“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
―Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I read Diane Ravitch’s Blog daily and the names of wealthy robber barons and wolves of Sesame Street appear often, because these billionaire oligarchs are behind the push to destroy the democratically run public schools in the United States and then use that tax money to fund for-profit private schools that usually aren’t better than the public schools and are often worse. And little seems to stand in their way.
Taking advice from Sun Tzu, I wanted to understand the enemy—as I see them—and decided to do a bit of research starting…
Rise Above the Mark is a documentary that focuses on the damage being caused by the “corporate takeover” of America’s public schools.
The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations. (http://riseabovethemark.com/about)
Who do you want in charge of how America changes its schools?
President Obama (D)
President G. W. Bush (R)
Bill Gates (billionaire)
Andrew Cuomo (D)
Chris Christie (R)
The Koch brothers (billionaires)
The Walton Family (the wealthiest family on the planet)
Michael Bloomberg (billionaire)
Eli Broad (billionaire)
Rupert Murdock (billionaire)
Hedge Fund CEOs on Wall Street
The Republican Party
The Democratic Party
Or public school teachers (more than four million working for democratically elected school boards in 13,600 public school districts in America) teaching more than 50 million children. A third of public school teachers are registered republicans, half are registered Democrats and the rest are registered as independent voters. And if you’ve heard bad things about the two major teacher unions, consider this: AFT and NEA are both democratic organizations with elected representative and leaders at the local, state and national levels. The millions who belong to these two labor unions are all college educated middle class Americans. You won’t find many politicians or billionaires teaching our children as a career.
Make a choice, because if you do nothing, someone else will choose for you.
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouseis a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Dale Hansen in the Detroit News explains in this blog post how Governor Rick Snyder has underfunded the public schools while claiming (falsely) to have increased funding.
By the way, the title of his article is: “Governor Rick Snyder Is Working to Destroy Public Education.”
He shows how the Governor is pushing teachers out of the pension system, contributing to its woes as there are fewer teachers to pay into it.
He shows how the Governor favors charter schools, and will continue to convert public schools into charter schools wherever and whenever possible.
More than 80% of the charters in Michigan are operated for-profit, meaning that taxpayers’ dollars are going to pay off investors and stockholders, not into the classroom where they belong.
Hansen writes:
Regardless of all of these potential problem areas, Rick Snyder and Michigan Republicans know that every school they deem failing will simply be converted…
More on the destruction of the democratically run public schools and how this war on teachers is leading to segregation and a return to the past when people of color had to sit in the back of the bus or didn’t have a seat at all.
There has long been evidence that charter schools are more segregated than the districts in which they operate, and a few scholars–like Gary Orfield at UCLA have systematically documented the segregating consequences of charters. Public officials tend to shrug off such concerns as irrelevant to the quest for higher test scores or just an unfortunate fact of life over which they are powerless.
But now there is a scholarly research review by Iris Rotberg of George Washington University. It appears in the Phi Delta Kappan with ample documentation.
Rotberg writes that the Obama administration’s Race to the Top has promoted charter schools, implicitly encouraging segregation. Despite Arne Duncan’s belief that the research is not in on the matter, Rotberg shows that the research is decisive and unambiguous.
She writes:
“The fact is we don’t have to guess about the consequences of one of the Obama Administration’s most visible policies: the…
“We’ve been preparing kids to take a test, instead of preparing them for real life,” he continues. “This has to stop.” – Tommy Bice, Alabama State Superintendent of Education
Larry Lee, a native Alabamian who is devoted to public education, is an admirer of State Superintendent Tommy Bice. Here he explains why:
Education Matters
By Larry Lee
How many legislative hearings have I attended in my life? Too many is probably the correct answer. But I recently witnessed something in one that I’ve never seen before. A standing ovation.
It was a joint meeting of the Alabama Senate and House education ways & means committees. Dr. Tommy Bice, state superintendent of education was making his presentation.
He took the members of the legislature and the audience through a day in the life of the Alabama K-12 public school system. With a power point he put faces to numbers. For instance more than 50 percent of the state’s 740,000 students ride a bus to school. More than 7,500 buses cover nearly 500,000 miles a day with many routes beginning before…
The first annual Network for Public Education (NPE) Conference was this past weekend, on Saturday, March 1, and Sunday, March 2, 2014.
Below is a news brief on the conference:
I participated in the NPE conference as a member of three panel discussions, the topics being investigative journalism, philanthropy (as such is undermining the democratic process) and the Common Core (CCSS).
Approximately 400 people attended, including but not limited to classroom teachers, university professors, parents, grandparents, retirees, journalists, bloggers, researchers, elected officials, students, administrators, and other advocates for the cause of public education.
I met scores of people. However, outside of my formal conference involvements, I spent most of my time enjoying the company of Jennifer Berkshire (Edushyster) and Gretchen Conley (her Edusister); Darcie Cimarusti (Mother Crusader); DC cheating whistleblower principal Adell Cothorne; Lee Barrios (Geaux Teacher
Explained: How many of the rich, powerful and greedy will destroy anything in their path to gain more wealth and power. Is this high level of a success a disease—a virus that will destroy civilization as we know it?
From Angie Sullivan in Nevada, where the rich play, kep taxes low, and are privatizing the public schools:
“Some of the most wealthy people in the world live in Nevada.
What do billionaires and business people do for fun in Nevada?
Reform public education of course!
What do Casino Tycoon Elaine Wynn, Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, and Zappos Tony Hsieh have in common? Teach for America and ALEC inspired education reform. The return on investment model should be applied everywhere!
All this experimentation with public education – without research or time tested results , wouldn’t bother me so much if the situation were not so financially dire in the State of Nevada. Last in the nation in funding, huge at-risk populations, and limited funds to siphon for billionaire fly-by-night ideas.
Did you know that Nevada will vote on a 2% tax on businesses earning $1 million or more in November 2014?…
It is all the rage among the pseudo-reformers to dismiss the importance of poverty. Although most of the pseudo-reformers grew up in affluence, attended elite private school, and send their own children to equally splendid private schools, they feel certain in their hearts that poverty is a state of mind that can be easily overcome. All it takes is one great teacher. Or three effective teachers in a row. Or lots of grit. Or a no-excuses school where children dress for success, follow rules without questioning, and act like little test-taking machines. One by one, the pseudo-reformers insist, they will end poverty.
No one needs a higher minimum wage. No one needs a change in the tax structure. Nothing need be done except fire teachers who can’t raise test scores and hire lots of TFA, whose enthusiasm is sure to overcome their lack of training and experience.
The Robber Barons of Public Education and the Wolves of Sesame Street are launching a major voucher battle in Congress through Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee; Luke Messier (R) of Indiana and Tim Scott (R) of South Carolina. If these bills are successful in the US Congress, 63 percent of federal education funds would flow into private schools owned/supported by corporate CEO’s like the Walton Family, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock and a few other billionaires.
The titles of the bills (wolves wearing sheep skin) disguise their real purposes: For instance, the Scholarship for Kids Act and the CHOICE Act.
Yes! Magazine, A UTNE Media Awards 2013 Winner, recently ran an expose, The Myth Behind Public School Failure, revealing the almost fifty-year plot that started with President Reagan’s policies that kicked off a privately funded, public relations campaign that would be the envy of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong—to demonize public education; scapegoat teachers and destroy the teachers unions (the one collective voice representing more than four million teachers that has the money to fight back)—the primary goal has nothing to do with teaching our kids. It has everything to do with turning over America’s democratically run public schools; our government and tax payer money to corporations whose only interest is profit and power.
Make no mistake, ever since President Reagan, there has been a systemic campaign in the United States funded by a handful of billionaires and corporations to privatize as much of our government as possible until what’s left is a puppet Congress and President—if successful, the Constitution and Bill of Rights would be worth less than used toilet paper.
Contact your local Congressmen and State Senators through USA.gov and demand that they vote no on these bills. E-mail them, call them, or send snail-mail letters.
Do you really want someone like Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock, the Koch brothers, Hedge fund managers on Wall Street, or the Walton family in charge of your child’s education where parents have no say?
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.
His latest novel is the award winning Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to kill Americans.
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“Imagine someone who has a take home pay of half a million a year unwilling to pay another $1,000 to ensure that every child in the city has pre-kindergarten class.”
This morning, Joe Williams, the executive director of the hedge-fund managers’ “education reform” front group (“Democrats for Education Reform”) published an opinion piece in the New York Daily News opposing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to fund universal pre-kindergarten by taxing incomes over $500,000. As Mayor de Blasio has pointed out, the incremental tax to pay for U-PK would be the equivalent of a soy latte at Starbucks every day, about $1,000 a year for the city’s wealthiest residents. But the hedge fund managers say no. This may explain why the California Democratic party called out DFER last year and urged them to stop calling themselves “Democrats” when they are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Imagine someone who has a take home pay of half a million a year unwilling to pay another $1,000 to ensure that every child in the city has pre-kindergarten class. How embarrassing for DFER…
Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 