Showing posts with label Huffington Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huffington Post. Show all posts

Monday

Opt Out and Save Democracy

I came across this Huffington Post blog today, and want to repost it in its entirety.  

There's a reason US prisons have grown exponentially; because we allowed corporations to take them over. (More prisoners= more money.) The same thing has happened to education (and war - private corps being paid exponentially to fight wars means war is profit). Plenty of evidence links "common core" with the corporate idea of turning education into a "for profit" venture. Somehow, teacher's unions have been stripped - if a teacher is evaluated poorly twice, they're out. (see NY State, Cuomo's budget included this detail) 

The people doing the evaluations of teachers are NOT teachers themselves (as cited previously.) The same goes for children. The people evaluating their tests are NOT teachers (1% reportedly are, as not many will accept $13 an hour for all the work involved.) So if your class "does poorly" you either buy new software (as cited previously) or the teacher is shot dead at the front of the class. (Hyperbole, but you get the idea - two bad scores and the teacher is FIRED). The idea of "testing repeatedly" comes from Asia - and because the US has "fallen behind test scores in science and math." 

But if we're only breeding robots to fulfill corporate slots in the machine, why don't we just call it that? "Breeding Corporate Slots" or "Corporate Shills" is a more apt description of what's really going on; Bill Gates (Pearson), Michael Milken (K-12) are not "fixing" education, unless you're using the term the way a corporation fixes rates or the way the mafia fixes races. I haven't a clue how to change this, other than making people aware of it - 

I saw that Robert Reich has finally weighed in against them, but he's dancing on the permafrost of the iceberg. A megaphone would help. "They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They're altogether ooky, Common Core standards-key."

No need to repost my blog - please go to the original post HERE and share and repost and send to your Governor, representative, President.  Your kids will thank you.

Opt Out and Save Democracy


Posted: Updated: 
12:59 pm EDT





"Opt-out" may be the most important political movement of this generation. It may seem, at first glance, a small ripple in the education reform debate -- an understandable reaction to the frustration over increased testing and test-prep in America's schools. I suggest that it is much more important than meets the eye.




That "first glance" is important in its own right. There is no reasonable argument in support of the tedious, stressful mess that education reform has made of the nation's schools. Even within its own circular, self-fulfilling paradigm, the testing and accountability era has been a dismal failure. Test scores are essentially meaningless as a measure of real learning, but even by this empty standard, no progress is evident. For this analysis, let us just stipulate that it has not even achieved the limited objectives on which policy is predicated.
The broader issue is hidden within plain sight: This growing struggle over the future of American education may be proxy for the future of our democratic republic.
Most folks who follow education policy debates are familiar with the players and high stakes. Dozens of AstroTurf organizations are funded by the same Daddies Warbucks: Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family Foundation. The incestuous network they've created, aided and abetted by the Brothers Koch and the publishing cartel, Pearson, ETS, McGraw Hill, are engaged in a hostile takeover of the entire education enterprise in America.
The Common Core and its primary architect, David Coleman, are parts of a well-oiled, cradle-to-grave machine. It has been going on for years, beginning when George W. Bush was Governor of Texas and helped the industry-led Phonics First movement begin the insidious commercialization of education. Many others, especially Mercedes Schneider in her wonderful book, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who in the Implosion of American Public Education, have exposed this process in alarming detail.
Fed up by the dreadful experiences their children are having in school, parents and teachers are beginning to resist. In New Jersey, Illinois and New York, for example, the opt-out movement is gaining strength. A national organization called United Opt Out is working tirelessly to unite the many strands of this genuine grassroots effort.
Many of these parents may not be aware of the broader importance of this nascent national movement. They are just standing up for the well-being of their children. It is this simple, yet powerful, impulse that is at the root of every critical political movement in our history. Institutionalized social injustice is, at its core, the aggregate impact of highly personal injury. And millions of American children are indeed being injured in the stark, punitive, increasingly barren wake of so-called education reform.
The stakes are high already, but this battle is going to dramatically escalate. Mark my word. Every incremental growth in the opt-out movement is going to draw increasingly severe response. This is not even about education any more. It is about money. There is no reliable estimate of the overall investment in testing, the Common Core, and the various sub-industries education reform has spawned. As frequently noted, pre-secondary education is at least a $500 billion market and the capital invested to date will not be squandered without a fight. Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars are in the pot, and these folks don't like losing.
In a way that sadly parallels other dimensions of public life, the profiteers have much of government in their pockets. Believe me, Bill Gates can get Arne Duncan on the phone more quickly than I can. All over America, "opt out" movements are encountering the bludgeon of federal policy. In Vermont, for example, one courageous principal spoke out and the Vermont Secretary of Education -- a quite reasonable woman -- immediately squashed the effort, pointing out that significant federal support was at risk.Compliance is sometimes a matter of survival for poor communities.
This is a passage from my forthcoming book:
In some ways the current direction in education policy is equivalent to outsourcing in the criminal justice system. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the criminal justice equivalent of the education privatization movement that is currently underway. CCA is a $1.8 billion company that builds and operates prisons and detention facilities on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the United States Marshals Service and state and local agencies. All of their incentives are perverse. Maximizing revenue depends on "customers" and "repeat" customers. In the decade ending in 2012 CCA spent nearly $18 million lobbying various government agencies to keep the market robust. In their own SEC filing they wrote:
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
There is no profit motive in rehabilitation. Rehabilitation can suppress the repeat offender market.
That analogy might seem gratuitous, but it takes only modest revision of the language of the SEC filing from CCA to imagine it coming from a charter organization:
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by proper funding of district public schools and decriminalization of certain activities that currently land young black fathers in jail, particularly with respect to drugs and controlled substances. Any changes that resulted in substantial job creation, fair wages and rebuilding of neglected urban communities might potentially reduce demand for alternative, impersonal "no excuses" facilities to house poor children.
The difference is that this time the education-industrial complex has picked on the wrong constituency. Prisoners, unfortunately, have no real political support.
Children do.
It is this power that offers the possibility of transformational change. If enough parents are willing to join the movement, keep their children home on test days, ignore the threats, the battle lines will be clear. School officials, local school boards, state legislators and members of Congress will be faced with a real school choice: Whose side are you on? America's children and families or a shadow government of plutocrats, investment bankers and publishing companies?
Opt-out! Even if your child likes tests, keep her home. Like every other powerful movement in American history, this one requires a snowstorm of small acts of defiance. Which side of history will you be on?

Saturday

A little election advice about Lies during the campaign.












I'm more than a little peeved at the nonsense coming out of the fear mongers during this campaign. I've gotten emails about Bill Ayers, emails about voter fraud with regard to ACORN, and I've heard every outrageous lie told about Barack Obama. As a thinking individual, I wish I knew more about Senator Obama, (PBS's Front Line) raised some interesting dimensions about both men) but I can't because of the smoke screen his opponents have put up. Filled with such outrageous nonsense and lies, I can't see the candidate for the smoke. He seems like a nice guy, a legit guy, an intelligent guy who knows how to surround himself with smart and smarter people. And he seems to have figured out how to lead the nation in just the few months we've known him. I used to like John McCain, but the use of lies and lying in his campaign has sickened me, and he's absolutely ruined his reputation and career. The fact that he has surrogates lying for him now, (FOX News and Rupert Murdoch showing their true colors) just brings to mind another era in our planet's history, where LIES and LYING was the coin of the realm. Let's hope we never get down this path again, but it reminds me of every lie that's come out from the Bush administration, whether about WMD's or Valerie Plame or .. the bailout. And now that McCain has become an expert at this disinformation, I can only turn to two figures who talked about the value of lies in their own administrations:

What famous politicians said the following?

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

The second quote is from the guy who was the leader of the guy who said the first quote. Can you guess who that is? This guy's boss, said the following quote:

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one."

Give up?

Quote #1 was Herman Goering, speaking at the Nuremberg Trials.
#2 was his boss:
Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf

I'm not saying Republicans are Nazis. I come from a long line of conservative, funny, warm, Irish Republicans. Chicago Republicans no less. My Irish grandparents were high up in the Republican party, WWII veterans, commander of the American Legion and were close friends with Everett Dirksen. I know they're rolling in their graves at this nonsense coming out of the mouths of the pundits and candidates alike; attacking Obama's character, misrepresenting his policies, grasping at straws to make him seem UnAmerican, dishonorable, a socialist, or anything he's not. It's one thing to be against big government, but its another thing to attack the character and patriotism of a US Senator who happens to be an opponent. This ain't the party of Lincoln.

Can't wait for this election to be over so we can all take a bath to get this slime off of us, that's been slung so fiercely. I truly hope our nation can recover from its self inflicted wounds.

My two cents.

Wednesday

Ooh! they're raiding ACORN offices! Oh My!




I got an email from an old military vet today - drumming up support for McCain by claiming ACORN is robbing the election (you can listen to fathead Rush Limbaugh at it every day). Here's the text. Forgive the guy's spelling, I guess when you're mad, you don't spell so good:




FW: Exposure To True Informstion Does No Matter Anymore

Please click on the Homeland Security US link below,
obtained from the Northeast Intelligence Network and
E-mailed to me by an American Patriot and war hero.
Kindly watch the entire video and share it; you can
skip the follow on article on ACORN if you care to,
but kindly watch the first video, it has nothing to
do with the election.
Do you think the mainstream media would run
with a story like this just 20 days from a Presidential
election? Exposure to True Information Does Not
Matter Anymore. There is a non-profit organization
that has been found to be illegally
registering voters. Voters have come forward stating
that have filled out multiple registration cards by this organization.

1. Several offices of this organization have been raided and thousands
of fraudulent registration cards have been seized.
2. One of the Presidential candidates used to be an attorney for this
organization.
3. One of the Presidential candidates used to be a trainer for this
organization
4. One of the Presidential candidates campaign gave $832,000 to this
organization.
5. One of the Presidential candidates set on a board with a domestic
terrorist that gave this organization $200,000.

The answer to the question raised above would be YES if it was McCain, but
in this case it is Obama, so like everything else negative regarding Obama,
the mainstream media is silent.

Please click on this link to watch ACORN:
Please follow this link
to watch "ACORN."

AND HERE'S MY RESPONSE:

The site you mentioned in your email is .. well, let's put it this way; loopy. "Exposure to True Informstion Does No Matter" indeed.

The guy who runs this site, Hagmann, has been exposed as a fraud.
He's been spewing nonsense about terrorists running around the US for years,. The concept that ACORN, a homeless advocacy group who pays people to register voters, is some kind of terrorist left wing org is nonsense. You can't vote based on registering. John McCain himself spoke at their conference last year. Here's a photograph of John with the ACORN people:
Let's stop bashing the people who register homeless people to vote. 23% of the homeless in our country are Veterans. What's to say they won't vote for a fellow Veteran? If the ACORN people turned their own registrars in because of fraud, then what's the problem? If you sign up to vote as Mickey Mouse, you still have to show your Mickey Mouse ID when you go to vote.

Shouldn't we be worried about how we're going to fix the economy? In the history of the world, there's never been a nation with a bad economy that has been able to wage wars. The economy goes into the ditch, so does the military. How patriotic do we have to be to realize that we need someone in Washington who can fix the economy? If that's going to be Senator McCain, then let's hear what he wants to do.
He
may be the person to bring the country out of its tailspin. Palin may be the soldier on the white horse that's going to save us from the Depression. But nothing they've said so far gives me that confidence. Maybe tonight, Senator McCain will "Whip Obama's You-Know-What," although the image of him whipping a black man - even if he's only half black - and not an Arab, "but a decent family man" is unfortunate.

my two cents

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