CURMUDGUCATION: Detroit News Is Clueless

CURMUDGUCATION: Detroit News Is Clueless:

Detroit News Is Clueless

Detroit News writer Ingrid Jacques reports breathlessly about the arrival of education experts into the motor city. Actually, the headline writer says the experts "descend" on Detroit, which tells you plenty about how the editor views the relative position of these experts and the city, even if the editor stopped short of writing "Experts descend from on high to enlighten lowly locals."

Jacques and her editors have an odd view of what constitutes an educational expert, because the experts in question are Mike Petrilli (Fordham Foundation) and Eric Chan (Charter School Growth Fund). So, not so much "educational experts" as "charter school marketing experts." They were invited by Excellent Schools Detroit. ESD deserves its own piece, but the short form is that ESD was formed in 2010 as one of those "community philanthropic boards" that allows all sorts of privatizersto get a seat at the school management table without having to be, you know, elected or anything. These boards are carefully crafted to make sure that The Right People are in charge of making all the decisions about how to manage schools (and those sweet, sweet piles of public tax money).

Chan and Petrilli were working the next phase charter talking points, which is generally to call for tighter quality controls on charter schools, because while the theory is that charters need to be opened because the charters do a better job than public schools, it turns out that many don't do a better job than public schools and so the charter system has to be fixed. This is the newest odd paradox in the privatizing narrative-- when public school systems fail, they must be replaced, but when charter school systems fail, they must be nurtured, supported, managed and improved. Go figure.

Jacques says that Detroit should look at "models that are working," citing New Orleans and Memphis, so I guess by "working" she doesn't so much mean "providing quality community school systems" as she means "creating good revenue streams for privatizers." She does note that Detroit is "complicated" and poses some "unique challenges." Which leads us to this improbable sentence:

That's partly why the education debate in Detroit is attracting such high-profile expertise.

Will this be the place where she introduce people who are actually experts in education? (Spoiler alert: no). Her next example is Paul Pastorek, the former NOLA superintendent who turned post-Katrina public school crisis in to charter school gold (well, gold for charter operators-- for students CURMUDGUCATION: Detroit News Is Clueless:

Why Does Special Education Have to be Special? - Work in Progress - Education Week Teacher

Why Does Special Education Have to be Special? - Work in Progress - Education Week Teacher:

Why Does Special Education Have to be Special?

Guest post by Dr. Douglas Green

Thanks to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act passed in 1975, students who have some kind of identifiable disability that gets in the way of keeping up with their able peers, get service from special education teachers in schools throughout the United States.

While practices vary from state to state, there is some similarity as to how these services are provided. The law is well intentioned, and there is no doubt that much of what special education teachers do is helpful. However,  we spend too much money and time on bureaucratic procedures that wastes funds that could be used to pay more teachers to give more help. The process that a child has to go through to become classified and therefore eligible for service creates a barrier that favors students with strong parent advocates, at the same time it leaves some poor kids who aren't quite disabled enough out of luck. 

Unlike Finland where services are provided to about half of the students at some point before they fall too far behind, we limit these kind of services to roughly 12% of the student population, and often wait until students are far behind their peers before we provide it. As an elementary school principal where 90% of the students were poor, 25% were refugees, and 20% qualified for special education services, I've seen this process close up. I have great respect for the teachers involved, but found that we spent way too much time in meetings trying to determine if a given student was classifiable rather than just helping kids who seemed to need help. 

Tag 'em and Bag 'em

In order to qualify for special education services, a student needs to go through the dreaded classification process. Students who seem to need help are first dealt with by a committee of teachers who try to figure out how to help the student to avoid a special ed classification. If this doesn't work, the student gets individual testing from a special education teacher and a school psychologist. When the testing is finished, the committee on special education meet to review the results and decide if a special ed classification is in order. 

These meetings include the child's regular classroom teacher, a special education teacher, the school psychologist, the child's parent (if they show up), a parent of a student already in the special ed system, and a committee chair provided by the district. As principal, I usually attended and parents where allowed to bring in advocates and lawyers if the wished.

After about half an hour of sorting through data that almost no parent and many regular ed teachers don't understand, it's up to the school psychologist to see if the child is eligible for one of the allowed classifications. About half of the students who make it are considered learning Why Does Special Education Have to be Special? - Work in Progress - Education Week Teacher:

Can 5-year-olds in Mississippi conquer the Common Core? - The Hechinger Report

Can 5-year-olds in Mississippi conquer the Common Core? - The Hechinger Report:

Can 5-year-olds in Mississippi conquer the Common Core?

Standards are becoming harder and Mississippi kindergartens start school behind their peers in other states

A worksheet that Kathy Glover’s kindergartener brought home from school to introduce the new Common Core standards. Courtesy of Kathy Glover

BROOKHAVEN, Miss.— It was only 10:30 a.m. on a late spring day at Enterprise Attendance Center, and Landon Delcambre had already learned how to make estimates while watching six students guess the number of buttons in a jar. He had listened to a weather report from two students. And in what was perhaps the highlight of lesson-filled day, he’d counted to 100 with the help of a YouTube video featuring a “counting superhero.”

Landon, six, is among the Mississippi kindergarten students who are learning new, more challenging academic standards such as counting to 100 by ones and tens. For many years, they only needed to count to 20 before moving on to first grade.

He doesn’t find the new standard too hard. “I already knowed how to count to 100,” Landon said calmly, sitting back at his desk after the video. “I didn’t learn it. I just knew for years.”

Yet Landon’s confidence isn’t shared by some educators and experts who argue the new standards are too hard for students just starting school, even though it appears they are here to stay. Against a swirl of protest, Gov. Phil Bryant in April vetoed a bill that would have forced the state to re-examine Common Core Standards adopted five years ago for all grades.

Now called the Mississippi College-and-Career Readiness Standards, the standards are particularly challenging in the early grades like kindergarten, where students are expected to learn skills previously expected from 7- or 8-year-olds.

Nationally, more than 40 states have adopted or adapted Common Core, with ensuing questions about how well they were suited for each K-12 grade. However, the changes to kindergarten have garnered special outrage. While some supporters say young learners are fully capable of mastering these new standards, early childhood experts insist some standards are too tough and will further pull kindergarteners away from traditional, play-based learning.

Often it’s parents who are flummoxed by the changes to what used to be a softer, more relaxed introduction to school.

“I was just blown away that they wanted a kindergartener to know that much,” said Mississippi parent, Kathy Glover, referring to noticeable instructional changes for her second child.

“I was thinking, ‘Does second grade now start in kindergarten?’” she said.

Message to parents: ‘Days of naps and unstructured play are long gone!’

In Mississippi, where a 2013 survey of teachers found that 40 percent of students in the state arrive unprepared for kindergarten, the new standards are truly daunting. Teachers surveyed said that some students were unable to hold crayons or identify colors. A 2014 state reading exam found that about 65 percent of Mississippi’s kindergarten students did not meet the benchmark score for early literacy skills, which includes being able to distinguish between lower and upper case letters.

Related: Why is ‘high quality’ so elusive in Mississippi’s child care centers?

When the state adopted the Common Core standards, it was in the hopes that they would “put students on a level playing field regardless of their ZIP code,” according to the state education website. But like the majority of states, kindergarten attendance is optional in Mississippi, and the state’s fledging pre-K program and piecemeal private options means more than half of 3- and 4- year-olds did not attend preschool programs between 2011 and 2013.

That has fueled concerns that with new, more challenging goals, students who did not attend preschool or kindergarten could enter school even further behind than they would have in previous years.

Glover’s children attend school in Lowndes County, and she remembers a strong emphasis on phonics and handwriting when her Can 5-year-olds in Mississippi conquer the Common Core? - The Hechinger Report:

Wholesale makeover of New Orleans schools after Katrina sows impressive PROFITS, bitter recriminations | New Orleans | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Wholesale makeover of New Orleans schools after Katrina sows impressive progress, bitter recriminations | New Orleans | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Wholesale makeover of New Orleans schools after Katrina sows impressive progress, bitter recriminations

Karran Harper Royal 

Georgia lawmakers must have whiplash. Back in February, Gov. Nathan Deal flew a whole delegation of them down to New Orleans with him so they could see up close how charter schools have transformed public education here, an approach the governor hopes to copy in his own state.

They toured some of the best-performing charter schools in the city and heard from state officials involved in remaking the district. Leslie Jacobs, a former state school board member, told them Georgia should act slowly and be careful about deciding who gets to run schools. “You can have quick failure or slow success,” she said.

Then, just a few days later, local education activist Karran Harper Royal got on a plane to Atlanta and told another group of legislators something completely different. New Orleans is not a success story at all, she said.

“It is an experiment in taking power and control over people because different people think they know better how poor minority children should be taught,” Royal said.

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina cleared the way for a new kind of public school system in New Orleans, the argument over its merits remains as contentious as ever.

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Data show the percentage of high school dropouts has shrunk, while the number of city students passing state exams continues to climb steadily. Yet, if anything, those figures have only intensified the debate, raising the stakes considerably as lawmakers around the country implement similar strategies or consider whether to do so.

Detractors still insist that academic gains in New Orleans are illusory, or unimpressive, or bought at too high a price.

And the price, by any measure, has been high.

Teachers returning to a wrecked city after the storm found their jobs and their retirement benefits had been washed away, just like their homes. Families discovered that under a new paradigm, their children’s school might be abruptly shut down for failing to improve test scores.

Administrators for years struggled to devise a fair system for enrolling students in a district without traditional neighborhood school boundaries. And in the meantime, students with disabilities sometimes found themselves unwanted, bounced from one campus to the next.

Not even the charter school movement’s biggest fans argue that better schools came without pitfalls or pain.

“When people are looking to do this in other places, they’re coming to New Orleans 10 years later,” Jacobs said. “They’re not understanding the journey to get to where we are today.”

After Katrina, state officials were eager to blow up the traditional, centralized school system that used to run public education in New Orleans. The idea was to shift decision-making from politicians and bureaucrats to the people who actually run schools: the principals and teachers.

Before, an elected board would hire a superintendent to run the district. A central office would select principals and hire teachers, establish curriculum and buy textbooks.

Under the new regime, almost every school would operate independently as its own nonprofit. The head of each school or a small group of schools would do the hiring and policymaking. If they couldn’t get results, the state would shut down the school or find another operator.

Unforeseen challenges

Inevitably, there were challenges that officials didn’t anticipate.

Consider Derrick Batiste. In 2011, when he arrived at KIPP McDonogh 15 in the French Quarter for kindergarten, the school wasn’t sure what to do with him. He has autism. He cannot speak or use the restroom without help.

Jessica Taylor, who runs Mac 15’s special-needs program, had never had to accommodate a student without any ability to follow the regular curriculum. Ordinarily, she would work with students one on one for 30 minutes to an hour per day. Derrick needed more than that, and he was only the first.

“We got some kids who were several years behind, didn’t recognize any letters, nonverbal,” Taylor said. “I spent the first year figuring out what that meant. Our need has just gone through the roof.”

Legally speaking, charter schools like KIPP are school districts unto themselves, and as such, they cannot turn away a Wholesale makeover of New Orleans schools after Katrina sows impressive progress, bitter recriminations | New Orleans | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Postponing charter-school reform again | The Columbus Dispatch

Postponing reform again | The Columbus Dispatch:

Postponing reform again

Despite support for charter-school fix, legislative leaders take a pass

Charter-school reform once again has stalled in Ohio, and the blame lies with legislative leaders who failed to advance a bill that Ohio’s taxpayers and students need .

House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger’s decision not to allow a vote on House Bill 2 before the summer recess means that another school year will begin without the reforms desperately needed to hold charter schools accountable for their academic performance and their use of taxpayer dollars.

It is a disappointment to all those who want to see Ohio shed a national reputation for having one of the worst-managed charter-school programs in the country.

H.B. 2 is the strongest reform measure ever put forward, thanks in large part to changes made by the Senate, which passed it Thursday night and sent it back to the House, where a vote to accept the changes was expected to follow. Supporters say it had enough support in the House to pass unchanged.

So why isn’t it waiting for Gov. John Kasich’s signature today?

Rosenberger, a Clarksville Republican, and Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, said they want the bill to go to conference committee, which is what happens when the two chambers support different versions of a bill and those differences have to be worked out. But there is no good reason to hold the bill up when the Senate’s changes strengthened it greatly and a majority of House members favor those changes.

There’s no mystery, however, about who does benefit from derailing or at least delaying charter-school reform: the same for-profit charter-school operators that have resisted reform all along.

Some charter-school operators wield enormous influence. White Hat Management owner David Brennan and Altair Learning owner William Lager, have given lawmakers a combined $1.4 million in campaign contributions since 2009. White Hat operates Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy, an online charter, as well as the Life Skills drop-out-recovery schools; Altair operates the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), the state’s largest online charter school. All have performed abysmally.

Re-opening the bill for further debate now gives these interests another opportunity to weaken it.

One possibility for mischief is a behind-the-scenes push to have the state Department of Education change the way it evaluates the academic performance of charter schools. Currently, Ohio uses data on individual student performance, from one year to the next, to measure progress.

But operators of some schools — which, not coincidentally, score low by that measure — want the department to consider a more-simplistic method, used in California. Instead of using individual progress, California evaluators look at the performance of a school Postponing reform again | The Columbus Dispatch:

Rocketship charter schools criticized as overly rigid

Rocketship charter schools criticized as overly rigid:

Rocketship charter schools criticized as overly rigid

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Looking for first-graders at Fuerza Community Prep?

One sunny morning last spring, they could be spotted inside the school's spacious computer lab, headphones strapped on their ears, eyes scrutinizing mini-laptop screens, plowing through online books about Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed and practicing online math exercises. This is where they spend up to 90 minutes a day.

For Preston Smith, a co-founder of Rocketship Education, the San Jose-based charter network that runs the school, that computer lab exemplifies what the chain is good at: harnessing technology to teach at-risk students.

THE TENNESSEAN

Rocketship Nashville avoids criticism of peers after first year

"We feel a great responsibility to get our kids, who are often behind, up to grade level," said Smith, who oversees 11 tech-heavy elementary schools, including one in Nashville and one in Milwaukee. "I'm proud of that."

But for some former teachers and parents, the Rocketship computer lab tells a different story — of a charter network too reliant on "screen time," too light on free play and too obsessed with test scores.

Related: How a Silicon Valley-based Teach For America program dives into blended learning

Kate Mehr, a former Rocketship executive who now runs the Baltimore outpost of another charter network, says Rocketship's "stripped-down efficiency model" has much going for it. But, she says, "The question is, how efficient should you be when you're dealing with little human beings?"

Rocketship is perhaps the nation's most celebrated pioneer of online learning, having received millions of dollars from outside funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, as well as financing from former tennis star Andre Agassi's real estate fund. The attraction is its innovative approach, which promises that intensive online work and a rigorous curriculum will help disadvantaged children make up ground quickly and gain parity with their better-off peers. (Close to 88 percent of the schools' students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and 60.5 percent are English-language learners.)

But as the network has grown, it has encountered challenges, losing key staff members and struggling with its reading program. In math, a relatively high percentage of its students routinely score well on state exams. But in 2013 — the last year thatCalifornia published reading and math scores — four of Rocketship's elementary schools showed significant dips in state reading scores.

"They are really phenomenal at marketing their schools," said Roxana Marachi, an associate professor in the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State Rocketship charter schools criticized as overly rigid:

New state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia starts job - Times Union

New state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia starts job - Times Union:

New state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia starts job

New York's top education official Mary Ellen Elia faces political minefield

Schoolchildren across the state are enjoying summer vacation and the July weather is turning placid, but New York's newly hired education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, will be entering a stormy, highly charged environment when she takes office on Monday.

Elia, a western New York native who comes back after running the 200,000-student Hillsborough County, Tampa, Fla., school system, has a number of priorities laid out by the Board of Regents.

Elia will be overseeing implementation of a controversial new teacher evaluation program and she will have to continue to straighten out the years-long and troubled rollout of a Common Core learning standards.

But just as important, she'll have to mediate relations between the Board of Regents, which hired her and oversees the state Education Department, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been battling the Regents and Education Department with no signs of a letup.

Top officials downplay the potential conflict.

"Let's welcome her and see what she can add (to the process)," Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said. Her advice: "Be yourself, do the right thing, listen carefully and communicate actively.''

But outside observers see the storm clouds only growing given the rift between Cuomo, as well as reformers such as charter school proponents and much of the education establishment.

"Elia is walking into a minefield. Her political skills will be tested," education analyst and researcher Diane Ravitch said in an email.

"She was chosen unanimously, but the board is deeply divided," Ravitch added, referring to the 17-member Board of Regents.

Much of the division played out in June when board members, in an unusually fractious meeting, made sweeping amendments to the system by which local schools are supposed to evaluate teachers. That system includes the use of standardized test results by students.

Cuomo had pushed this program through by inserting it in his budget proposal.

As a result, lawmakers, including Assembly Democrats who are close to the teachers unions, felt they had to approve the plan or risk not getting a timely budget.

When the time came for the Regents to administratively approve the program, seven members New state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia starts job - Times Union:

NEA Will Seize this Moment to Demand an End to Institutional Racism

NEA Will Seize this Moment to Demand an End to Institutional Racism:

Guest Blog: The NEA Will Seize this Moment to Demand an End to Institutional Racism

This week, NEA’s Representative Assembly took an important step to address the scourge of racism in America. RA delegates approved a new business initiative calling for redoubled efforts to end the barriers that stand between our nation’s students and their opportunities to realize their full potential. NEA Executive Committee member, Dr. Kevin Gilbert, shared a poignant reflection in support of the passage of the NBI to address institutional racism. Dr. Gilbert’s words express our collective hopes and dreams for the future of our children and our nation. NEA and its leadership stand united in support of social justice issues and this critical new business item.

Lily Eskelsen García, NEA President @Lily_NEABecky Pringle, Vice President @BeckyPringlePrincess R. Moss, Secretary-Treasurer @PrincessRMossJohn C. Stocks, Executive Director @johnstocksGreg Johnson, NEA Executive Committee @GregJohnsonNEAMaury Koffman, NEA Executive Committee @Maury_KoffmanJoyce Powell, NEA Executive Committee @joycepowell_NEAGeorge Sheridan, NEA Executive CommitteeEarl Wiman, NEA Executive Committee

The NEA Will Seize this Moment to Demand an End to Institutional Racism

There are few moments in history when circumstances provide the opportunity to create meaningful change in our society. When opportunities present themselves, those with the will and desire must seize the moment. We were all shocked by the senseless act of violence committed against nine innocent citizens of this country. The crime was committed by a man who had hate in his heart—a man whose destiny was to force the nation to again consider its ugly racial past and its future where the humanity and dignity of persons is yet to be fully realized. In this respect, June 17, 2015, will be forever etched in the nation’s collective memory. For me, though, the next day, June 18, was just as significant. I drove my nine-year-old son to our church summer ministry program, and as we listened to news commentators try to make sense of what happened the previous day. My son, in turn, asked me questions that I could not fully answer, questions that broke my heart:

“Dad, why did he do that?”

“Dad, why does he hate black people?”

“Dad, will he be forgiven?”

After dropping him off at our church, my mind went back to one of the most vivid memories I have from my youth. In the 1970’s, on a visit with my grandparents in Mississippi, we were awakened in the middle of the night and rushed outside of the house because someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window of my grandparents’ bedroom. I later found out that there were some people in the area that were not happy with the fact that my grandparents were living in “their” neighborhood. I had questions. And my dad did for me what I would have to do for my son thirty-nine years later.

My father had the same conversation with me that his father had with him when he was selected as one of a group of African American students to integrate the local all-white high school in the mid 60’s. My son has questions. I have questions. My father had questions. The cycle to rationalize the irrational seems, then, to never end. And yet, we can’t allow the irrational to overwhelm progress. We must remain diligent in our responses to racial tragedy. The range of events, from the death of Travon Martin, to the murder of the Mother Emmanuel Nine as the victims of the Charleston tragedy are now being called, has raised the consciousness of our nation, and now it is time to act.

Today, epitomizes the leadership’s capacity for excellence when “the members of the National Education Association acknowledge the existence in our country of institutional racism—the societal patterns and practices that have the net effect of imposing oppressive conditions and denying rights, opportunity, and equity based on race … and the manifestation of institutional racism in our schools and in the conditions our students face in their communities …”

Today, the delegates at the NEA Representative Assembly spoke loudly and said “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!” The time has come for us to “use our collective voice to bring to light and demand change to polices, programs, and practices that condone or ignore unequal treatment and hinder student success.” We will equip NEA members and our national, state, and local leaders with the skills necessary to have these courageous conversations and advocate purposefully. We will create space for NEA Will Seize this Moment to Demand an End to Institutional Racism:

Sic’ ‘Em Saturday: Pint Sized Common Core | commoncorediva

Sic’ ‘Em Saturday: Pint Sized Common Core | commoncorediva:

Sic’ ‘Em Saturday: Pint Sized Common Core

Anti CCSS Warriors, just in time for the 4th of July, the latest ‘Zero to 3 State Baby Facts’for each of the 50 states are out. So be ready to ‘rumble’!

The National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families:
http://www.zerotothree.org/

Their mission statement per the above website address is, “ZERO TO THREE is a national, nonprofit organization that provides parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and know-how to nurture early development.”

In Anti CC Warrior terms, the above means social and emotional learning, development, and the like are included. It means lots of policy makers and educational decisions are also being made. The Zero to Three Center is also connected to ‘Early Head Start’ (which is a community based, federally funded program). Between the two entities, all 50 states are serviced via over 740 programs. Home visitations are among these services.

From the Zero/Three’s FAQ page:
“What is the relationship between the EHS National Resource Center and ZERO TO THREE?        
The Early Head Start National Resource Center (EHS NRC) was created in 1995 by the Head Start Bureau and the Administration for Children and Families. Since its inception, the EHS NRC center has been operated by ZERO TO THREE in Washington, DC. The EHS NRC is a storehouse of early childhood expertise that promotes the building of new knowledge and the sharing of information. See the EHS NRC ‘About Us’ section or email ehsnrcinfo@zerotothree.org.

How many programs does Early Head Start include?           
Early Head Start, a federally funded community-based program for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers up to age 3, has 745 programs in all 50 Sic’ ‘Em Saturday: Pint Sized Common Core | commoncorediva:

An Insult to Teachers - The New York Times

An Insult to Teachers - The New York Times:

An Insult to Teachers

In “No Teachers Are Required for Grading Common Core” (news article, June 23), we have final confirmation on the state of the teaching profession today. We prepare our teachers poorly in programs that are rarely rigorous and almost never useful to the practitioner; we pay them far less than what other professionals make while simultaneously requiring them to obtain more and more specialized degrees; we tell teachers that we will evaluate them fairly based on standardized test results from students; and now we hire former wedding planners to grade those tests so we can rate those teachers.

Doesn’t anyone recognize the insanity of public education these days? How can we make the claim that teaching at any level is a profession when there is every indication that our public policy treats it in such an insulting fashion?

It is small wonder the most accomplished students from the college ranks predominantly seek other avenues of employment. Can you imagine doctors having their performance be judged on some standard operation, a dubious premise to begin with, and then have the results be evaluated by — what — truck drivers? I happen to love truck drivers, and I know they would be the first to tell us they don’t want to rate doctors or have doctors rate them, so why is it O.K. for teachers?

Of course it’s always the money, isn’t it? Maybe we think: Anyone can teach. That may be true, but anyone can do surgery, too, except the trick is that you are supposed to heal patients, not harm them. Great teachers heal, and we treat them like dirt.

GEORGE WHITTEMORE

Princeton, Mass.

The writer has been a teacher, a dean and a headmaster.An Insult to Teachers - The New York Times:

HISTORY IS BEING MADE at #NEARA15. Fred Klonsky from The Land of Lincoln… | Reclaim Reform

HISTORY IS BEING MADE at #NEARA15. Fred Klonsky from The Land of Lincoln… | Reclaim Reform:
HISTORY IS BEING MADE at #NEARA15. Fred Klonsky from The Land of Lincoln…

HISTORY IS BEING MADE.

“The Illinois delegation voted support for my NBI 11. I will now offer it on the floor of the NEA RA.”

NBI 11:
The NEA RA directs the NEA to support, in ways it finds appropriate and effective, efforts to remove the Confederate flag and other symbols of the Confederacy from public schools and public spaces.

RATIONALE:

The use of the Confederate battle flag as a symbol has become widespread among racist and violent hate groups. The flag and similar Confederate symbols have no place at public schools or in public spaces.

HISTORY IS BEING MADE by a delegate from Illinois, “The Land of Lincoln.”HISTORY IS BEING MADE at #NEARA15. Fred Klonsky from The Land of Lincoln… | Reclaim Reform:

CURMUDGUCATION: The Hard Way

CURMUDGUCATION: The Hard Way:

The Hard Way

 The Fourth of July is always a popular time for folks to reflect on what this country stands for, and we come up with many fine lists both of the best and the worst. Today, I'd like to add my own item to the list.


America stands for doing things the hard way.

When it comes to running a country, the easiest way to do it is to put one guy in charge and let him tell everybody how to do everything. He can be picked by heredity or tradition or power or wealth; he can be installed by a committee of Important People, or by the roar of the crowd, or even a legitimate-ish election. But the important part-- the easy part-- is that once you have him installed, you just let him run everything. No debates. no discussions, no big arguments about What To Do Next-- just let your Grand High Potentatial Poohbah decide it all.

There's a Less Easy but Still Pretty Easy way of doing things, which is to use an absolute democracy. Every issue that comes up, you vote on. The answer chosen by the majority is the answer the whole country uses, and discussion of the issue is over. If you're in the minority, you just shut up, and stay shut up.

We certainly toyed with all of these. Early on many citizens wanted to just crown George Washington King of America and be done with it. The founding fathers wrote all sorts of rules that they didn't want to be held to (all people are created equal, but not really) and many envisioned a country ruled by the votes of the Right People.

But instead, we dedicated our country to doing things the hard way. We wrote down a bunch of foundational premises for running a country, and then we set up a mechanism by which, over time, those principles could be interpreted and extended to their natural conclusions, even if the majority of founders didn't agree with those conclusions. The constitution is the ultimate exercise in saying, "Look, I'm going to agree to these principles, and every time I try to weasel out of actually following them, I want you to bop me over the head and stop me."

Furthermore, we set up a system based on the principle of not shutting people up, sorting them CURMUDGUCATION: The Hard Way:

GUEST: Are Christie and Baraka telling it like it is? What does that mean? And who are they really? | Bob Braun's Ledger

GUEST: Are Christie and Baraka telling it like it is? What does that mean? And who are they really? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

GUEST: Are Christie and Baraka telling it like it is? What does that mean? And who are they really?

Baraka: Telling it like it is? What did his epiphany mean for Newark?

Christie: Telling it like it is? Is he still the decider?

By Mr. Outside

This analysis of the–perhaps dangerous–political chess game between Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was written  by a Newark teacher who prefers to be known as “Mr. Outside.”  It was submitted as a comment to my blog but I thought it should be seen by a wider audience.  I  use pseudonymous submissions at my discretion and when they are as good as this one.

Telling it like it is, huh? Ok. If that’s what we’re going to be doing, then let’s do that.

Baraka ran a campaign singularly focused on local control of Newark’s public schools. Nothing else. He didn’t run a campaign focused on job creation, reducing the city’s deficit, growing the city’s infrastructure– none of that boiler plate stuff. He focused almost exclusively on local control of the schools.

He managed somehow to lose sight of the many other issues the city facing; issues that resulted in more out-of-town oversight: a) the state taking over the city’s ball of yarn finances, and b) the justice department monitoring the city’s police force. I support Baraka. Always have. And I am supporting Baraka now. Not the office of the Mayor–but Ras Baraka. I am supporting him when I tell it like it is in the following lines. The man occupying the office of the Mayor of Newark did not anticipate the weight of managing a city like Newark– which is competing with Hoboken, Jersey City and New York City. He didn’t anticipate how far removed from grass roots politics, he would be when it came to wheeling and dealing with forces like Prudential, like “big-charter,” with federal agencies and yes, even foreign governments. It’s different as a councilman. He at once, has the burden of playing nicely in the sandbox with those whose moral, philosophical, cultural and social codes have long since been compromised, and appealing to the constituency that elected him. Ras Baraka could probably rise to the occasion. But the Mayor of Newark simply cannot. The seat of that office is an ivory tower. A prison. As the Mayor he is a pawn, to Bill Wolf’s point, who got played.

I read that NJ Spotlight article. I was disappointed at its conclusion. The Mayor has allowed himself to be deluded into thinking that he arrived at some epiphany; that it became clear for him what he ought to do when Christie declared himself the decider. Somehow, Baraka thought, or continues to think, Christie backed himself into a corner. No. Christie simply affirmed his and Baraka’s position and the nature of their relationship. The Mayor of Newark is not in control. Everyone else but the GUEST: Are Christie and Baraka telling it like it is? What does that mean? And who are they really? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Happy the 4th of July - The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

"But the educated citizen knows how much more there is to know. He knows that "knowledge is power," more so today than ever before. He knows that only an educated and informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all, and that if we can, as Jefferson put it, "enlighten the people generally ... tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day." And, therefore, the educated citizen has a special obligation to encourage the pursuit of learning, to promote exploration of the unknown, to preserve the freedom of inquiry, to support the advancement of research, and to assist at every level of government the improvement of education for all Americans, from grade school to graduate school." John F. Kennedy