHTERS...I'll be back on WGN tonight at 11:30, on the Patti Vasquez Show. Along with a few other noteworthy Chicagoans I'll be talking about gun violence. You can call in and join the conversation.

Doctors demand trauma center

I'm certainly going to take issue with the Univ. of Chicago getting approval from the State Board to build a new $67 million medical facility in suburban Orland Park. Meanwhile despite months of community protests, including some by doctors and med students, there is still no Level 1 adult trauma center on the south side to treat victims of gun violence who now must travel miles by ambulance to the North Side or West Side for emergency medical care. The University of Chicago Medical Center closed its adult trauma center in 1988. And though it moved into a new $700 million building last year, officials say the hospital lacks financial and other support to reopen a trauma center that can treat patients 17 and up.



I still remember Damian Turner, who died of a gunshot wound sustained in a drive-by shooting in 2010. Though the 18-year-old was shot just blocks away from the UC Medical Center, he was taken eight miles away by ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he died of his injuries, because there are no adult trauma centers on the city's South Side.

Sen. Durbin knows who butters his bread. 

It's shocking, yet predictable, that Sen. Dick DurbinMike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Talking violence, trauma tonight on WGN:

8/28/14 – Charter Schools Don’t Need An Ad Campaign

8/28/14 – Charter Schools Don’t Need An Ad Campaign:



8/28/14 – Charter Schools Don’t Need An Ad Campaign

August 27, 2014 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Widening Inequality … Report Urges Fewer Tests … Arne Duncan’s Harmful Policies … High Teacher Turnover … Student Loan Apocalypse

TOP STORY

Charter Schools Don’t Need An Ad Campaign, They Need Regulation

By Jeff Bryant

“This time of year, while classroom teachers and administrators in public schools are busy welcoming students back to a new school year and figuring out how they’re going to cope with devastating financial constraints, advocates in the charter schools industry are propping up their image with an extensive new public relations campaign, called ‘Truth About Charters.’ That contrast alone pretty much tells you everything you need to know about where we are in the nation’s parallel education narratives, in which a gritty documentary competes with what is essentially an advertising campaign for a shiny, new product.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Back To School, And To Widening Inequality

Robert Reich

Economist Robert Reich writes on his personal blog, “The achievement gap between poor kids and wealthy kids isn’t mainly about race … It’s a reflection of the nation’s widening gulf between poor and wealthy families. And also about how schools in poor and rich communities are financed … As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever. The result is widening disparities in funding per pupil … The wealthiest highest-spending districts are now providing about twice as much funding per student as are the lowest-spending districts … The United States is one of only three, out of 34 advanced nations surveyed by the OECD, whose schools serving higher-income children have more funding per pupil and lower student-teacher ratios than do schools serving poor students … Until we recognize we’re systematically hobbling schools serving disadvantaged kids, we’re unlikely to make much headway ”
Read more …

Accountability Report Urges Fewer Tests, More Peer Review

Education Week

“Accountability for the public schools should be far less test-driven and more the product of teachers holding one another to high professional standards, the National Center on Education and the Economy proposes in a report … Essentially, the NCEE calls on the U.S. to administer tests only in 4th, 8th, and 10th grades, and to use tests that focus largely on performance tasks. In other grades, tests would be taken by random samples of students. To ensure coverage of the full curriculum, these tests would gradually test science and other subjects in addition to English and math. If the results of these exams suggested that a school was falling behind the state curriculum or not sufficiently educating vulnerable students, they could trigger school inspections … The report also urges states to help set up “career ladders” in which experienced teachers would take on roles mentoring colleagues and refining teaching practices; teachers would be held to high standards by their peers.”
Read more …

Is Doing Less Harm Enough For Education Secretary Duncan?

The Washington Post

Barnett Berry, chief executive officer at the Center for Teaching Quality writes, “It has taken [Secretary of Education Arne] Duncan far too long to heed educators’ concerns about new evaluation systems reliant on tests not yet aligned with new college- and career-ready standards … So, what next? … The federal government could spread best practices for evaluation found in top-performing nations like Singapore … The U.S. Department of Education could help to ensure that evaluation systems yield useful information by encouraging states to implement serious peer review systems that give teachers information and support … The USDOE should maximize its new Teach to Lead initiative—inviting accomplished teachers to create and lead professional learning systems that spread expertise to improve student outcomes.”
Read more …

Half Of Teachers Leave The Job After Five Years. Here’s What To Do About It.

The Hechinger Report

“A new report … found that about 13% of the nation’s 3.4 million teachers move schools or leave the profession every year, costing states up to $2 billion. Researchers estimate that over 1 million teachers move in and out of schools annually, and between 40 and 50% quit within five years … The high turnover rates are sometimes due to layoffs, ‘but the primary reason they leave is because they’re dissatisfied’ … New teachers need more on-the-job training and mentor programs for the first two years that’s designed to keep them in the profession. Called ‘comprehensive induction,’ the training should include a high-quality, pre-screened mentor who is an experienced teacher, common planning time with other teachers, regular and rigorous training, and ongoing contact with school leaders.”
Read more …

These 9 Charts Show America’s Coming Student Loan Apocalypse

The Huffington Post

“More than half of Direct Loans … aren’t being repaid on time or as expected … Nearly half of the loans in repayment are in plans scheduled to take longer than 10 years. The number of loans in distress is rising. The increase in troubled loans comes as the average amount of student debt has significantly outpaced wage growth … The Education Department released data this month providing a much more detailed snapshot into how borrowers are coping with their federal student loans and how the government’s handpicked loan companies are juggling their obligations to borrowers and taxpayers … With a lackluster economy, tepid wage growth and vast numbers of Americans still looking for full-time work, some federal policymakers fear current borrowers will need more time to repay their loans than previous generations … The larger fear … ‘Will we have a generation of people who hit age 65 or 70 without any assets?’”
Read more …

Who Cares? | The Crucial Voice of the People

Who Cares? | The Crucial Voice of the People:

Who Cares?

 A selling point my House representative makes to his throngs of followers is that he is “a protector of the people against the tyranny of their government.” So why hasn’t he lifted a finger, or even lent an ear, to fight against the tyranny of incessantly testing young children?

Why do we still have yearly testing mandated by federal law?

Did these tests improve education? The federal mandate began in 2001 with No Child Left Behind. Results?

If yearly testing is so important an ingredient in school improvement, why do we need it dictated by law? If these tests are so valuable and wonderful, won’t market forces be enough to drive their use?

I’m in Idaho. Our political leaders here strongly believe in the power of the free-market. They don’t believe the federal government should be involved in education. You would think they would be willing to fight to end the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind. You would think.

Listening to Idaho Representative Raul Labrador last night at his town hall meeting, I was struck by his words. He said he believes in keeping promises, in telling the truth, and how ignoring a constituent is never O.K.! REALLY?

I’ve been trying for three years to get this man to talk about education. My question this Who Cares? | The Crucial Voice of the People:

Over Easy: Public Schools in New Orleans 1958-1959 | MyFDL

Over Easy: Public Schools in New Orleans 1958-1959 | MyFDL:

Over Easy: Public Schools in New Orleans 1958-1959

By: Crane-Station Wednesday August 27, 2014 3:25 am

 Letty Owings, age 89 and the author of this post, recalls moving to New Orleans and teaching in a public elementary school in 1958.

New Orleans, 1958

Cultural experiences abound in this land of ours, but none can surpass living in New Orleans for just one year. The mockingbirds singing in the magnolias were left behind in Atlanta, along with red dirt and Stone Mountain. Ray went ahead of the six of us to begin his year of duty in the New Orleans Public Health Service Hospital. He got established and rented a house before the kids and I loaded the car and followed to what we found to be a strange locale.

As we drew up the drive to the hospital, moisture dripped from the huge vine-covered trees. A big crab inched his way across the street. Ray was sweating bullets because his “room” had no air conditioning to tame the heat and humidity. I remember his coming to the car and saying, “I don’t think you should have come here.”

Our rented house proved to be nicer than we expected. It did have its moments, however. An alligator came to the carport to lounge around, and the neighbors whose house practically touched ours fought half the night. That could be entertaining in the days before TV if they had only known when to shut it off. Our house, built on a concrete slab, sweated the floors sopping wet at night. Walking around could be precarious. Clothes that touched the floor or shoes left in the closet turned green with mold.

The quarreling neighbors told me to stay out of the yard during the day for fear of heat stroke. I blew off that advice since a veteran of the Midwest dust bowl could not possibly have a heat stroke. I did not have the stroke, but I did get mighty sick when I gardened in midday—only once. That once was all it took to pay attention to the natives. I never made my peace with the heat and humidity, but we did build immunity to mosquitoes.

School in Jefferson Parish where we lived came as an impressive challenge. One day right before enrollment time, the neighbor lady—not the battling one—asked me where the kids were going to school. Considering that a question with an obvious answer, I told her they would go wherever the local school was located. She was quick to inform me that nobody that was anybody sent kids to public school, and, in fact, it was unthinkable. Without either money for private school, which meant Catholic in New Orleans, or a desire to try to change plans in a strange location, we forged ahead with public education. Our oldest was ready for high school. When enrollment day came, we found the high school, if it could be dignified by that name.

The school building, completely buried in a summer’s growth of tall weeds, appeared as though it had been a long time condemned and given over to hopelessness and rot. The principal, a hefty Italian sweating profusely and flailing his arms around, trying to impose order on the chaos, hardly seemed to notice our inquiry about enrolling a student. In fact, students appeared to be the least of his worries. The attendees chiefly consisted of those who had been disciplinary cases thrown out of Catholic school or sons and daughters of the dock and levy crews. The kids that slept on the levy were called “levy kids.”

Two of our kids served their time at John Clancy elementary school. We never learned about the John Clancy behind the name. Perhaps he was a crooked politician. That would make sense in an area where the biggest bridges were named after Huey Long, the infamous former Governor who was shot dead on Over Easy: Public Schools in New Orleans 1958-1959 | MyFDL:

California schools superintendent Tom Torlakson tours Long Beach City College’s career technical education center:

California schools superintendent Tom Torlakson tours Long Beach City College’s career technical education center

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson took a tour of Long Beach City College as part of a statewide tour of Career Pathways Trust grant recipients. Torlakson, left, and LBUSD Superintendent Chris Steinhauser walk through the campus. Wednesday, August 27, 2014. (Robert Casillas / Staff Photographer) 

LONG BEACH >> Tom Torlakson, state superintendent of public instruction, visited Long Beach City College Wednesday to spotlight career technical education programs.

LBCC is leading the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Linked Learning Consortium, which was awarded $14.9 million under the Career Pathways Trust, a statewide $250 million program to move students toward college and high-demand fields.

“We fought hard to get $250 million in the state budget to expand these kinds of regional partnerships which help students succeed and get to work faster in areas that they feel confident in and skilled in, but it also helps our economy, so as we go around the state — the first round of $250 million — in that process we have touched the regional economies in almost every part of California,” Torlakson said.

The consortium is a regional collaboration among five community colleges, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Los Angeles, 14 school districts and six local community development partners, officials said.

The goal is to provide an employment pipeline by linking academics to high-growth employment sectors. Agencies that receive grants connect learning programs with businesses to prepare students for jobs in advanced manufacturing and engineering technology.

Torlakson joined LBCC President Eloy Ortiz Oakley and Chris Steinhauser, superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District. The education leaders visited LBCC faculty and students, as well as classrooms, including a first semester industrial electricity class.

“We need to adjust our programs, not just to create programs that lead to jobs, but to create pathways to skills that lead to jobs, and those skills are very different than they were 10 years ago,” Oakley said.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, spearheaded the Career Pathways Trust last year to establish the competitive grant program in California’s 2013-14 budget.

Colleges throughout the state have committed to working with their neighboring school districts to develop clear career pathways with industry-driven technical learning, from high school to graduation with a bachelor’s degree.

Steinhauser called the partnerships a “win-win” for business and education, saying “the grants that we received are helping our young people to connect a pathway to their area of interest.”

Torlakson said an additional $250 million in funding for the program California schools superintendent Tom Torlakson tours Long Beach City College’s career technical education center:

Major Sacramento labor leader Bill Camp fired over Kevin Johnson's strong mayor initiative - Page Burner - August 27, 2014 - Blogs - Sacramento News & Review

Major Sacramento labor leader Bill Camp fired over Kevin Johnson's strong mayor initiative - Page Burner - August 27, 2014 - Blogs - Sacramento News & Review:

Major Sacramento labor leader Bill Camp fired over Kevin Johnson's strong mayor initiative

by Cosmo Garvin

Bill Camp, the outspoken executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, has been fired, apparently because of an internal dispute over Kevin Johnson’s strong mayor initiative.

Camp, who has held the job for the last 15 years, and who has become the face of the local labor movement, is still fighting to keep his job.  He says the labor council’s board violated its own rules on terminating staff. “Some people say I am fired. Others disagree.”

And the national AFL-CIO is conducting its own investigation of what some are describing as a “coup” in the local labor council.

The Sacramento Central Labor Council is made up of dozens of local labor unions. The people who fired Camp were labor council board president Lino Pedres, with the SEIU Service Workers West Union, and Margarita Maldonado, the labor council board’s recording secretary, who represents SEIU Local 1000.

Camp said he was not told why he was fired. “They just told me ‘you’re fired, clean out your stuff.’” 

But events leading up to Camp’s dismissal suggest a power struggle in the local labor movement over the divisive strong mayor proposal Measure L, which will appear on the ballot this fall.

The Sacramento Central Labor Council has historically taken a position against strong mayor. And as executive secretary Bill Camp successfully sued to get strong mayor kicked off the ballot in 2010.

But last week, Mayor Kevin Johnson convinced enough members of the central labor council’s executive board–Camp’s bosses–to recommend that the larger labor council membership vote to endorse Measure L.

But at a subsequent meeting of the larger body of labor council delegates–from more than two dozen local unions–Measure L failed to get enough votes for an endorsement.  

Then unions supporting strong mayor included SEIU 1000 (state workers), the fire fighters, sheet metal workers and grocery workers, among others. Opposed were stationary engineers (city workers), teachers, and electrical workers, among others.

The votes were weighted according to the number of members in union, but even with the advantage of SEIU’s 24,000 members–the largest bloc in the Major Sacramento labor leader Bill Camp fired over Kevin Johnson's strong mayor initiative - Page Burner - August 27, 2014 - Blogs - Sacramento News & Review:

CRIMINAL CHARGES SHOULD BE BROUGHT AGAINST LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY - Perdaily.com

CRIMINAL CHARGES SHOULD BE BROUGHT AGAINST LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY - Perdaily.com:





CRIMINAL CHARGES SHOULD BE BROUGHT AGAINST LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

Whether the Los Angeles Unified School District's  (LAUSD) Superintendent John Deasy is criminally culpable for his actions in dealing with Pearson and Apple on behalf of the district concerning his clearly collusive actions in complete derogation of the public bidding process designed to get the best contract price and terms for the district should be determined by a criminal cause of action brought by the Los Angeles District Attorney. In addition, any other state or federal governmental authority that sees the potential violation of law in Deasy's specifically intended actions might also consider filing charges. Only such a forum is designed to get at the truth in this matter, because it has the legal process, e.g. discovery, deposition, and the compulsory gathering of relevant evidence that up until now has been retained and stonewalled by LAUSD in this IPad affair and many other questionable actions that LAUSD, Deasy, and present and prior administrators have engaged in without any public scrutiny. Surely, such a defective process remains a formula designed to foster continued improper actions that have finally become public in the IPad affair.

Whether such a court proceeding would find Superintendent Deasy guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard that such a prosecution would have to achieve, is not the question. What is the question is finally having a dispassionate and unbias examination of what has gone on in the present IPad fiasco and other similar actions that have occurred under Deasy's regime at LAUSD that continues to allow LAUSD to avoid any public scrutiny of its actions.

And when Stewart Magruder, who sat on the oversight committee at LAUSD tried to question Deasy's ramroding of the IPad deal with Pearson and Apple down the district's throat, he wasn't listened to, he was removed. What better argument could one make for having an unbias and dispassionate examination of Deasy and LAUSD's actions regarding the IPad deal by a neutral appropriate judicial forum. Clearly, and at the very least, if Deasy was a teacher, he would have already been pull from his job until an in depth investigation had taken place.  (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-board-reappoints-ipad-critic-20140617-story.html). 

Up until now, LAUSD has stonewalled any attempt to examine what they have done in any arena to see if it is kosher. In my own whistle blower complaint against LAUSD involving the graduating of students and giving diplomas to students with low elementary school reading and math abilities, the LAUSD Office of Inspector General gave the investigation to the very people I CRIMINAL CHARGES SHOULD BE BROUGHT AGAINST LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY - Perdaily.com:

Education, Inc. By Tim Scott and Deborah Keisch, Truthout

Education, Inc.:

Education, Inc.

Tuesday, 26 August 2014 10:28By Tim Scott and Deborah Keisch, Truthout | News Analysis

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(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

This story could not have been published without the support of readers like you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout and fund more stories like it!

Presidential administration proclamations about the state of public education over the past 30 years:

1983: "Our Nation is at risk. . . . the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded. . . .[and] threatens our very future as a Nation and a people."

- President Reagan's policy report titled "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform"

1991: "For the sake of the future, of our children and of the nation's, we must transform America's schools. . . . if the United States is to maintain a strong and growing economy into the next century."

- President H.W. Bush's "AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy"

1994: "To get beyond the crisis of education that we've talked and talked about. . . . We need to raise the standards to essentially reinvent our educational system to fit this new economy."

- President Clinton's Secretary of Education Richard Riley

2004: "The educational system itself needed to be reformed - transformed. . . . to improve education. . . . American business must be involved. If we can improve the educational system, we can improve the corporate bottom line."

- President George W. Bush's Secretary of Education Rod Paige, addressing the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce

2012: "Far too many students aren't getting the high-quality education and training they need to compete for jobs in the knowledge-based economy. . . . We have an education crisis in our country. . . . We have to act boldly and decisively to turn the tide."

- President Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, writing for the US Chamber of Commerce

Public education in the United States is in a state of crisis. We know this because we have heard the warning from government officials of both political parties over the past 30 years. We have also heard that if we don't fix this crisis, the United States and the "American way of life" is in jeopardy of losing its global economic competitiveness and superiority. We are told that our schools aren't doing the job we need them to do, with a quarter of our children dropping out of high school every year, and still two-fifths of those who do graduate leave high school unprepared for college or a career, while 57 percent lack comprehension of even remedial math. We have heard that American students place anywhere from the middle to the bottom of the pack in all three continuing comparative studies of achievement in mathematics, science and general literacy in the advanced industrial nations, while college remediation rates are high and US employers report that today's young people don't have the skills and knowledge needed for the modern workforce. Additionally, vast gaps in academic achievement and graduation rates that separate low-income students and students of color from their more privileged peers continue to plague the American education landscape (These statistics from The Education Trust).

We are told that corporate leaders are best positioned to fix the problems that plague public education and thus have been charged by our elected leaders to transform public education to meet the workforce demands of the 21st century economy, which will translate into solving the achievement gap. Corporations and financial Education, Inc.:

Wow! Gates, PBS, Parents, Teachers, CCSS, etc. – Interactive Graphic Journalism | Reclaim Reform

Wow! Gates, PBS, Parents, Teachers, CCSS, etc. – Interactive Graphic Journalism | Reclaim Reform:

Wow! Gates, PBS, Parents, Teachers, CCSS, etc. – Interactive Graphic Journalism

Posted on August 27, 2014by Ken Previti

The most fascinating graphic journalism about the immense power and money behind Corporate Education Reform, CCSS, high stakes testing, media information control, etc. is created by Adam Bessie and his associates.

“One picture is worth a thousand words.”

Well, that was then, and this is now.

Adam Bessie and illustrator Dan Carino have created a new level of graphic journalism published online atTruth-Out.org.

Bessie’s research journalism combined with the graphics of various artists combined with interactive links within the illustrations make incredible amounts of connections and interconnections possible for readers at all levels. Annotated editorial cartoons? Essays and comics? No, it’s much more than that.

View and read the illustration while moving your cursor across each graphic panel. A ton of information and related links are available for you to follow.

Look into whatever you want to know more about, or choose to leave it and go on to other things.

Incredibly, even more ideas are presented than mere words or graphics alone could present. As people read, Wow! Gates, PBS, Parents, Teachers, CCSS, etc. – Interactive Graphic Journalism | Reclaim Reform: