Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention

Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention:

Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNYSLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRRACE I-IV

  Women’s Caucus

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 118ABC

  LGBT Caucus

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 121BC

  Senior Council

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 122AB

  Rural Council

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.  

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRACE II

  Youth Council

  The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | 4:00 PM ET - WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Gavel In

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Thaddeus Desmond

  Similar to Hillary’s work at the Children’s Defense Fund, Thaddeus is a child advocate social worker in Philadelphia.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Dynah Haubert

  Dynah, of Philadelphia, PA, is a lawyer who works for a disability rights organization and teaches those with disabilities to advocate for themselves.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Kate Burdick

  Kate, originally from Philadelphia, PA,  is a staff attorney at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Anton Moore

  Anton, from Philadelphia, PA, founded and runs a nonprofit community group that strives to bring awareness and educate youth on gun violence.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Dustin Parsons

  Dustin, from Little Rock, Arkansas,  is currently a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in his home state.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Jelani Freeman

  Jelani grew up in foster care in Washington, DC and is a former intern in Hillary Clinton’s Senate office. Since receiving his law degree, he has worked to bring opportunity to kids at risk.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Students from Eagle Academy

  As a senator, Hillary Clinton supported the creation of the Eagle Academy to educate at-risk youth in New York City. Eagle Academy was featured in the ad Came Through during the New York primary.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Mothers of the Movement

   SPEAKER: Mothers of the Movement

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Joe Sweeney

  Joe, of New York, NY,  was a detective with the NYPD on September 11, 2001. When the towers were hit, he rushed down to the World Trade Center and began digging through the rubble for survivors.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Lauren Manning

  Lauren was a former executive and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald. She is one of the most catastrophically wounded survivors of 9/11. Lauren battled single digit odds of survival, spending more than six months in the hospital and fought recovering through the next decade from an 82.5% total body burn. Lauren asked then Senator Hillary Clinton to support the injured and she has remained unflagging in her commitment and dedication.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Ryan Moore

  Ryan, originally from South Sioux City, NE, has spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia dwarfism and has known Hillary Clinton since 1994 when his family came to Washington, DC for an event to advocate for health care reform. Brian Moore, Ryan’s father, lost his job when his employer was unwilling to cover treatment for Ryan’s health condition. Ryan has stayed in contact with Hillary ever since.

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  President Bill Clinton

   SPEAKER: President Bill Clinton

• 
  
  

• TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

  Gavel Out

• Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention:

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding:

There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding



Twitter wars are stupid, and I'm stupid for engaging in them:

  

alexandr‏@alexanderrusso

Diane Ravitch cares about school segregation now? That's new. http://pllqt.it/t0H4FD 

 

Diane Ravitch‏@DianeRavitch

@alexanderrusso If you read "Reign of Error," you will find a chapter on the importance of desegregation. How can you judge without reading?

It's true: Diane did write an entire chapter in Reign of Error about the effects of segregation on schooling. I know because I pointed that chapter out in my review of the book, and included an excerpt:

But the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination cannot be healed by testing, standards, accountability, merit pay, and choice. Even if test scores go up in a public or charter school, the structural inequity of society and systematic inequities in our schools remain undisturbed. For every “miracle” school celebrated by the media, there are scores of “Dumpster schools,” where the low-performing students are unceremoniously hidden away. This is not school reform, nor is it social reform. It is social neglect. It is a purposeful abandonment of public responsibility to address deep-seated problems that only public policy can overcome.

So, from my perspective, Russo is just dead wrong about Ravitch's views. He disagrees:

alexandr‏@alexanderrusso

alexandr Retweeted Jersey Jazzman

Over-testing & under-funding are fine but they're not cops out of schools, classroom bias training, etc.

There's really no point in continuing to debate whether Diane Ravitch has adequately addressed segregation -- and other issues related to education, race, and class -- or not. Russo has his opinion and I have mine (not that Diane needs me defending her). I do, however, find it odd that a guy who has publicly admitted he doesn't follow Ravitch's workthinks he has a grasp on her world view:

As you already know, I don't think that's very constructive for CPS over all for Ravitch or anyone else to keep bashing at failed or imperfect reform Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?

As readers of this blog know, I am a Sanders supporter and have been among the loudest critics of Hillary Clinton and the regular Democratic Party for many years, especially around education reform issues.

I supported Fanny Lou Hamer's Mississippi Freedom Democrats when they tried to get seated at the '64 and '68 conventions. I was one of the thousands in the streets at the 1968 Convention when we faced a "police riot" and turned Chicago and Mayor Daley's Democratic machine upside down protesting the war and racism. The Democrats were definitely the war party back then and the party of racial segregation in the South. Hubert Humphrey was their candidate -- not ours.

Some say our protests handed the election to Nixon. I doubt it. But I'll own part of it.

So why am I having such a hard time understanding some of my die-hard lefty/progressive friends in Philly? (Long sentence coming. Hold your breath). 

1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

Why would you go into the Democratic Party behind Bernie Sanders' highly successful and dynamic campaign in the first place, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of young activists around key issues (Fight For 15), win significant battles (not all) with DNC regulars in the Platform Committee (including on the education plank), super-delegates, force the removal of the DNC chair, cheer ecstatically the speeches of the party stalwarts (Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker), and then announce to the press that, despite Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?:

Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News

Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News:

The New Segregation

School systems are more segregated than ever in this time of racial tension.

The racial tension and violence that roiled the country this month left politicians, policymakers and protesters of every stripe shocked and exasperated.

Two separate incidents caught on video of white police officers shooting and killing black men, one in Baton Rouge and the other in Minneapolis, resulted in the killing of five Dallas police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest and most recently the killing of three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers – all in a two week span.

“Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged,” President Barack Obama said during the funeral for the Dallas officers. “We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other's experience.”

As the month’s tragedies rearranged life into a heightened racialized context, the president’s sentiments have been echoed many times over.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the GOP’s lone black senator, took to the chamber floor to deliver a moving speech about the number of times he’s been stopped by police for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood.

“I do not know many African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell no matter their profession,” he said. “No matter their income, no matter their disposition in life."

"We are in the midst of a lynching crisis," charged NAACP President and CEO Cornell Brooks during the organization’s annual conference.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.5 million member American Federation of Teachers, underscored that “the United States has not come to grips with pervasive racism – not even close.”

And perhaps that pervasive racism starts early, in schools.

After all, in some parts of the country schools are more segregated – and white students and students of color more isolated – than they’ve ever been.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows that from school year 2000-2001 to 2013-2014, the percentage of K-12 public schools that were high poverty and comprised of mostly black or Hispanic students grew significantly, from 9 percent to 16 percent. And the number of students attending those schools more than doubled, from 4.1 million to 8.4 million.Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News:

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com:

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state is seeking a court order forcing Ohio's largest online school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), to turn over records showing when students logged on to do schoolwork last school year and for how long.

ECOT earlier this month refused to provide log-in and log-out records to the Ohio Department of Education as the state audits the school's attendance. After finding evidence that many ECOT students spent just an hour logged in to lessons each day, the state is trying to determine if the $108 million it paid ECOT in 2015-16 was inflated.

Despite losing an attempt in Franklin County Court to block the audit, ECOT continues to refuse to provide the records. It has instead dug in its heels and told the state it won't provide them without a court order.

"They will need to file other paperwork with the court and make a request to the court that we submit the other data," ECOT spokesman Neil Clark told Ohio Public Radio.

The state is seeking such an order.

In a filing Saturday, the state asked Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer French to have ECOT provide the records for 1,500 students randomly picked by ODE so that the state can see how well ECOT tracked their schoolwork.

See below for the full filing.

ECOT said it has a 2002 contract with the state that does not require it to provide log-in data.

"ODE is continuing to play politics with this issue and mislead the public instead of sticking to the facts," Clark said.

Barring any changes, the next hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 8.

The state requires students at e-schools to spend 920 hours each school year on "learning opportunities" that can include online classes, but also time spent offline doing research or on field trips.

State fights to see if $267M paid to e-schools is justified

The Ohio Department of Education and ECOT, the state's biggest e-school, had a fight in court this week over attendance records. Here's what's at stake.

The state says schools have to show students participated in those "learning opportunities," while ECOT says it only has to offer them.

In the past, the state has allowed ECOT to have a faculty member certify that students were offered "learning opportunities," but never required the school to show that students participated in them, beyond simply logging in regularly.

But House Bill 2, the state's new charter reform law that passed last fall and took State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com:

 

Big Education Ape: Many ECOT students spend just one hour online for classes each day, state lawyers say | cleveland.com - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/many-ecot-students-spend-just-one-hour.html

Success in High School Doesn't Mean Good Grades in College - The Atlantic

Success in High School Doesn't Mean Good Grades in College - The Atlantic:

When the Value of High School Is Exaggerated

It turns out that students who take AP classes don’t actually get better college grades.

Jae C. Hong / AP

As more students pursue college, high schools are becoming increasingly bullish about enrolling students in advanced classes. These courses, the standard refrain goes, will prepare young people for the rigor of higher education and set them up for success as they embark on their college careers.

Not so fast, say a pair of researchers in a new Brookings Institution blog post. “We found confirmatory evidence that advanced high-school courses apparently do little to prepare students for success in college coursework,” write Gregory Ferenstein, a former TechCrunch reporter (who has also written for The Atlantic), and Brad Hershbein, a nonresident Brookings fellow and economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

The pair looked at thousands of high-school and college transcripts using the National Educational Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative survey of about 25,000 students that began in 1988. They found that, when they controlled for things like race, gender, socioeconomic background, and standardized-test scores, the courses that students took in high school had very little impact on college grades. In other words, if Tom took an economics class in high school, even an advanced one, and Joe did not, and then both young men enrolled in an economics course in college, they were likely to earn the same grade. Still, states are continuing to push more kids into advanced courses. “For some reason, the belief persists,” Hershbein said.

That belief may persist in part because earning a good grade in a college course isn’t necessarily a student’s reason for taking an AP class in the first place. A young person might take an AP class in high school so she can skip a similar course in college or bypass a subject entirely. But getting at what drives students to sign up for certain courses, advanced or otherwise, was beyond the scope of this research.

While the authors were able to look at the first college class students took in a subject, it wasn’t clear whether the students had received college credit for doing well on an earlier AP exam. So if a student took a chemistry class in high school and then took Chemistry 101 as a college freshman and earned the same grade as Success in High School Doesn't Mean Good Grades in College - The Atlantic:

First Few Weeks as a New Teacher: Things I Wish I Had Known

First Few Weeks as a New Teacher: Things I Wish I Had Known:

First Few Weeks as a New Teacher: Things I Wish I Had Known

In her book How to Survive and Thrive in the First Three Weeks of School, Elaine K. Mc Ewan elaborates on a teaching formula known as 3 + 3 = 33—something I wish I had learned about before I passed the 22-year mark as a teacher.

This simple equation is used by standout teachers to maximize time management and learning at any grade level. Simply put: Three weeks of teaching the three R’s (routines, rubrics, and rules) leads to 33 weeks of higher student achievement.

The start of the year provides an opportunity for students to participate in “on- the-job” training. We should not assume students come to our classrooms knowing what they need to know to succeed. Instead, like new employees, students must be made aware of essential survival skills that will ensure they can climb our classes’ ladder of academic achievement.
New teachers can avoid stress, self-doubt, and confusion simply by implementing a few essentials right from the start.

Assign Seats Before School Starts

This is a strategy I learned the hard way. Back when I was a new teacher, thinking I was being progressive I invited students to “sit wherever you want” on the rst day of school. To my horror, more than one student found themselves in the embarrassing situation of getting shunned or shooed away from a seat supposedly saved for a friend. My carelessness had resulted in some students feeling like unwelcome outsiders. At any grade level, it’s easy to assign seats before the year starts. Just First Few Weeks as a New Teacher: Things I Wish I Had Known:

Some districts step up competition for neighbors’ veteran teachers | EdSource

Some districts step up competition for neighbors’ veteran teachers | EdSource:

Some districts step up competition for neighbors' veteran teachers

To better compete in a time of shortage, a handful of districts have negotiated changes in their pay scales that are making it easier to recruit veteran teachers. Doing so isn’t adding to the overall teacher supply or winning friends in neighboring districts. But it is helping some districts solve a personnel crunch as well as provide broader job opportunities for experienced teachers.

The change in the rules is enabling districts to more closely match the pay of teachers who want to switch districts. Until now, teachers have been discouraged from transferring by a standard clause in most districts’ contracts that capped the number of years that a teacher would be credited as having worked for the purpose of determining their new pay. The cap had the practical impact of locking in employment of mid-career and older teachers.

Under the standard salary scale for unionized teachers, teachers receive annual “step” increases for each year they work and a boost in salary for education degrees and courses they take beyond their bachelor’s degree. But for transferring teachers, there has been a limit on the number of years – usually between six and 10 years – for which they would be given credit, depending on the district. So, for example, a teacher with 15 years experience earning $77,000 in one district would be credited for working the maximum 10 years and have to start at year 11, earning only $68,000.

In the past, districts liked the cap because it discouraged teachers from jumping ship after districts had invested in their training and served to contain costs, said San Jose Unified Deputy Superintendent Stephen McMahon. But a teacher shortage in some districts has prompted them to rethink hiring practices and to resort to signing bonuses, referral fees and housing subsidies.

Most districts’ teacher contracts already allowed districts to make exceptions to the pay scale to hire teachers for hard-to-fill positions, such as bilingual, special education and math teachers. San Jose Unified, the largest of 19 districts in high-cost-of-living San Jose, and Some districts step up competition for neighbors’ veteran teachers | EdSource:

What should we name the school? – Cloaking Inequity

What should we name the school? – Cloaking Inequity:

What should we name the school?

Are there so few Latina/o leaders worthy of having a school named after them?

Last week I was in Houston to give a lecture at Rice University for the Mi Familia Vota student fellows. It was a return to my roots. In my younger years, I worked for the Houston Independent School District’s Research and Accountability Department during the tenure of Rod Paige (before he went to lead the US Department of Education).

I was also heavily involved with grassroots politics— block walking, registering voters and a variety of other activities with the Tejano Democrats. So it was a blast from the past when later that evening, I had a chance to visit with the Harris County Tejano Democrats at their membership reception. At the event, I was having a conversation with one of the Tejana community activists and she mentioned that in May 2016 the Houston Independent School District (HISD) renamed seven schools that were previously named after confederate supporters of slavery. She was annoyed that Jefferson Davis High School name was changed to Northside High School.

The Houston Independent School District is now majority Latina/o (about 63%). Northside High School is about 85% Latina/o… and the best name HISD could come up with was Northside High School?! Granted, one of the seven name changes was to Yolanda Black Navarro, a Houston community activist. But really? Only one school was name after a prominent Latina/o? I did some quick math and it appears that only about 5% of HISD schools bear the names of Latina/os.

I suspect that in your community you may have a similar underrepresentation of Latina/o heroes/heroines in the naming of your schools. So, I What should we name the school? – Cloaking Inequity:

LEAD POISONED WATER IS THE TOPIC – “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are song lyrics. | Reclaim Reform

LEAD POISONED WATER IS THE TOPIC – “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are song lyrics. | Reclaim Reform:

LEAD POISONED WATER IS THE TOPIC – “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are song lyrics.

Lead poisoned water in schools is a major problem in 2016. Lead poisoning during childhood causes permanent brain injury; this has been known for years and has beenproven repeatedly.

The Democratic National Convention tugged at our heartstrings by playing and emphasizing the beautiful song, written in 1969 by Paul Simon, “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”

That is the disconnect between reality and theater, the Theater of the Absurd, that calls itself a Democratic National Convention where issues are supposed to be openly discussed and a political platform is written. The actual platform fails to address fracking or funding for the permanent clean-up of lead poisoned water. Delegates mention this aloud to each other, but the official program has been imagery. The show must go on.

This is why people are disgusted with both presidential candidates and our present elected Democratic and Republican officials across America. They cannot be trusted as long as we and our children are being poisoned.

Infrastructures, that have been intentionally ignored for decades, and fracking are known causes of water poisoning. Clean water is ignored or merely given lip service by our own LEAD POISONED WATER IS THE TOPIC – “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are song lyrics. | Reclaim Reform:

Russ on Reading: Do Away with Grades for Reading

Russ on Reading: Do Away with Grades for Reading:

Do Away with Grades for Reading

We should do away with grades for reading. Reading is a skill, not a subject. I do not like grades in general because they typically don't tell us much about how to improve learning and they can destroy the motivation of kids who get low grades. Grades do make some kind of sense, however, in content areas like social studies, science and math, because there is content to be learned and specific knowledge to be assessed.

Reading does not have a content, unless we artificially invent one for it. And when we invent content it often leads to bad instructional practice. For more than 50 years we have known that giving kids 10 vocabulary words in a list on Monday, having them look them up and write them in sentences, and them quizzing them on Friday, does not improve vocabulary knowledge. When I ask teachers why they still do it, the answer is often that they need some grades for the "Reading" section of the report card.

What goes into a reading grade? Typically these grades include, vocabulary quizzes, spelling tests, reading skill worksheet completion, homework completion, perceived student effort, and perhaps participation in reading group discussions. I ask that you notice that none of these things have anything to do with actual student reading ability. Under this system, it is possible, in fact, likely, that a student who is a poor reader could get an A and a strong reader could get an F. We have all had the strong student who Russ on Reading: Do Away with Grades for Reading:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Parent's Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century

by Russ Walsh

Giveaway ends August 31, 2016.

See thegiveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

A Parent's Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century is now available.

• Book Discussion Guide for A Parent's Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century

For-profit K12 Inc. virtual charter school giant claims Common Core testing could hurt its profitability??? - Wait What?

For-profit K12 Inc. virtual charter school giant claims Common Core testing could hurt its profitability??? - Wait What?:

For-profit K12 Inc. virtual charter school giant claims Common Core testing could hurt its profitability???

Education Reform Speak is hard enough to understand, but when K12 Inc., the large online virtual school vendor, sought to warn investors about the dangers of the Common Core — a concept proposed and driven by the corporate education reform industry —the resulting explanation was nothing short of bizarre.

Here, K12 Inc. uses it 2015 Annual Report to explain how the Common Core and Common Core testing scheme puts the company’s profits at risk.

A big kudos to any reader who can figure out what K12 means in the following paragraph, which is taken directly from the company’s most recent annual report. Note the wording that the problem apparently lies in that many states are implementing the common core but failing to use the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core SBAC and PARCC testing programs.

FROM K12 INC. 2015 ANNUAL SHARHOLDER REPORT;

The transition to Common Core State Standards and Common Core Assessments could result in a decline in state test scores that might adversely affect our enrollment and financial condition

“Many states have adopted the CCSS, also known as the College and Career Readiness Standards, but are not choosing to use the assessments developed by two national testing consortia that align with the CCSS Curriculum.  Instead, these states are electing to use existing or state-developed assessments to evaluate student performance.  As a result, it has been reported in many states that students learning under the CCSS but continuing to be tested under the existing state proficiency tests have experienced sharp declines in test results.  As managed public schools we serve [to] undertake this transition, and given the growing number of at-rick students enrolling in these schools, perceived academic performance could temporarily or For-profit K12 Inc. virtual charter school giant claims Common Core testing could hurt its profitability??? - Wait What?:

 

The DNC is Giving Trump the Greatest Gift of All – a Weak Opponent | gadflyonthewallblog

The DNC is Giving Trump the Greatest Gift of All – a Weak Opponent | gadflyonthewallblog:

The DNC is Giving Trump the Greatest Gift of All – a Weak Opponent

The latest polls have Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton by 15 points.

No, not a Fox News poll.

This is from Nate Silver, the FiveThirtyEight numbers wizard who correctly called both the 2008 and 2012 elections. He says if the race were held today, Trump would win the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire, thereby assuring an easy victory.

Some will say this is just an inevitable boost in the numbers coming as it does right after the Republican National Convention. But need I remind you that theconvention was chaos? The speaking roster was dominated by Trump’s family and a never-ending cavalcade of D-list celebrities. It reads more like the cast of the next Celebrity Apprentice than the best and brightest of one of our nation’s two major political parties.

And don’t forget Trump’s own acceptance speech. They’re coming to get you and only I can save you! Trump 2016!

THAT’S what you’re saying gave the Republican nominee a boost!? It should have hurt not helped him!

But let’s put that aside for a moment. Clinton has never polled well against Trump.

Occasionally she has topped him in polls in the past, but rarely more than the margin The DNC is Giving Trump the Greatest Gift of All – a Weak Opponent | gadflyonthewallblog:

Democratic political infighting over education pulls the rug out from under black families

Democratic political infighting over education pulls the rug out from under black families:

Democratic political infighting over education pulls the rug out from under black families
The real bait and switch: Reformers’ selling school choice as justice

The U.S. Democratic political machine is in full gear this summer as special interest groups drive toward a common goal: Getting the party elected to the highest office in the land.

But the political action group Democrats for Education Reform has veered off the road, blasting negotiators who altered part of the 2016 Democratic Party platform in a nod to representatives who oppose charter schools and testing. (DFER called the changes “little more than a bait an switch,” and other like-minded reform groups followed suit.)

The “D” became silent in DFER when it shouted down the party platform. This strategic political act, showed to whom the group ultimately responds to, and please don’t say the children.

Related: Clinton looks to move Democrats away from ‘Education Wars’

I applaud those who take principled stands. One has to respect Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for his non-endorsement of Trump under the bright lights of the Republican National Convention. Nevertheless, the political consequences of his very private stance are substantial. Cruz dealt a mighty blow upon a wedge deeply implanted in the foundation of the GOP. His calculation may very well have been to split the party. Nevertheless, Cruz knew what he was doing when he walked on that stage.

There are similar forces at work in the Democratic Party. Education reform is both wedge and hammer. The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools as well as the former Assistant Secretary for Communications and Outreach in the U.S. Department of Education and current editor of Education Post respectively offered strong rebukes to the platform changes. Their respective promotions of certain reforms are not bound by party affiliation so no problem there.

But when “Democrats” is in the name, there’s a different expectation. The name assumes a willingness to work within the political process. If DFER can’t differentiate itself from other like-minded groups then it should simply be For Education Reform. How is attacking Clinton during this hour any different than a Republican?

“We bring criticism of the platform as a family member questions the misconduct of a fellow family member,” responds Shavar Jeffries, president of DFER. “We bring criticism to push the party to be true to the values it has embodied historically. Others may raise questions to undermine the forward progress of the party; we bring criticism to accelerate it.”

But shouldn’t the push be placed on President Obama, who really Democratic political infighting over education pulls the rug out from under black families: