Etc.

An interesting report is here about the various attempts to privatize public education.
_____

People may throw sticks and stones at former pro cyclist Tyler Hamilton, but what he has to say about the doping era in cycling is devastating, to say the least.

It's another book I will have to get when I ever get any money again.

It must be a good read:

The drugs are everywhere, and as Hamilton explains, Armstrong was not just another cyclist caught in the middle of an established drug culture—he was a pioneer pushing into uncharted territory. In this sense, the book destroys another myth: that everyone was doing it, so Armstrong was, in a weird way, just competing on a level playing field. There was no level playing field. With his connections to Michele Ferrari, the best dishonest doctor in the business, Armstrong was always “two years ahead of what everybody else was doing,” Hamilton writes. Even on the Postal squad there was a pecking order. Armstrong got the superior treatments.

What ultimately makes the book so damning, however, is that it doesn’t require readers to put their full faith in Hamilton’s word. In the book’s preface, which details its genesis, Coyle not so subtly addresses Armstrong’s supporters by pointing out that, while the story is told through Hamilton, nine former Postal teammates agreed to cooperate with him on The Secret Race, verifying and corroborating Hamilton’s account. Nine teammates. That fact is the first punch thrown at Armstrong’s supporters—and it might be the most damaging one. Next Wednesday, when The Secret Race comes out, backers will probably make the familiar claim that Hamilton is a disgruntled, bitter ex-rival who got popped for doping and is now looking to cash in. But that doesn’t explain why nine former teammates agreed to cooperate.

Holy shit.
_____

Know-Nothings are Destroying Public Education in Louisiana,

while the rest of the world just sits back and watches the destruction.

John White, by the way, is an Eli Broad alumn. This asshole thinks anybody who has a college degree can teach. He has such utter contempt for teachers, he gets away with saying such utter bullshit:

According to Ellzey, White went on to say in his fast talking style that “he is not keen on teacher certification. Anyone who is a college graduate and who is proficient should be allowed to teach, he said.”

Oh, really?

This is not too different from BESE member Chas Roemer’s recent statement quoted in The Advocate. He said an undergraduate degree is not that important for teachers.

How low will Louisiana education go under Gov. Jindal? As low as an eel’s belly in a sewage pond.

White is bad, but what may be worse is the lack of response by colleges and departments of education. The silence has been palpable. I’m disappointed by what I see as almost complete inaction by tenured professors in colleges of education throughout the state. After all, the profession is being killed, choked to death by legislation passed this June in Baton Rouge.

It's a goddamned war, another in the war against America, frankly, and nothing is being done to combat it.

We are going to lose EVERYTHING so a handful of crooks can profit.

The Ignorant National Media

continues to cheerlead the dismantling of the public education system and thus democracy, not that these "journalists" even know what they are even talking about.

A "Democrat" is pushing this crap, which is just disgraceful.

As the WSWS notes, teachers are held "accountable," but others are not:

The calls for “accountability” from the Obama administration are utter hypocrisy and should be rejected with contempt. Under Obama, there is no “accountability” for those politicians who enacted budget cuts that devastated public education and social programs.

There is no “accountability” for top generals and politicians who authorized and organized war crimes and torture. There is no “accountability” for top CEOs, bankers, investors, and financiers whose reckless drive for profit vastly exacerbated the economic crisis. Meanwhile, public school teachers, many of whom make heroic efforts to lift up the hearts and minds of young people against tremendous obstacles, are to be “held accountable

To say nothing of principals and other school administrators, who are allowed to get away with murder in this demented system.

For Reference Purposes

here is that 2007 report on the worldwide assault on public education, which is 66 pages and is on PDF:

Hidden Privatisation in Public Education

New Orleans Parents

didn't have any idea the whole point of charters is to leave a whole bunch of kids behind.

Paul Vallas is another corrupt administrator in charge of running an urban school district or a series of charter schools:

A crowd openly hostile to Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas used a state board of education meeting to raise concerns about whether charter schools are leaving the most vulnerable children behind.

When Vallas stated at Monday's meeting that charters are doing "a heck of a job" educating public school students, the mostly African-American audience responded with jeers. Many speakers called for the return of neighborhood schools and expressed fears that many charters accept only students with high test scores.
paul_vallas.JPGEllis Lucia, The Times-Picayune archiveRecovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas
"Charters don't want anything to do with our children. They're sending them away," said Brenda Valteau, who identified herself as a 1961 graduate of George Washington Carver High School. "We're losing our young people to the streets. It sounds like a conspiracy to me."

Most New Orleans public schools were deemed low-performing and in 2005 turned over to the state-run Recovery School District and converted to charters. The Orleans Parish School Board, which once controlled more than 100 schools, retains only 16: 12 of them independently run charters and four traditional public schools.

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education's Recovery School District committee usually meets in Baton Rouge, but it held its meeting at McDonogh 35 High School in New Orleans on Monday. More than two dozen parents, teachers and community activists spoke during the public comment section of the meeting, which sometimes took on a raucous air as speakers made provocative statements and the crowd made its approval or disapproval known.

Vallas is another know-nothing administrator. A letter in Substance News a couple of years ago warned about his disaster in New Orleans:

October 2, 2007

Dear Substance,

Poor, dear New Orleans. They are suffering through the aftermath of two disasters — Katrina and, now, Paul Vallas. In the September 4th issue of the Christian Science Monitor (a newspaper continually lauded for excellent reporting and printing the truth - and with a world-wide readership), Paul Vallas’ regime has been critiqued now that he is New Orleans’ new school superintendent.

Having left Philadelphia under the cloud of contributing, much, to the $100 million plus deficit within the public school system (amongst other travesties), Vallas was hired as the new school superintendent for New Orleans. He promptly “pink slipped” all of the experienced, mature African American (New Orleans) teachers just at the time when important strides were being made of reestablish the teacher union. This was no coincidence. The dismissed teachers remain bitter concerning the way they were treated by, as perceived, a white, elitist, central administration. Remember his minions follow him from city to city to city.

This is the same administration we had to deal with when Vallas was in Chicago. Thanks to the Chicago media, a totally inexperienced (in education) the entire nation was led to believe Vallas could walk on water and could no wrong. He, seemingly, is willing to do whatever is necessary to gain total control of any school system - in order to wreck it, the careers of experienced teachers, force early retirements, and weaken or dismantle any, and all, teacher unions.

As for New Orleans Vallas brought in all young, white teachers, and established, as a vast majority, charter schools. All of this was to improve test scores, and so on, because the mature, experienced African American teachers removed by Vallas could not - because of their supposed ineptness. As always - blame the teachers.

And now? Things are not going well. Societal influences, discipline problems, and so on, are surfacing. Whereas the previous, experienced teachers familiar with these students, their families and their neighborhoods could deal with and understand these problems. The new, inexperienced, white teachers and administration (who never lived in New Orleans until hired) are unable to be effective.

The Monitor article states Vallas likes to hear of new and/or innovative ideas, but will not stand for any criticism. No surprise there. Until Mayor Daley brought Vallas “in” he had had absolutely no educational experience. It does not seem much has changed - nor ever will.

All I can say is thank God Vallas was not able to return to Chicago as many of us feared and as our misguided media suggested (and hoped for). Our gain is New Orleans loss. And who really loses? Why the students, of course!

Sincerely,

Sharonjoy A. Jackson, Chicago

Supposedly Teachers are Fighting Back

in Florida.

We will see if they have any clout at all; it's almost a day too late and a dollar too short.

I Expect an Eli Broadie Type

to take over Walt Rulffes job as superintendent of Clark County Schools when he leaves in August.

He's around 70 years old anyway. But the article notes there is a swarm of controversy at CCSD:

Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes has decided not to renew his contract with the nation's fifth-largest school system, which now faces a budget shortfall of $123 million that's demoralized both employees and School Board members.

"I know how rumors often take hold in organizations, so I'll tell you that the only reason I am moving on is that life is short and it's getting late," Rulffes said in an e-mail sent out Thursday night. "I've spent my last 12 years in the service of CCSD and I will be forever grateful for that opportunity."

Rulffes did not cite the district's financial hard times as a factor in his decision to move on when his contract expires at the end of August. Instead, he said he made the decision because of a "long bucket list" of things he wants to do in retirement.

Rulffes is paid $276,932 a year, which reflects a 10 percent pay cut he volunteered to take because of the district's budget crisis. He joined the district in 1997 as the chief financial officer and was named superintendent in 2006.

Before Rulffes announced his intent to leave, School Board members voted Thursday to seek help from the Clark County district attorney's office in future contract negotiations with the five senior employees who report to the superintendent.

It's bad down there as it is, but his successor is bound to be worse.

Pie-in-the-Sky By-and-By Ideas from Susan Jacoby

on what she thinks she happen in public education. Of course being a non-educator, she really hasn't a clue:

First, even though a national curriculum cannot be imposed, serious public intellectuals of varying political views need to step up and develop voluntary guides, in every academic subject, for use by educators who do not disdain expert opinion. The historians Diane Ravitch and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who disagreed politically on many issues, advocated for just such a set of national history standards in the late 1990s. These guidelines met with approval from just about everyone but the extreme fringes of the left and right.

Second, the federal government must invest more in training and identifying excellent teaching candidates. France, faced with a teacher shortage in the early 1990s, revamped its training system so that aspiring teachers would receive a partial salary in the last year of their studies. Prestigious institutes for teacher training were also set up to replace less rigorous programs, with admission based on competitive national examinations. Which makes more sense — investing resources upfront in attracting the brightest young people to teaching, or penalizing teachers who fail further down the road, as No Child Left Behind attempts to do?

Finally, the idea that educational innovation is best encouraged by promoting competition between schools and pouring public money into quasi-private charter schools should be re-examined by both the left and the right. One of the worst provisions in the Obama administration’s $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” program strongly encourages states to remove restrictions on the number of privately managed charter schools. Here again, we have the worst of both worlds: a federal carrot that can lead only to a further balkanizing of a public education system already hampered by a legacy of extreme decentralization.

Daniel Webster, eulogizing Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who both died on July 4, 1826, spoke of “an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry ... and a diffusion of knowledge throughout the community” as two of the fundamental requirements of American democracy. He predicted, “If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upholden them.” These great principles cannot be upheld if the quality of our public schooling continues to depend more on where a student lives than on a national commitment to excellence.

Jacoby

Getting rid of local control of schools will NEVER happen; voters want accountability from their local districts. And as long as taxpayers are not willing to pay higher taxes for higher teachers' salaries, you are not going to get the so-called "best" and "excellent" into this field by throwing more money to recruit them to work for peanuts and have to put up with all kinds of workplace abuse from principals, abuse that is a completely different animal from the private sector. Besides, it takes YEARS of experience to be "excellent" in the job of teaching. Finally, the reality of public (and private and charter) schools is that it really isn't about educating kids. It should be, but it isn't.

Because of His Relentless Assault Against Public Education,

Obama will NOT be getting my vote in 2012. It's really that simple. You are either in favor of public education or you're not; you're either in favor of a cornerstone of democracy or you are not.

WSWS:

As with Ronald Reagan’s mass firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981, the White House endorsement of the Central Falls firings is a signal to state and local authorities across the country to demand that teachers accept lower pay, fewer benefits and longer hours, or face the loss of their jobs.

Teachers are being scape-goated for an education crisis for which they bear no responsibility. The media has fallen into line. The editorial in Thursday’s USA Today was headlined, “Unions protect bad teachers, harming kids’ education.” The cover story of the latest edition of Newsweek is entitled “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers.”

Under Obama’s “Race to the Top” program, states are being forced to compete for $4.3 billion in federal stimulus funds. States that prohibit merit pay or the use of test scores in teacher evaluations are ineligible for funds. Those opening up more charter schools with new, lower-paid teachers will be rewarded.

Obama’s budget for 2011 contains sweeping changes in funding for primary and secondary education, radically altering the guidelines for the distribution of federal funds to schools with high concentrations of low-income students. A significant proportion of so-called Title I funds would be distributed to poorer districts—not on the basis of economic need, but according to their “performance.”

The unstated agenda behind these moves is nothing less than the dismantling of the public school system as it has been known in the US. It is to be replaced by a largely privatized system more directly based on social class and geared more closely to the profit interests of big business.

It'll take just one district to do it, and ALL of them throughout the country will fall in line.

Are Mass Teacher Firings

coming to the Kansas City, Missouri, school district? Many teachers are fearing terminations:

The Kansas City Federation of Teachers union president, Andrea Flinders was scheduled to meet Monday afternoon with the human resources director at the school board offices to discuss layoffs and reconstituting which could result in teachers having to reapplying for their positions.

Her meeting was postponed until Tuesday. She's hopeful that she and Covington can come to a compromise that does not include reconstituting schools.

In a statement, Flinders encouraged union members to keep a positive attitude.

"The remaining months of this school year are going to be extremely difficult. On top of school closings, there will be non-renewals, terminations, furloughs, voluntary and involuntary transfers. Please be assured that the Union will stay on top of each of these issues, making sure our members are treated fairly and ensuring that our contract is followed," said Flinders. "When Dr. Covington came out with his proposal and the five schools that were up for reconstitution, it was a surprise. It had not been discussed.”

Why in the World

are there so many articles this weekend supporting education for a change?

Perhaps these authors knew the New York Times would continue with its neoliberal bashing of schools in its piece about making "better" teachers.

If you can't fix the underlying problems of poverty and the increasing economic stratification of this country, then there is no point bitching at the teachers.

As Lehnhoff notes, "Schools are always the whipping boy for the failures of society." The problems dragged to school each morning -- neglect, abuse, domestic violence, bulimia, drugs and alcohol -- can not be resolved in a classroom.

The little red schoolhouse is just a terribly convenient place to assess the damage and assign the blame.

When a kid is beaten up at home, no one blames the cops for failing to respond to the domestic violence call that's never made. Only when the child comes to school, and either fails classes or takes out his anger on another student, do we have the drop-out statistic or lousy test score that tells us something is wrong.

"We have to fundamentally rethink what schools are supposed to do," Lehnhoff. "If we're expecting schools to perform miracles and fix these social problems, we must fund them like a social-service agency."

I love his sticking it to Obama, the biggest enemy of public education the presidency has ever had.

The Education Wars: Support for the Central Falls 100

Although I personally think it is a good idea for teachers nationwide to show solidarity with the fired teachers from the Rhode Island high school, the chances of it happening are virtually nil.

After all, in many states it is ILLEGAL for teachers to strike. There are too many scabs wanting teaching jobs for many teachers to risk their own livelihoods to support others.

It was the summer of 1962 and I was seventeen and working as a summer replacement for those steelworkers who were on vacation. I was just out of high school and the world of work was new to me. I was working in the five-stand. It was a huge machine that squashed flat plate steel into thinner rolls at the US steel plant in Pittsburg, California. I turned around suddenly to hear a foreman yell at a worker for moving too slowly and in a fit of anger told him to get the hell out and go home. Head down, the diminutive worker headed out of the five-stand area towards the front of the plant. Word quickly spread among the other workers of what had happened to their union 'brother.' In what seemed like a flash, but was more like an hour the head roller slowly shut down the line as the foreman screamed orders to get back to work. All to no avail.

The other 10 or so workers, including myself--even though I did not quite understand, began to head to the front office. In doing so they gathered other workers along the way--all the other workers--in the sheet metal part of the plant. All of whom initiated what was then called a 'wildcat' strike. Although forbidden by their contract these steelworkers were yelling, screaming and cussing about the unjust dismissal of their fellow union 'brother.' As the leaders of the group went into the front office most others and I stood outside. As a neophyte I listened to the passionate exchanges that were taking place between these men. The bottom line was that they were not going to go back to work until their 'brother' was back at their side on the line. At that time there were three shifts at the five-stand. As my dad and uncles who worked at the plant later told me, all the shifts refused to work until the worker returned. Within two days he had came back with no reduction in pay and the foreman was reprimanded.

What I learned about camaraderie and mutual support of a fellow worker--a union brother-- was burned into my being. I then remembered the many years of union strikes my father endured to fight for better working conditions and more just benefits and hourly salaries At those hard times when he would work two or three other jobs to make ends meet while on strike.

As I watched the ABC newscast tonight I saw 100 of my fellow teachers from Rhode Island being fired from their teaching and counseling positions. Arne Duncan was quoted as approving of this action. He approved of it! I saw their pain and that of their students. There was no due process for each individual, just a mass firing. The foreman just yelling at them to go home. I immediately recalled what I had experienced over 48 years ago. Although I have taught for over 38 years and am now retired, my soul screamed for justice. There were my teaching brothers and sisters stark and alone.

I think what would happen if the other 6 million teachers, public, private, charter, university and retired refused to teach until these 100 were reinstated? How can we stand by and watch this abomination happen? Where is our outrage and our courage?

The Education Wars: Well Isn't THIS Something?

You almost NEVER see this:

A union representing Clark County School District administrators is asking the School Board to rescind contracts for the five most highly paid employees who report to Superintendent Walt Rulffes.

The Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-technical Employees noted that the new perks and benefits awarded to the five top-level employees will cost more than $100,000 at a time other employees are being asked to make a "shared sacrifice" because of the economic crisis facing state and local governments. Gov. Jim Gibbons has called a special session to deal with an $887 million state budget shortfall that's almost certain to result in cuts to public education.

The union is also alleging possible unfair labor practices and open meeting law violations because of the way the contracts were approved.

The Clark County School Board voted on the contracts at a midday workshop on Oct. 7. The union argues that the vote on two-year contract extensions wasn't properly posted for Charlene Green, deputy superintendent of support services; Bill Hoffman, district general counsel; Lauren Kohut-Rost, deputy superintendent of instruction; Martha Tittle, chief human resources officer; and Jeff Weiler, chief financial officer.

The Education Wars: Ugliness

Thanks to Nevada's economy going south, Nevada's schools are negatively impacted, and things are about to get much uglier. To hell with the kids:

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has suggested a 10 percent cut to education in his budget plan, released Tuesday. Gibbons also called for a 1.75 percent reduction in wages for all state workers, including those on the Washoe County School district payroll.

According to Morrison, this would mean between $30 and 40 million would have to be cut from the Washoe County School District’s budget. For the Washoe County School District, the 10 percent scenario could mean four more students added to each classroom and about 400 teachers could possibly lose their jobs, according to school district spokesman Steve Mulvenon. However, both Mulvenon and Morrison have emphasized the unknown in these projections.

“I was talking to a local TV station today and they were grilling me hard about the specific scenarios for the cuts,” Morrison told a father in the town hall crowd who asked for specifics. “We have a lot of staff who haven’t seen a weekend in a while working on that exact question. But am I prepared to share them (the cut scenarios)? Here is the problem. We don’t know what we are going to have to cut.”

The Education Wars: How Did My Principal Become My Adversary?

Let me count the ways. Yours truly had two rotten ones in a row. I never had anybody in all my years in the labor force be worse than those two, and there were some doozies.

This teacher might have been a little slow on the uptake about her principal. In this instance, she has to reapply for her job, which of course is just an excuse for principals to get rid of expensive teachers in favor of the cheapo bimbos:

You lost me today. You lost me with the fear- based rhetoric in your interview with the Magnet Chronicles. And it’s hard to lose me. Just ask some teachers who knew I supported the last principal when most others did not. So I don’t say that lightly. Losing me is really hard to do-- but you did it. And this is actually hard for me to write because you were very compassionate and supportive when my father died, and I really appreciated that. It meant a lot to me. It shows that you have empathy and understanding, which is why your words in the paper came as somewhat of a shock.

I was shocked by the obvious disrespect you showed to veteran teachers in the interview as if we can just be replaced by new "people" without missing a beat. I recognized your arguments immediately as fear-based rather than persuasive and inclusionary. You see that's what a good education does for you- it makes you a critical thinker.

Let me back up. I think of a principal as someone who supports the profession of teaching instead of obstructing it, someone who supports good teaching instead of pointing out that one in a million case of the "charmer teacher" who fails 92% of their students; someone who inspires using their background, experience and philosophy instead of doing the bidding of some higher up bureaucrats for the district because maybe you have been promised something if you just tolerate Fremont for the next three years.

You started off pretty strong. Many teachers felt you respected them more than the last principal and that is a positive thing. But then Cortines showed up and made his big announcement. I think most teachers were still in your corner for the next few weeks, but then the shock wore off and the actual critical thinking began. I know one question I had that I never asked you is, "What did you know and when did you know it?" Did you always know from the day you set foot on this campus-- a campus that obviously means quite a different thing to you than it does to me--that this would happen?

Another teacher writes about the same thing here.

The Education Wars: Berkeley High

I know nothing about this school, which is highly regarded, or really have any comment about the current controversy regarding its labs possibly being cut to better serve struggling students.

I guess just wait and see how this plays out.

The Education Wars: Foreign Language Education

Since the United States increasingly being owned lock, stock, and barrel by China--a totalitarian country, by the way--it seems appropriate students learn Chinese instead of Spanish.

Jimbo Threatens to Erupt

if he doesn't get his way in dismantling the already poorly funded public education system in Nevada.

He's not going to get re-elected anyway, so I don't know why the hell he bothers.

Southern Schools: A Bit of a Surprise

Southern schools have become the first in the nation to have a majority of poor and minorities.

But it isn't for the reasons people think:

The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change.

More

The Education Wars II: Regimented Kindergarten

This post over at Susan Ohanian's site just says it all. Kids can't be kids anymore and even be allowed to have recess:

We even had a meeting one day to plan our math for the rest of the year and we got into this heated discussion about our kids having recess. The instructional coach stated that instead of taking a recess we could have the kids count and do 10 jumping jacks or hop 10 times while counting so that we continue the academics. We agreed to disagree when the AP walked in and we asked her if we could take a recess. She went and spoke with the principal, returned, and informed us that we could take a recess but only 10 minutes. That 10 minutes is to include lining up to go out and returning to the classroom and should any of us abuse it, even by a minute, we would lose the privilege of recess. Ridiculous. Please know that I am certainly going to print the report Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School [pdf file], and give it to both my principal and my assistant.

I read somewhere that research showed that when we push kids to read too early they lose their enthusiasm and interest in reading in their later years of school (4th grade or so). I have such a great group of kinder kids and I love them but I can't help but wonder if I am hurting them. We test continuously. We have DRA'ed them twice already, DIBELed them twice, and given them 3 math assessments. We analyze the results to improve instruction. OMG, I am sickened by all of this. My principal insisted that I give them a grade in each subject area every week. I informed him that I do not test my kids (paper and pencil) every week and he asked, "Why not?"

I could go on and on but I won't. Thanks for acknowledging my anger, my fear and my disgust with education today. I would be honored if you shared this info.

Disgust doesn't even begin to describe it.