Etc. and News

It didn't matter to the "birthers" there was irrefutable proof of Obama's U.S. citizenship when the birth announcement was published in the Hawaiian papers back in 1961, but the White House decided to issue a copy of the certificate of live birth of the president anyway.

Enough of this shit.

I want proof he is a member of the Democratic Party.
_____

Don't think for one minute a dictatorship couldn't flourish in the United States of America.

Look no further than Detroit's Bob Bobb, an Eli Broad goon, who is destroying the city's schools over the objections of parents and teachers.

Last week, layoff notices were sent out to all 5,466 teachers in the Detroit school district. Under a new law signed by Republican governor Rick Snyder, emergency financial managers have dictatorial powers to void collective bargaining agreements, dissolve school boards and other elected bodies, and sell off public assets. Bobb has said he will nullify the labor agreement with teachers next month, enabling him to ignore seniority when choosing which instructors to retain.

Bobb has utterly NO qualifications to run a school system, yet he is allowed unilateral powers.

Time to get rid of this shitbag.
_____

Heller is getting Ensign's job, as everybody knows.

Detroit School Closures

As Susan Ohanian notes, this ruling isn't necessarily a good thing given the makeup of the school board:

Parents and students upset over school closings found some hope Friday that their neighborhood buildings won't close in June after a Wayne Circuit Court judge put the brakes on a plan to close a quarter of them.

The ruling by Wayne Circuit Judge Wendy Baxter also blocks the Detroit Public Schools' Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb from implementing his academic plan without consulting the school board and bans him from testing students every quarter, ending social promotion and changing grade levels in schools.

Baxter's preliminary injunction is in response to a lawsuit the Detroit Board of Education filed against Bobb, alleging he overstepped his authority by making academic decisions and by failing to consult with the 11-member board.

The ruling is the latest chapter in a public power struggle between the board and Bobb. Gov. Jennifer Granholm appointed Bobb last year and ordered him to turn around the district's finances, but opponents say he has been making academic decisions without obvious authority outlined in state law.

Detroit News

Detroit Schools Have Been a Mess for a Long Time,

but the privatizers have promised to make them far, far, far worse. This despite protests from parents, students, and teachers:

At town hall meetings last week, Detroit parents and teachers denounced plans by Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb to close 44 schools and implement other cuts as part of his school reorganization plan. Bobb’s plan will mean the elimination of at least 1,500 jobs of school employees.

The town hall meetings were the first in a series announced by Bobb. The meetings are being poorly publicized and tightly managed. Speakers are preselected, with each school allowed only 20 minutes to make its case to avoid the axe.

There has been an obtrusive police presence at all the town hall meetings, lending an air of intimidation. Those attending have to walk through metal detectors and have their handbags searched.

The latest wave of closures follows the shuttering of 27 schools last year. The additional closures will mean that nearly half of all Detroit public schools open in 2006 will be shut down.

What New Orleans has done, Detroit will follow. These mayors and such are ALL bought off by the billionaire brigade:

NATE WALKER: Yeah, It is interesting that New Orleans has now become the model for school reform.

AMY GOODMAN: There they closed the public schools, fired all the teachers who were unionized.

NATE WALKER: Absolutely. So in New Orleans there is 4 public schools that have opened now, and it’s pretty much a charter run school system, and in many ways, that is what is happening in Detroit. Right before Robert Bobb announced that 44 schools would be closing, the Skillman Foundation along with other foundations announced that they would be opening 70 new schools in the next 5 years. So, currently in Detroit 70% of students in Detroit go to Detroit public schools and 30% go to charter schools. The Excellent Schools Plan, which was announced about a month ago, intends that by 2015 25% of students will go to Detroit public schools and 75% will go to charter schools. You can see the shift in who’s going to be providing education in the city of Detroit.

AMY GOODMAN: How many kids go to school here in Detroit and how has that number changed?

NATE WALKER: When I began teaching in 2002, there was 160,000 students in the Detroit public schools. Currently, there’s about 88,000. You can see that number has almost been cut in half. Families are leaving the city. The students go to other districts and other places, but there’s also students leaving the public school system to enroll at charter schools as well. It is interesting in the context of the shift of who is going to be providing education, there is a couple things happening. First, as was mentioned in Doug’s clip when he spoke, the foundations are not only going to be providing money to start new schools, they’re also setting up an accountability network. They will be deciding what constitutes a good school to be closed or to be opened. So that is totally taken out of the realm of the public sphere where parents and community members decide on a type of education that is necessary for the city, and foundations and folks who are not necessarily considering those voices are deciding what is good education. In a certain way, that is going to be driven by what we call student achievement. In a sense, student achievement is a number of how students perform on tests course, it is a bottom line. It is a system that is being started and developed on this assumption of a bottom line that is the most important thing about schooling. It has changed what a parent’s role in schooling is. Before, where a parent would have a voice, either by running for the school board or contributing to how education happens, and now they’re delegated to the role of consumer where they exercise their choice as to where they can enroll but not necessarily how they can be involved in the schooling process. That is very similar to what’s happened in New York City when Joe Cline took control of schools, you see the shift were folks call for parental involvement, but not in any of the decision making, so be involved on our terms because we know what’s best for your children.

If Corruption Was Bad Enough in Regular Public Schools,

the problems will be magnified in privatized public education:

The rot of privatization and the corruption it drags with it on its shoe can be found on display once again in Detroit where school officials, nepotism, sexual dalliances and privatization team up to defraud taxpayers, teachers and students by diverting public funds to private corporations for anything but authentic education. Meanwhile the larceny is wreaking havoc on our children as schools close, educational programs are being cut, students are tested literally to ‘death’ and the privatized fornicators of the public interests are allowed out of their ‘day rooms’.

In the latest news we find that a former department chief at Detroit Public Schools and his assistant used secret offices and their own computer system to improperly divert more than $57 million in school funds to vendors who provided little, if anything, in return. This according to the Detroit Free Press, March 28th, 2010 (DPS: Scam cost $57M FBI investigates ex-risk manager; district sues to recover money”, Freep.com, JENNIFER DIXON,March 28th, 2010, http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100328/NEWS01/3280515/1318/FBI-investigates-ex-risk-manager-for-DPS-district-sues-to-get-money&template=fullarticle)

In documents revealed in a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit brought by Detroit Public Schools (DPS), the allegations contained within the suit alleges that Stephen Hill of Detroit — director of DPS risk management from 2001-05 — received luxury vehicles and other kickbacks while ‘performing his duties’. Some of the vendors, or better yet corporations, who benefited were friends or associates of Hill’s or relatives of Hill’s assistant, Christina Polk-Osumah of Detroit. The nepotism, the corruption and the outright theft of public finds diverted to privatized entities or ‘vendors’ as they are known in the vernacular of the bureaucrats just keeps piling up like manure in the economically ravished city (See my article on Detroit Teachers fight obsequious politicians, http://dailycensored.com/2010/02/14/detroit-teachers-fight-back/).

In keeping with the ethics of the New Gilded Age of our times, when Stephen Hill left the district in September 2005, he received a champagne-and-tenderloin farewell bash that cost the impoverished school system $40,000, according to the suit. Meanwhile while the caviar wasd plated and the Champagne was chilling Detroit teachers received lay off notices, their schools were closed and their students were thrown to the wolves. No matter, personal gain under the auspices of “helping to prepare students for the new Global economy” can be expensive and lavish and these functionaries for capital actually believe they are deserving of the ‘bennies’ they receive. They are actually that arrogant and delusional.

Much more

This is the original piece from the Detroit Free Press:

As chief of risk management for Detroit Public Schools, Stephen Hill's job was to save the district money.

But as Hill left his post in September 2005, saving money was not on the menu.

The 200 guests at his going-away bash, a golf-themed affair atop a parking deck, feasted on Chilean sea bass, grilled petite tenderloin of beef and bananas foster, washing it all down with champagne, Jack Daniels, martinis and imported beer.

The tab: $40,000.

Who paid: Detroit's impoverished public schools.

The allegations about the party are contained in thousands of pages of documents in a DPS lawsuit that portrays Hill and Polk-Osumah, as running a shadowy side operation outside the scrutiny of district leaders.

As the lawsuit proceeds to trial in July, the $40,000 reportedly spent on Hill's party is hardly the worst of it.

The WSWS Notices Bob Bobb's

attempts to destroy Detroit public schools. And of course if one school district does this, the rest throughout the United States will follow in rapid succession:

The city of Detroit’s plan to shut down dozens of schools will have devastating consequences for communities and thousands of working class youth. It is part of moves, backed by the Obama administration, to dismantle public education in the city, expand charter schools and shut off services in the most impoverished areas.

The aim is to more directly subordinate education to the profit interests of the corporate elite that controls Detroit. On Tuesday, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb said that his new proposal “has a very strong market-driven component to it.”

On Wednesday, the Detroit Public Schools released a plan to close 45 facilities by June, bringing the number of schools closed in the city to more than 100 since 2006. This amounts to nearly half of the total number of public schools. Another 13 schools would be closed by 2012.

The plan was drawn up by Bobb, who was appointed by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm. Included in Bobb’s list of schools to be shut down are many well-known fixtures of communities, including Cooley, Osborn, Kettering, Northwestern and Southwestern High Schools. Dozens of elementary and middle schools in surrounding areas will also be closed.

And Bobb, a Broadie, has plenty of people in cahoots with him:

A group of foundations, which include the Skillman Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the MacGregor Fund, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, have signed on for a plan to completely reorganize Detroit’s schools.

Their plan includes the closing of virtually every high school in the city, and their subsequent reopening as smaller institutions. The stated aim is to create 70 new schools, 35 of them high schools enrolling a maximum of 500 students, and having a baseline graduation rate of 85 percent. Detroit schools have the lowest graduation rate in the country.

The proposal compliments, though is formally separate, from a plan announced by Bobb to close 45 schools by June and another 13 by 2012. The shutting down of public schools opens the way for the expansion of charter schools. (See “Detroit—a model for nationwide assault on public education”)

These foundations, in reality repositories for vast personal fortunes, will supply seed money to an array of organizations and individuals, all claiming to be able to provide a quality education to Detroit’s youth (while, no doubt, lining their own pockets in the process).

WSWS Reports on Bob Bobb's Proposal

to close 45 so-called "underperforming" schools as if closing them down will improve student "achievement."

Closing down POVERTY will do far more good, but the goal is far more elusive:

Bobb’s plan entails the closure of five more schools than had been previously announced. This would bring the number of schools closed since 2005 to 140; more than half the district. Bobb said that his plan would entail the slashing of 2,100 more jobs, together with additional outsourcing.

In his hour-and-a-half-long speech, Bobb stopped to recount his “accomplishments” since being installed as emergency financial manager for the DPS in 2009. Since that time, he has closed 29 schools and laid off 1,500 employees. He has worked with the Detroit Federation of Teachers union apparatus to push through a concessions contract that would force workers to take a drastic pay cut, together with healthcare cuts amounting to $45 million.

When Bobb announced he plans to shortly close 45 schools—five more than had been anticipated—even the hand-picked audience sat stunned. Bobb then went on to outline a host of regressive measures, including gutting special education programs and the introduction of “competition” into the school system.

He said his goal was “to create a purely market driven school district” and work toward “partnerships with the business community.” Bobb said he would “force the closures of poor performing schools.”

How in the HELL can one make a public service into something "market driven"? It boggles the fucking mind.

The Ed Wars Continue with Broadie Bobb

threatening to close 45 Detroit schools.

Unbelievable:

Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, asked parents Monday night to get behind his academic plan, an ambitious road map to the future that envisions a smaller district with the closing of 45 more schools this year and sets dramatic targets for student achievement.

This is the idiot who believes in READING tutors for four-year-olds, who instead should be enjoying time playing and perhaps learning arts and crafts activities.

The number of school closures Bobb noted was five more than he had announced earlier. It would bring total school closures to 140 since 2005 -- more than half the district.

Bobb also said that the district would need $700 million more in bond money for school improvements. He suggested a new Bates Academy, a facility for swimming and diving at Renaissance, a sports complex at Cass Tech and a new facility for special-needs students. The district already has $500.5 million in bond money voters approved in November.

I Expect Detroit Schools Will Be Like Others

eventually and be privatized.

The group, calling itself Excellent Schools Detroit, announced last week that it planned to replace failing Detroit schools with 70 new ones and make a $200-million initial investment -- a plan unprecedented in scope anywhere in the country. The group has commitments from the Gates Foundation and other national groups willing to come to Detroit, said Carol Goss, CEO and president of the Skillman Foundation, a key leader in the effort.

Bobb is Eli Broad, too.

Speaking of Eli Broad, there is lots of good information here and here about the so-called "Broad Effect" or, more accurately, the Broad INfect, of public education.

And speaking of Bob Bobb, it looks like that little bribery money he took from Broad has gotten him into trouble:

The Detroit Board of Education and community groups say private foundations are paying the head of the city's ailing public school system $145,000 a year in exchange for his support of charter schools - a glaring conflict of interest. The board says that Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager of Detroit Public Schools, is violating Michigan laws and its constitution by accepting the privately funded portion of his $425,000 annual salary.

Bobb is the only defendant in the complaint in Wayne County Court, Detroit.

The board, two community groups and 26 people say the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which "aggressively promotes the spread of charter schools nationwide," pays Bobb $56,000, with the remaining $89,000 coming from "undisclosed private sources."

The Education Wars: Bribery

There is no other term for this outrage that Detroit Public Schools administrator and Eli Broad hack Robert Bobb received some $81K in "raises," much of it from private foundations.

It's a goddamned bribe is what it is.

Staying a second year in Detroit has netted Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb an $81,000 raise, most of it coming from private foundations.

Bobb will make $425,000 under his one-year contract extension that took effect Tuesday, compared to $344,000 in his first year on the job, according to a copy of the contract obtained by The Detroit News.

His base salary will increase from $260,000 to $280,000 and he'll also get $145,000 in supplemental income from the Los Angles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and other unidentified philanthropic organizations. That's up from $84,000 in private money last year.


The raise sends a bad message to district employees, Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson said, since it comes as hundreds of district employees have been laid off and union workers have been asked to make steep concessions.

"I think it is really disingenuous to get what amounts to an $80,000 raise when so many people are being asked to take pay cuts," Johnson said

Taechers, however, are "overpaid."

The Education Wars: Walmart and DPS

Wal-Mart, whose owners are among the billionaire venture "philanthropists" trying to destroy American public education, is wrapping its dirty tentacles around the ailing Detroit Public Schools system via "job training" programs:

The training program was kicked off today at assemblies held at Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men and at Western International High.

Detroit International Academy for Women and Henry Ford High will also participate.

Students will get 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the school day and 10 high school credits for the class and work experience.

Sean Vann, principal at Douglass, said 30 students at that school will get jobs at Walmart. He said the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures - since all of the stores are in the suburbs.

Let's see...there are tens of thousands of adult workers who are unemployed, yet Wal-Mart wants to go the cheapest route possible.

The Education Wars: Detroit "Reform"

Robert Bobb, a 2005 Eli Broad Academy "graduate," proposes some truly harebrained ideas for "reforming" the Detroit Public Schools, including having reading "tutors" for pre-K students (four-year-olds).

Absolutely unbelievable:

The Detroit Public Schools turnaround team is developing a top-to-bottom academic reform plan aimed at bringing the troubled district on par with national average ACT, graduation and dropout rates by 2015.

The district, which has the lowest graduation rate among big cities, would require every high school student to take a college-level course, mandate pre-algebra for sixth-graders and pair pre-kindergarten students with reading tutors as part of an estimated $80 million dollar plan.

The ambitious plan comes as Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is embroiled in a lawsuit with the school board over who has authority over academics.


Infighting, trips to Lansing and court battles accomplish nothing, said Anthony Adams, vice chairman of the school board, who hasn't seen Bobb's plan.

link

And "pre-algebra" for sixth graders? What in the HELL is Bobb smoking? Kids are already being shoved algebra and pre-algebra WAY too early as it is; it should NOT be taught in middle school at all, but it is all over the country. And of course we have millions of kids labeled "learning disabled" and are forced into special education because of inappropriate curriculum being taught too soon.

The Education Wars: Detroit Teachers

I posted an article yesterday which noted the newly approved contract between the Detroit Public Schools and the union was perhaps the worst ever negotiated by any union in the history of American education.

It appears not every teacher is taking the news lying down.

A group of Detroit Public Schools teachers is heading to court in an effort to block a provision of their newly approved teachers' contract that permits the district to withhold $250 from their paychecks.

The teachers' attorney, George Washington, said he's filed a class action lawsuit and a complaint to the state's labor department against Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, claiming the deductions are unlawful.

Under the contract Detroit Federation of Teachers members approved in December, salaried teachers will lend the district $10,000 each over a period of 40 paychecks. It's called a Termination Incentive Plan, because the teachers will receive the money back without interest when they leave.


Washington claims the loan violates Michigan's Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act, which forbids an employer from demanding a gift from an employee as a condition of employment.

The Education Wars: Detroit Teachers Get the Shaft

It seems the latest contact for Detroit public school teachers may rank among the worst in the entire country:

Weingarten played a key role in the negotiations, as did DFT President, Keith Johnson. Indeed, some insiders claim the bargaining team was unaware of the substance of the deal before it was presented to the rank and file. Detroit Democratic Mayor Dave Bing (yes, basketball) immediately declared the contract to be a model for city workers. And it will become the baseline for many urban school districts. While it may be more important to determine how it was this phantasmagoric sell-out was achieved, rightfully impatient readers will want to know: What price did school workers pay to win this praise from Weingarten?




In bullets, this is it:





*A three year deal with no raise til year three; that predicated on the district’s ability to pay. *$500 per month will be deducted from each educator’s pay, up to $10,000, presumably “deferred,” until they quit or are laid off–again predicated on the district’s ability to pay. (The Detroit Public Schools face a budget deficit of $270 million, growing each day; DPS teeters on bankruptcy–a repeated threat in negotiations-- which would wipe out any possibility of repayment). This clause reads like a modern inverted bracero program. Bracero pay was withheld in order to force workers back to Mexico (where they often found the money vanished). In this case, the deferral is meant to force out senior workers–who may share the bracero experience. *Merit pay based on test scores,




*$30 million in health benefit cuts (losing Blue Cross and coverage for out-of-state children, like college students, completely), *Charter (“Priority”) Schools where teachers will lose all tenure protections, *Teachers evaluating teachers. The DFT contract has turned up, piecemeal, in many a city, but no city has fully put together such a reactionary package

If the teachers' unions are teachers' friends, who needs enemies?

The Education Wars--Jailing Teachers for Nonsensical Test Scores?

Can you believe people actually falling for the privatizer propaganda about teachers being "responsible" for low test scores, when the KIDS don't take the tests seriously?

Detroit -- Impassioned parents demanded jail time for educators and district officials Saturday following the release of test scores that showed fourth- and eighth-graders had the worst math scores in the nation.

City students took the National Assessment of Educational Progress test this year, and 69 percent of fourth-graders scored below the basic level in math and 77 percent of eighth-graders scored below basic.

The Detroit scores on the progress test were the lowest in its 40-year history. The sample of students included 900 of Detroit's 6,000 fourth-graders and 1,000 of the district's 6,000 eighth-graders.


Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, called for jailing and civil lawsuits against anyone in the city's educational system that is not doing his or her share to help properly educate children.

Maybe, Sharlonda, you should start with negligent PARENTS and with kids who blow off the tests.

This is what Susan Ohanian notes:

There's lots of blame to go around, but of course it is entirely coincidental that this organized parent attack, getting parents to heap blame on teachers, comes right when the district, under the financial leadership of Robert Bobb, who completed his course at the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2005, is twisting teachers' arms to accept a contract that forces them to lend the district $10,000, $250 to be taken out of their paychecks every two weeks.

More explanation:

None of this, however, seems to matter to outfits like The Skillman Foundation, a corporate non-profit tax dodge in Michigan with a 50 year history of accumlating tax credits for friends of the Ford family, all the while pushing public policies that are corporate friendly. The Foundation is a founding funder of the the Detroit Parent Network, and it was this weekend that the Network's CEO (yes, Virginia, parent groups now have CEOs) of that illustrious group, Sharlonda Buckman, called for jailing Detroit teachers, who must be to blame for the latest NAEP math scores for Detroit, which show that children in the City without Hope don't give a neighborhood rat's ass anymore about how they do on, yet, another meaningless test.

While Sharlonda doesn't seem to care about is that the corporations who pay her for her services, or the State of Michigan, or the U. S. Department of Education don't seem to have any plan to help alleviate the $219 million dollar hole in the Schools' budget or to help improve learning in the Schools. Never mind that that Skillman Foundation has almost a half billion in corporate assets (non-profit assets, of course) that they are not interested sharing to pay down the Schools' debt. What Sharlonda and her handlers are supporting is the plan to take $500 per month from each teacher's salary to bring down the budget deficit--with a promise to pay back at retirement time. Hah!

The Education Wars

Detroit teachers express outrage over the latest contract:




link

The Education Wars

From the sound of it, it appears new United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew is just another sellout like his predecessor Randi Weingarten.

He may talk a good line, but it will be his actions that will tell all.

Meanwhile in Detroit, the union there has predictably sold its teachers down the river:

The agreement includes projected savings for the school district of $30-$40 million over three years. The $28 million reduction in health care costs includes the elimination of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield health care plan. Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb had previously stated that the aim of the district was to squeeze $45 million in concessions from teachers over five years.

Wages for teachers will be frozen for two years, with a one-percent increase in the third year of the deal. With rising prices, this amounts to a significant cut in real income. The contract also includes sweeping change pushed by the Obama administration to tie teacher pay to evaluations and “performance” (merit pay).

According to the Detroit News, in a separate measure, the DFT has agreed to “a $250 deduction from [teachers’] paychecks, or $500 a month,” under the so-called Termination Incentive Plan, and the placement of this money in a separate account. The collected sums would only be returned to the teachers when they leave the district. This will allow the district to delay payment on taxes for the deducted sums.

In effect, this is a massive pay cut in terms of what teachers will take home each week. It would have the added intended consequence of forcing many teachers to retire early.

A DEMOCRATIC governor thinks this is all hunky-dory.

Obama

proves with his actions regarding GM he doesn't care about workers, only about Wall Street.

And speaking of Detroit, look at what the privatizers affiliated with the Eli Broad Academy are trying to do with the schools:

The alliance to completely dismantle the Detroit Public School system is rapidly growing, including both foes and ostensible friends.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s DPS czar Robert Bobb has announced that Detroit’s children can expect to see at least 50 more schools close in the coming year, accompanied by thousands of lay-offs, to offset an alleged $306 million deficit.

“The unions aren’t involved so far in discussions on the closing process,” Phil Schloop, Business Agent for Operating Engineers International Union Local 547, said. “We know schools are going to have to close, because we are losing another 10,000 students, but we must maximize our retention and offer programs that will attract Detroit students.”

The Education Wars

The privatizers want to crap on Detroit's schools.

Detroit -- Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad said today he is committing hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Detroit Public Schools' new financial manager review the district's finances, and promised to continue to support the school system's efforts to transform itself.

Broad, a graduate of Detroit's Central High School, has made minimal donations to Detroit Public Schools through the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation over the years, but nothing compared to the amount he is contributing to the district now.

Oh, brother.
_____

My former school district, or rather its insurance company, has to cough up $400,000 in a harassment suit alleged by a Muslim student:

Jana Elhifny, an American-Egyptian who openly displayed her Islamic faith and wore a religious headscarf, dropped out of North Valleys High School in 2004. In a federal civil rights lawsuit, she said she was too frightened to attend school and that teachers and administrators did not take steps to stop the harassment.

In a related settlement also announced Wednesday, Stephanie Hart, a non-Muslim who said she was ostracized and forced to leave school when she befriended Elhifny, will receive $50,000. The district also agreed to provide services for her to achieve a General Equivalency Diploma.

Well, if the district and districts all over the country can freely abuse teachers and get away with it, why is it not surprising bullying goes on with students?

The ACLU of Nevada was involved in this case.
_____

The Booming Economy

If we are not in an economic depression, we are damned close to it. From the WSWS:

Long-Term Unemployment Up 37 Percent in One Year

Facing Bankruptcy Threat, General Motors to Slash Thousands More Jobs

US: Mass layoffs, Cutbacks Signal Further Disintegration of Detroit Public Schools


Neither one of the major party candidates will do one goddamned thing about it.

Miscellaneous.

What is being proposed to Detroit schools, if successful, will no doubt spread like wildfire across the country.

This needs to be fought tooth and nail.
_____

Yet another earthquake hit Reno overnight.
_____

Another charter school promises to fall apart, this one over a dispute regarding a teacher.
_____

Suze Rotolo, best known as the girlfriend of nontalent Bob Dylan on the cover of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, is also in pursuit of a Pulitzer.
_____