Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations

This short essay was originally published on The Daily Censored on August 11, 2011. It would seem that all of the old works on that site are gone. That's unfortunate because I published a lot of work there. I had a teaser here linking to it, a practice I stopped doing precisely because I've learned from harsh experience that websites die and all the content is lost (like my At The Chalkface works). I was able to track down a reprint on Susan Ohanian's site, but her site is having issues as well. Ultimately, I was able to retrieve a copy of the reprint from the Wayback Machine.

I want to reproduce this last sentence from Ohanian's introduction, since she had such insight into why the essay was important:

“The hardline right wing may well love the vacuous phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations,” but let’s remember that education deform democrats love it just as much. It is mostly used to put progressive activists on the defensive.” — Susan Ohanian

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Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations

“We address the soft bigotry of low expectations so that we may ignore the hard racism of inequity.” — John Kuhn

Although this footage isn't new and commentators have already discussed it, it deserves reexamination since it illuminates one of the core false tenets of the corporate education reform canon.

Amidst the bizarre assertion that Sesame Street is indoctrinating children in some sort of insidious left wing plot, reactionary Ben Shapiro says that:

"I talked to one of the guys who's at Children's Television Workshop originally and he said the whole purpose of Sesame Street was cater to black and hispanic youths who, quote unquote, did not have reading literature in the house, there kind of this soft bigotry of low expectations that's automatically associated with Sesame Street."

Ahhh — the chimerical "soft bigotry of low expectations." As opposed to the hard bigotry of the pervasive institutional racism underpinning our economic system, which facilitates the division of workers and submerses a majority in abject poverty in order to make a small minority obscenely rich. The very same minority, by the way, that supports privatizing public education via charters and vouchers.

The dubious phrase is beloved by the hardline right. The Birchers at the Heartland Institute [1] use the phrase with reckless abandon. Cato, Manhattan, Hoover, and all the other reactionary right wing think tanks repeat the phrase "soft bigotry of low expectations" as if it's the mantra necessary to permanently bring back the gilded age they all pine for.

Of course the nonsensical phrase isn't limited to fringe right-wing kooks that also think John Galt and Howard Rourke are historical figures. Many supposed-liberals, or at the very least Democratic Leadership Council party operatives, use the phrase as often, if not more often than their teabagging counterparts.

The vile billionaire hedge fund shyster Whitney Tilson uses the phrase incessantly. Remember too that the ever obtuse Tilson helped form two of the most virulent corporate reform and privatization pushing organizations in existence: Teach for America (TFA) and Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). The latter, DFER, uses the phrase in its privatization propaganda. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has used the phrase. TFA's Wendy Kopp has had a lucrative career peddling the phrase. The snarling queen of Erasuregate, Michelle Rhee, cherishes such phrases. Los Angeles' poverty pimping opportunist Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proudly plasters the phrase on twitter.

The unprincipled construction "soft bigotry of low expectations" is typically credited to the Council on Foreign Relations's arch-reactionary Michael Gerson, who was the speechwriter for fraudulent Rod Paige's Texas Education Miracle co-fraud, George W. Bush.

Like all the philosophically threadbare propaganda from the right, the expression is vapid and vacuous, without any real meaning whatsoever, putting it right along with "no excuses," and "working hard and being nice." Professor Noam Chomsky best addresses these types of phrases:

"It doesn't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy?" [2]

The policy in question is to ignore poverty and demand a false accountability from all of poverty's victims. While there are countless works discussing this, a recent pair of essays by my Schools Matter colleague Professor P. L. Thomas, EdD, really get to the heart of this issue: Poverty and Testing in Education: "The Present Scientifico-legal Complex" part 1 and part 2.

Humane Expectations Devoid of any Bigotry

In my many years I've never come across an educator that had anything but "realistic expectations tempered with compassion and empathy" for their students, regardless of where they taught. Moreover, for right wing reactionaries to accuse hard working women and men that have dedicated their lives to educating inner city students of bigotry of any sort smacks of hypocrisy of the highest order. It's laughable on its face.

Of course compassion and empathy are foreign words to the rogues gallery discuss above, none of whom have ever taught in their lives. Well, with the exceptions of Wendy Kopp and Michelle Malkin — I mean, Michele Bachmann, er, — I mean Michelle Rhee (sorry it's so easy to confuse those three). Rhee is so devoid of empathy and compassion that one of the most enduring stories from her short stint as a TFA missionary is when she taped her students mouths shut with masking tape and then walked them to the lunchroom, bleeding lips and all. Kopp is seemingly less of a sociopath than Rhee, but it's clear her passion for fame and fortune outweigh any compassion she might have once had.

Access To Books

The other thing reactionary Shapiro gets entirely wrong before employing the hackneyed "soft bigotry of low expectations" nonsense, was to dismiss the Children's Television Workshop's catering to children that "did not have reading literature in the house." Access to books in the home is a major indicator of academic achievement and impoverished families have very limited access to books. This is a fact, and not something to be dismissed by a sniveling right winger threatening to "take them [Elmo and Big Bird] out back and cap them."

Another one of my Schools Matter colleagues, the distinguished Professor Stephen Krashen, PhD, has researched and written extensively on the subject of access to books. Here are a small sampling of his available short articles linking to longer works on the subject.

• Children of poverty and access to books
• IRA President: Access to books makes a difference
• Heroic First Book Marketplace Can't Do It All Get caught reading month?
• Policy: protect children from poverty before we discuss pedagogy

Given the staunch anti-intellectualism, lack of knowledge about all thing pedagogical, and academic aversion that whiny right wingers like Shapiro are known for, it's no wonder that he didn't get the whole importance of providing additional educational resources for children that "did not have reading literature in the house" like the prescient folks at Children's Television Workshop always have.

"True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity." [3]

Now that we're discussing these things, let's talk about the stark racism and classism stemming from the corporate education reform movement, which is orchestrated by the same plutocrats that aired Shapiro's television program. After all, those are the sort of things that vacuous phrases like "soft bigotry of low expectations" are supposed to distract us from.

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NOTES

[1] Heartland Institute is none other than Parent Revolution's sister organization. Word is that in addition to co-hosting school privatization forums that Ben Austin and Ben Boychuck formulate policy together.

[2] Chomsky, Noam. Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, Second Edition. New York: Seven Stories Press., 1991. pp. 25-26.

[3] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc., 2009. p. 45.

Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations

Thoughts on Matthew Di Carlo's recent Shanker Blog piece on the 'parent tricker'

Barr's parent organization gave... a grass-roots visual... And his paid staffers hit the right rhetorical notes... while identifying themselves to reporters and officials only as parents. — Howard Blume (Los Angeles Times)

Matthew Di Carlo recently penned a thoughtful and somewhat nuanced piece on the vile so-called "parent trigger" legislation being pushed by the school privatization industry. In When Push Comes To Pull In The Parent Trigger Debate he suggests that support for or against anti-democratic triggers is often dependent on an individual's stance on charter schools to begin with.

Interestingly, he posits that if triggers were associated with authentic reforms like class size reduction as opposed to seizing property for the lucrative charter industry, that there might be less opposition to parent triggers and other shock doctrine style swindles. I for one think that's the point. Triggers were not devised as a way to improve or help public education. They have always been a way of increasing market share for the charter sector, union busting, and have been widely embraced by the fringe-right as a pathway to vouchers and other forms of plunder and poverty pimping.

Had trigger laws been a means for democratically engaging entire communities in the improvement of their schools, I would have become their biggest supporter. Instead, they are simply another way to stuff more money into the pockets of charter executives and their wealthy associates. Here are my comments posted to the Shanker Blog, which still apparently hasn't made it through the moderation process:

I'd agree that some perspective on corporate charter trigger laws is influenced by an individual's views on school privatization and the neoliberal project in general. However, that doesn't mean that the overarching problem with triggers is the fact that they are entirely anti-democratic to put the fate of a public resource into the hands of a minority of the community. More than that, the huge amounts of money and resources expended to sway parents to triggering their school into private hands has been seen repeatedly, with corporate charter advocacy groups like the so-called Parent Revolution with it's multi-million dollar budget from nefarious funders like the Walton Family Foundation.

We can learn much about the origins and motives of groups pushing the corporate charter "parent" trigger by where the majority of its support comes from—fringe right wing groups like The Heartland Institute and The American Legislative Exchange Council.

Parent Revolution can deny their ties to ALEC and other reactionaries all they want, but they can't hide the fact that they have had deep and long-standing partnerships with ALEC members, including fringe right-wing The Heartland Institute. In addition to constant collaboration with Heartland, Parent Revolution hosts forums with them. See the following flyer from one of their events and an article discussing it:

The Heartland Institute and Parent Revolution panel on the Trigger Law

Parent Revolution's mendacious minions to appear with The Heartland Institute reactionaries

For the actual ALEC legislation crafted from Governor Schwartzenegger, Ben Austin, Gloria Romero's original bill, see:

Ben Austin, Gloria Romero and ALEC's Parent Trigger Act

Gloria J. Romero, who along with former Governor Schwartzenegger's staff, and Parent Revolution's Ben Austin, drafted the parent trigger (more aptly, tricker), is also known to work hand and hand with the most extreme forces of reaction on education issues. She works closely with members of the Koret Foundation and The Hoover Institution. Shunned by her own party, she works with teabaggers and other right-wing politicians.

Peas in a pod: Koret Foundation, The Hoover Institution, and Democrats for Education Reform

Senators Romero and Huff to Hold Education Summit

The evidence is damning, and their claims that they don't represent right-wing interests ring hollow. Bear in mind Parent Revolution was originally the Los Angeles Parents Union, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Green Dot Charter School Corporation. Parent Revolution's sole reason for existence is to build market share for the lucrative charter school sector. This is born out both by the comments of their funders, and by the privatization policies of their funders.

See this piece for a statement by Eli Broad on why he funds Parent Revolution:

Eli Broad pays Parent Revolution to champion charters not to empower parents!

See these documents to see the names right-wing plutocrats who fund Parent Revolution and the staggering amounts they contribute. Tops on the list, the privatization reactionaries at the Walton Family Foundation. 

Los Angeles Parents Union DBA LAPU or Parent Revolution 2010 Form 990

To be sure, "school choice" was the clarion call of segregationists. It still is. Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

Quick look at the "there's no money" in charters deception

I was recently asked on facebook to explain how charters make money. This is important since the charter industry has recently been trying to convince the public that they're nothing more than a charitable exercise. Here's what I wrote back to them:

Here's just a taste, but it should be enough for you to answer such inquires.

Operators like Edison make profit directly, as do most EMOs, from the difference between "services rendered" and ADA money. CMOs don't make profit per se, but they pay their executives exorbitant (confer Petruzzi or Ponce to Deasy versus number of schools and students) salaries and make additional money from special relationships with vendors (look up companies like ExED and charter operator Judy Burton's very special relationship with them). Many charter executives set up these sweet vendor deals and then go on to work for the vendors. Another big money maker is charter financing and financial services by corporations like Charter School Capital, pushed by local CMO executive Ricardo Mireles.

The most lucrative part of the charter industry however, is real estate. How big is the charter-voucher school real estate bubble? Big enough to attract big names like Goldman Sachs, Andre Agassi, Citibank, and Richard Riordan to the lucrative land grab ventures. Big enough that Gloria Romero was rewarded with a cushy six-figure job as CEO at Democrats for Education Reform in California for her servile gift the privately managed charter industry called SB 592, which hands public school property over to privately managed charter corporations. New York based vultures, like Gideon Stein, are making a fortune in brokering charter real estate (and the raising of property values via gentrification of neighborhoods through those charters).

There's also all the lucrative "distance learning," "online charters," and "blended learning" cash cows. Bill Gates and Tom Vander Ark are never far from the picture when those money making scams are at hand. In fact, the vile Vander Ark was very recently on the all white (sans one) Board of Directors from LA's Promise that is now firing all of their hard working educators, so they can hire cheaper ones. Sure that has nothing to do with profits though.

Thoughts on Matthew Di Carlo's recent Shanker Blog piece on the 'parent tricker'

Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) Annual Fundraiser Party December 10, 2011

UCLA Community School ASGE multi-purpose room
3201 W. 8th St. Los Angeles, CA 90005
Saturday, December 10, 2011 from 6:00 — 10:00 PM

FLYER FOR THIS EVENT


C E J MASQUERADE fundraising party!
CEJ parents, students and teachers invite you to our annual end of the year party. Please come celebrate a successful year with us.
Dinner, child care, games, performances, translation and DJ/dancing
Teachers and other professionals - $25 donation
Students, Parents and Community Members - $5 donation
NO MASKS OR COSTUMES REQUIRED

C J E ¡MASCARADA! Fiesta para recaudar fondos
Padres, alumnos y maestros de CJE les invitan a nuestra fiesta anual del fin del año. Por favor vengan a celebrar un año de éxito con nosotros.
Cena, cuidado de niños, juegos, representaciones, traducción y DJ/bailar
maestros - donación $25
alumnos, padres y miembros de la comunidad - donación $5
LAS MASCARAS Y LOS DISFRASES NO ESTAN NECESARIOS

Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) Annual Fundraiser Party December 10, 2011

Elizabeth Terzakis and Adrienne Johnstone on Pedagogy and Liberation

"It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them." — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Elizabeth Terzakis and Adrienne Johnstone speaking at Socialism 2011 on July 01, 2011 — Chicago, Illinois.



[Click if you can't listen to the audio]

Elizabeth Terzakis and Adrienne Johnstone on Pedagogy and Liberation

Nativo Vigil Lopez: Katt Wiliams' Anti-Mexican Rant a True Kramer Moment

Katt Wiliams' Anti-Mexican Rant a True Kramer Moment

By: Nativo Vigil Lopez


Not dissimilar to an experience lived by standup comedian Michael Richards, who played the fictional character of Cosmo Kramer in the sitcom Seinfeld, who repeatedly yelled the n-word at a supposed audience heckler, Katt Williams repeatedly taunted an audience member with anti-Mexican vitriol in a recent comic performance in Phoenix, Arizona.

Williams' set began with an assumptive statement that "it seems to me that you all like it over here a lot." He ridiculed the giving up of California by Mexicans to the U.S. An audience member yelled back to him that "this is Mexico," but not all was picked up by the audio. Williams taunted back with, "this used to be Mexico motherfucker, and now it's Phoenix" - to cheers from the crowd. He even referred to the audience member as "nigger," although he was clearly of Latino appearance. The heckler vulgarly gestured back to Williams. It was clear that the heckler dished out as well as he got from Williams. It was obviously no accident that the standup comic had a large statue of the American eagle on the stage surrounded by six young black women?

And, so it continued, taunting the heckler with chants of "USA, USA, USA," which were repeated by other audience members. The Latino man, now standing, engaged Williams who was visibly reactive and at one point even declared, "fuck him," and told him, "if you love Mexico, bitch, get the fuck over there." He angrily engaged the Latino with his interpretation of the Star Spangled Banner, and others in the audience picked up the tune in chorus. After physically plucking the eagle statue in front of the heckler he yelled, "we were slaves, bitch, you all just work like that at a landscapers, motherfucker." After that outburst he circled the stage and was high-fived by a black audience member.

He referred to the heckler as "nigger," and "bitch." At the end of the tirade five burly security guards removed the Latino from the audience.

The crowd was clearly racially mixed, and as much as could be observed from the video, now replayed ad nauseam on YouTube, was supportive of Williams' rage.

Williams was subsequently interviewed on CNN and refused to apologize for his angry outbursts. He excused his words as responsive to a heckler who "claimed this land as Mexico." He wrapped himself in the American flag as a defense of his comments. He even disowned and disapproved of a public apology that was issued by his publicist.

Sad is the day that the popular comedian would choose Phoenix, Arizona as the place to unleash his jaded sense of patriotism to his public. Only a fool would not be aware of the political significance of the location in what is considered the national epicenter of the anti-immigrant/anti-Mexican right-wing movement, nationally. The origin of virulently anti-immigrant laws, SB1070 in particular, Arizona has become the template model for similar legislation in other states. Today, Phoenix is to Mexicans what Birmingham, Alabama of the Deep South was to blacks during the civil rights movement era. Williams' rant more than hurt, it was outright destructive and divisive.

Williams' comments could be reflective of a current of opinion amongst the African American community, albeit not a majority one, especially in these tough economic times. It trashes, however, the historic strides towards unity between brown and black communities throughout the country before a common foe. Our common African origin is ignored. The violent annexation of half the national territory of Mexico, now the southwest of the U.S., is ridiculed, as is the uninterrupted resistance to conquest by indigenous peoples.

Just as Richards' tirade had no place in a public forum (or private for that matter), notwithstanding the comic venue where in most instances everything goes, Williams' comments have no place in the America he proclaims to love, nor does his use of the terms "nigger," or "bitch."

Some comedians, journalists, and media commentators still believe that they are protected by the First Amendment in their use of colored language, and terms as "illegal alien," "illegal immigrant," and other such references to immigrants, people of color, women, and gays. The word is powerful, and its inappropriate and uncultured use denigrates and dehumanizes the powerless. What is even worst, however, is when individuals of the powerless use the word of the powerful to refer to themselves and others of the same social class. And, when such occurs they are nothing more than servants and slaves to their pay-masters - the corporate media, even those of medium stature or alternative "progressive" mediums.

I have a remedy for Katt, though, and it relates to a personal story of mine. One day as young boys, 8 and 9 years of age, my brother and I were playing outdoors within earshot of my mother. My brother called me a "nigger." Well, when my mother heard that she called him into the house and literally washed his mouth out with a bar of soap. He claimed to her that he didn't even know what it meant, and that he was just repeating what a Mexican girl, with much darker complexion than him, had called him on the school playground. He was never again heard to utter the word.

My suggestion is that we boycott Katt Williams, not unlike the black community called for a boycott of Michael Richards after his uncouth racial tirade, and that this boycott should continue until Williams' makes an unreserved public mea culpa to the Mexican community or until his Mama publicly washes his mouth out with soap. In the alternative, I have only one thing to tell Mr. Williams, as I would to any Minuteman spewing anti-Mexican hate language - No, fuuuuck you, motherfucker!

* The author authorizes the re-publication of this article. Please credit the author.

nativolopez@sbcglobal.net

Nativo Vigil Lopez: Katt Wiliams' Anti-Mexican Rant a True Kramer Moment

Schools Matter: Occupation of Logan Street School Rooms by a Corporate Charter Continues

"[C]reating a 'separate and unequal' education system through the co-locations of charter schools in public school buildings." — NYC Parents' Lawsuit

Photo by Lisa Baca-Sigala

A day after the Echo Parque community learned that Gabriella Charter Corporation had ended their week long occupation of Logan Street Elementary School's auditorium, evidence that Gabriella had merely taken over another room and moved their furniture into that room once they had emptied it of its existing contents came to light. Moreover, it looks like wealthy white Wendy Kopp's Teach for America (TFA) missionary corps is establishing a beachhead in our neighborhood. For the whole sordid story see: Occupation of Logan Street School Rooms by a Corporate Charter Continues.

For a background on this story please see: Gabriella Charter Corporation further encroaches Logan Street Public Elementary School. There is a gallery of photos related to these articles.

Schools Matter: Occupation of Logan Street School Rooms by a Corporate Charter Continues

EDUCATION AND CAPITALISM: Struggles for Learning and Liberation

"This book is a breath of fresh air! The chapters take on central issues in education with a clear vision of what could be. Class, race, language and culture become not just educational 'problems,' but tools with which to rethink the future. A stellar addition to books in our field." — Jean Anyon, author of Marx and Education

"At a time when the capitalist class and their corporate allies in the media have waged an all-out assault on teachers, students, and public education, Education and Capitalismr esponds by speaking truth to power.... Drawing from the lived experiences of the editors and their students, and informed by cutting edge sociopolitical critique, Education and Capitalism clears the path for new understanding of the current assault on public schooling and points towards important directions if we are to save it." — Peter McLaren, author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution


EDUCATION AND CAPITALISM: Struggles for Learning and Liberation

EDITED BY JEFF BALE AND SARAH KNOPP

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, a conservative, bipartisan consensus dominates about what's wrong with our schools and how to fix them. In each case, those solutions scapegoat teachers, vilify our unions, and promise more private control and market mentality as the answer. In each case, students lose--especially students of color and the children of the working class and the poor.

This book, written by teacher activists, speaks back to that elite consensus. It draws on the ideas and experiences of social justice educators concerned with fighting against racism and for equality, and those of activists oriented on recapturing the radical roots of the labor movement. Informed by a revolutionary vision of pedagogy, schools, and education, it paints a radical critique of education in Corporate America, past and present, and contributes to a vision of alternatives for education and liberation. Inside are essays that trace Marxist theories of education under capitalism; outline the historical educational experiences of emergent bilingual and African American students; recap the history of teachers' unions; analyze the neoliberal attack on public schools under Obama; critically appraise Paolo Freire's legacy; and make the historical link between social revolution and struggles for literacy.

Sarah Knopp is a public high school teacher in Los Angeles and an activist with United Teachers Los Angeles.

Jeff Bale is assistant professor of second language education at Michigan State University. Their work has appeared in Rethinking Schools, International Socialist Review, and CounterPunch.


Available Fall 2011 | Trade paper | $17.00 | 220 pages | ISBN: 9781608461646
Published by Haymarket Books | www.haymarketbooks.org | info@haymarketbooks.org | 773-583-7884
For review or desk copies, contact Sarah Macaraeg, sarah@haymarketbooks.org

EDUCATION AND CAPITALISM: Struggles for Learning and Liberation

The unnamed corporate ed-reform "uber-hipster" has a name, Mike McGalliard

"I'm not going to accuse you and John Holcomb of white savior syndrome per se, but I will go on record as saying that your ideas and actions, no matter how well intentioned, are the epitome of what Freire called 'the false generosity of paternalism.'" — Robert D. Skeels


Dr. Ravitch recently spoke about being in a "Twitter debate with someone," and I immediately identified having been in an ongoing one myself with an unlikely opponent — Mike McGalliard of LA's Promise (née MLA Partners). Seems he took exception to my comments on the Los Angeles Times regarding his corporately backed project and wrote a blog post saying as much. I wrote a response on Schools Matter entitled Open note to LA's Promise former CEO Mike McGalliard regarding what he terms my pithiness. We spent about a week going back and forth on Twitter. He went as far as to accuse me of being a defender of the chimerical "status quo," to which I sent him here, and me calling him out on having arch-charlatan Tom Vander Ark on his board. McGalliard, a guy who doesn't seem to mind being called an uber-hipster, was described to me by an ex-employee of a local corporate reform 501C3 as a "child of privilege."

For the most part I can't speak to peoples intentions, and perhaps the wealthy white McGalliard really has good intentions. That said, he says:

Even if Howard's narrow assessment of CST data is a fair view of school performance, and even if his dubious collection of comparable schools is a legit comparison, what's there to celebrate? Our best reforms are failing and teensy adjustments to the status quo is all we can hope for at LAUSD?

I am going to write my own assessment of the Los Angeles Times piece, which will in a round-about way defend the corporate reformers. I say that because these business types don't have a clue, and now that their own scores aren't improving like they claimed they would, they are in a quandary. The truth is that standardized testing, charter school accelerated segregation, and our plutocratic overlords telling us that the purpose of education "college preparation" or "career readiness," are all parts of the malady that McGalliard and his ilk buy into and propagate.

Once we accept the true purpose of education, as put forth by Freire, we can begin looking to real solutions to education ills. Rather than a bevy of idiotic business buzzwords that are part of the problem, including blended, distance, disruptive, and innovative, we can look for solution oriented phrases like desegregation, fighting poverty, equal resources, and liberation. I gave McGalliard the last word on Twitter. Ironically he misapplied a Freire quote in response to me telling him to read Freire. I suppose his class affiliation doesn't allow him to see what he is doing, and we all know how Freire stood on neoliberalism and corporatization.

Ultimately, we don't need education reform, we need economics reform. When we address that, everything else will fall into place.

The unnamed corporate ed-reform "uber-hipster" has a name, Mike McGalliard

Matt Damon speaks truth to power and advocates for authentic reform

[click here if you can't view this video]

Valerie Strauss posted a transcript of this cogent and inspiring speech.

Matt Damon speaks truth to power and advocates for authentic reform

Economic Justice L.A. Calls Urgent Action: Tax Big Oil = Fund Education

This seemed worthy of publicizing.

What if we could get the oil companies to give schools kindergarten through universities 3 billion dollars a year? We can, if we get Proposition 1481 on the ballot. Authored by Cypress College Professor Peter Mathews, Prop 1481 is the ballot initiative that would tax oil extraction to fund education. California is the only state that does not tax oil extraction.

We can:

• Make higher education affordable to all
• Improve funding for K-12, reduce class size and prevent layoffs of teachers and staff
• improve quality of education

To help with the signature gathering effort here in Los Angeles, Economic Justice L.A. is asking folks to participate in one of two major mobilizations:

1. Saturday, August 27th 10 am-3pm the L.A. Sports Arena: 13th annual Family Back to School Health Festival Mothers in Action, and the Watts Times are some of the sponsors of this annual gathering where children can receive free hair cuts, immunizations, health screenings and school supplies. Thousands of working class families are expected to attend.
2. Monday August 29th: Back to School at Community Colleges all over L.A. As students return to their community colleges, they will be facing the most recent rounds of fee increases and class reductions: let's help them do something about it by signing the petition and circulating it among their friends. Students (or non students with free time that day) are needed at L.A.C.C., Trade Tech, Pasadena College, Harbor College, Southwest College, West L.A. College and others.

Here's how you can help: contact Economic Justice L.A. at 310-568-9622 and let us know which event you'd like to help out with. Or come to the next meeting of Economic Justice L.A. Sunday August 21 at 3p.m.

2617 S. Hauser Blvd.
Los Angeles 90016
(Between La Brea and Fairfax, 4 doors S. of Adams)

Economic Justice L.A. Calls Urgent Action: Tax Big Oil = Fund Education

Gabriella Charter Corporation further encroaches Logan Street Public Elementary School

"Colocation is eviction... It doesn't mean sharing, it means displacement." — NY State Sen. Bill Perkins


Gabriella Charter School Corporation continues to blatantly disregard the rights of the public school community at Echo Park's Logan Street Elementary School. Not content with having exceeded their allotment of space by several rooms, last week the well heeled executives of the corporate charter decided to forcibly annex Logan's entire auditorium. Here's an excerpt from one of the witnesses:

[We] looked into the school auditorium to discover that the Gabriella Charter School had moved its entire front office into the Logan auditorium. That includes desks, sofas, file cabinets, end tables and other various office paraphernalia. It was not there for storage. It was set up for business.

Set up for business indeed. As one can see from the photograph taken by a witness, this isn't furniture placed temporarily as if being rearranged, these desks are set up for use with lamps plugged in, papers and such at the ready. Moreover, none of Logan's administrators had been notified that their school's auditorium was appropriated by the adversarial charter corporation.

This egregious act by the corporate charter currently leaves Logan Street ES with no assembly space for their students or parents, and is part of a pattern of encroachment and disregard for the public school community that Gabriella occupies. Gabriella Corporation already caused Logan ES to cease offering any pre-school program because the charter took the two pre-kindergarden rooms. While LAUSD's legal department did contact the corporate charter and told them they needed to move their "office" out of Logan's auditorium, such notifications haven't done much in the past, as Gabriella has systematically violated its space cap several times in the past.

Shockingly, when Los Angeles Unified School Board President Monica Garcia was contacted regarding Gabriella Corporation's latest violation, she claimed she:

"Had to stay neutral in a case like this."

Community members and social justice activists are curious as to why our LAUSD trustee, whose district encompasses both Gabriella Charter Corporation and the public school it occupies would need to remain neutral when the charter is clearly violating the civil rights of all the public school families at Logan Street Elementary School. Echo Parque community members are encouraged to contact President Garcia at (213) 241-6180 or monica.garcia@lausd.net and discuss this incident with her.

Gabriella Charter School Corporation originally was able to gain a foothold on our neighborhood public school's campus under the insidious colocation provisions of Prop 39. Prop 39's colocation provisions were created by the deep pocketed California Charter Schools Association and their plutocrat backers in order to help undermine public schools and saddle taxpayers with the expenses of privately run charter schools over which they have negligible say or oversight.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Gabriella Corporation's governing board (Gabriella Axelrad Education Foundation) sports several dubious non-educators with some experience with displacing the public commons in favor of private interests. Anyone familiar with the tragic tale of urban farm destruction documented in the Academy Award nominated film The Garden, will recognize the names of those board members responsible.

While Los Angeles communities and social justice activists are just beginning to learn how to fight back against charter school colocations (read occupations), in other cities there are established movements actively doing so. In New York City, groups like the Grassroots Education Movement engage in this struggle, and there have even been lawsuits against charter encroachments. Some of these struggles are documented in the inspiring film The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, a must see for public school supporters. In our local struggles, we need to place political pressure on Gabriella Charter School Corporation to stop encroaching on our public school, and to pressure LAUSD to enforce the civil rights of all the families enrolled at Logan Street Elementary School.

Gabriella Charter Corporation further encroaches Logan Street Public Elementary School

Daily Censored: Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations

We address the soft bigotry of low expectations so that we may ignore the hard racism of inequity. — John Kuhn


What do Ben Shapiro, Whitney Tilson, The Heartland Institute, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, The Hoover Institution, Wendy Kopp, The Manhattan Institute, and Democrats for Education Reform all have in common? They all shamelessly use the meaningless and hackneyed phrase "soft bigotry of low expectations."

Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations looks at the far right's bizarre assertions that Sesame Street is indoctrinating children in some sort of insidious left wing plot and that Children's Television Workshop's providing additional educational resources for children that "did not have reading literature in the house" is somehow tantamount to bigotry.

In the end, we know that access to books in the home is a major indicator of academic achievement and impoverished families have very limited access to books. That is where we should focus our efforts.

Published 2011-08-11 on The Daily Censored, please read it there and share widely.

Daily Censored: Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations

Obama and the Charter School Sugar Daddies

"Hedge funds and bankers have become the Sugar Daddies of charter schools." — Glen Ford

Black Agenda Report's executive editor Glen Ford speaks truth to corporate charter power!



[Click if you can't listen to the audio]

In addition to listening to the radio show, check out the full transcript of Ford's incredible commentary: Obama and the Charter School Sugar Daddies


Excerpt:

When it comes to the public schools, the Obama administration is allied with the most rapacious sectors of Wall Street and far-right foundations. That political reality is most evident in  the administration's campaign to establish a parallel national network of charter schools, with a heavy emphasis on inner cities. Obama and his education chief, Arne Duncan, have spent their first year and a half in office coercing states to expand charters or lose out on more than $4 billion in federal education moneys. Obama's allies on Wall Street invest heavily in charter schools, tapping into the public money stream to build their own vision of corporate education.

Black Agenda Report's coverage of the corporate onslaught against public education has been peerless. Simply searching for the word charter on their site produces a wealth of articles in which they name names and call things what they really are.

Obama and the Charter School Sugar Daddies

John Kuhn at SOS March

[Click here if you can't view this video]

Speaking truth to power.

John Kuhn at SOS March

Stand up for Obama and Clay Middle Schools!

LAUSD continues is top-down reform efforts of pouncing on the will of the community and educators of local schools.


Take a stand for Educational Justice.

Stand up for Obama and Clay Middle Schools!

Join the South L.A. Coalition to Defend Public Schools press conference and rally!

We need supporters to attend the press conference on Wednesday, July 27 12pm at Obama Middle School, 1700 West 46th St. (by corner of Vernon & Western).

What: Press Conference and Rally
When: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Time: 12pm (noon)

Who: All honest people who care about creating more socially just education system. Join the South LA Coalition to Defend Public Schools at this action.
Why: Its time we stand up against Charter Schools and the Top-down education "de-form" efforts. Demand community control of our schools!
Contact: John Parker at johnthompsonparker@gmail.com

Background:
LAUSD continues is top-down reform efforts of pouncing on the will of the community and educators of local schools. On June 29th the Principal of Obama Middle School, Veronique Wills, was removed with no consultation with the educators and/or community. Obama is a new campus that was put up for bid during the first round on LAUSD Public School Choice Plan. Through the hard work of teachers, community, and the Local Teachers Union, UTLA, the Obama team wrote a 5-year school-wide plan that was developed on very progressive education ideas and received approval from the reluctant pro-charter School Board majority.

Despite the approval of the school plan, the Local District Superintendent, George McKenna unilaterally and unjustly removed Principal Wills at the end of the first year of the school plan. Principal Wills has built relationships with the surrounding the community and brought in many community groups to work with the school and tried, despite roadblocks from LAUSD and Local Supt. George McKenna, to not only raise test scores, but also develop the "whole child."

At neighboring Clay Middle School, the LAUSD School Board Majority once again, pushing their top down school "de-form" and giveaway agenda, has given away Clay Middle School to Green Dot Charter School Management Company. LAUSD School Board Majority has once again defied the will of the community and educators with this unilateral move and has shown the influence outside charter school companies and other venture philanthropist have on the school board.

LAUSD has shown complete disrespect for the South Central LA community and Educators at both Clay and Obama Middle Schools.

The South LA Coalition to Defend Public Schools demands Clay remain a Public School and the Principal Wills stay at Obama Middle School.

Stand up for Obama and Clay Middle Schools!

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman Sneak Peek

[Click here if you can't view the video]

We are trying to organize a public screening of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" in Echo Parque. The event is to be hosted by local groups. We're most likely going to show the film at the Echo Park Film Center, but haven't chosen a date as of yet. Our intention is to find a date in late August or early September.

"The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" was created in response to the mendacious charter school propaganda film created by Davis Guggenheim with funds from Philip Anschutz and Bill Gates. It counterposes social justice solutions to the corporate reforms proffered by those supporting the charter industry.

As an added bonus, the filmmakers held a lottery when distributing the film for public showings. The prize was a call from Professor Diane Ravitch, which our community won. Our intention is to have Dr. Ravitch on speaker phone or skype following the film.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman Sneak Peek

How standardized testing is being expanded

Washington Post "Answer Sheet" Blog — June 27, 2011 By Lisa Guisbond, FairTest

Parents, teachers, and students: Raise your hands if you think what our schools need is more new tests and a greater emphasis on testing. If not, listen up, because this is exactly what our students and teachers face because of the reactions of Massachusetts, Maryland, Virgina, New York, North Carolina and other state policy makers to the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) program. These states have all marched to the RTTT beat, quickly passing laws that, among other things, insist that teacher evaluations must be linked to student outcomes.

Now we are seeing all the devilish details emerge, as state departments of education devise the regulations for how school districts must march to the RTTT beat.

In Maryland, for example, the Council for Educator Effectiveness voted to tie 50 percent of each assessment to student growth on standardized exams, despite vehement objections from teachers on the panel. Similar battles have erupted in New York and Charlotte, N.C., over proposed teacher evaluation systems that rely heavily on student test scores and use flawed methods to judge teacher quality.

Massachusetts’ proposed teacher evaluation system is scheduled for a vote on Tuesday by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. But a group of educators and analysts assembled by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) examined the proposal and concluded it is deeply flawed and should not be approved.

The recently released FairTest report, "Flawed Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation Proposal Risks Further Damage to Teaching and Learning" criticizes the state" proposal for five major flaws:

• It will require districts to use state test results (Massachusetts’ test is called the Massachussetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS) to judge educators.
• It will require districts to evaluate every teacher in every grade and subject with two "assessments" each academic year, forcing districts to make or purchase dozens of new tests at a time of drastic cutbacks and layoffs.
• It relies on a pseudo-scientific "growth" or "value-added" measures that are unable to distinguish good teachers from bad, according to researchers affiliated with the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.
• It will increase pressure to teach to low-level tests, drive good teachers away from working where they are most needed, and damage the learning environment by forcing teachers to "compete" for high-scoring students.

A working group of educators and analysts from the elementary, high school and university levels collaborated on the report. We wanted to be sure that parents and others understand the potential negative impact of these proposals. If adopted, our over-tested students would have to take even more narrow and low-quality standardized exams, when there are already too many tests taking time from learning.

Mitchell Chester, the Massachusetts education commissioner, says the new system will be "objective" and "scientific" — partly because they always define tests as "objective," but also because they want to claim that "value added" or "growth" models are "scientific." However, research shows these models are no better than a coin toss at sorting good teachers from bad.

This system is opposed to the approaches taken by the nations whose school systems are praised for their equity and excellence. Among the most striking features of successful nations such as Finland and Singapore are their professional recruitment, development, support and support, as well as the pay and respect given to teachers. They don’t use tests to judge schools or teachers. Sadly, this sets them apart from our own country.

A focus on tests will undermine much of the most important work that teachers do. Good teachers do not simply convey information. They identify the diverse needs of their students, engage student interests and build students’ confidence. They also help develop team interaction and cooperation, while challenging and assisting students to overcome barriers. Unfortunately, the Department" proposal is likely to rupture the essential relationships between teachers and students that make this work possible.

We need not reinvent the wheel. Comprehensive, high-quality teacher evaluation systems already exist and are used in many schools and districts. A recent story in The New York Times praises Montgomery County, Maryland" system, which does not use student scores at all. The problem is not the lack of good models, but the lack of resources, time, training, and focus needed to implement them.

Teacher evaluation should be used to provide assistance where needed, and to recognize talented teachers who can lead and mentor their peers. Where necessary, a system should play a role in removing teachers who are clearly not effective. Proposals like the one in Massachusetts fail these tests.

This was written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the nonprofit National Center for Fair & Open Testing, known as FairTest. The report, Flawed Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation Proposal Risks Further Damage to Teaching and Learning, is available here.

How standardized testing is being expanded

Open note to Jim Newton regarding his July 18, 2011 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed

"When you have total control over the media and the educational system and scholarship is conformist, you can get that across." — Professor Noam Chomsky (Media Control)


Mr. Newton:

I'm not a member of UTLA or any union for that matter, but I find your constant vilification of UTLA offensive and caustic. You come off as nothing more than a shill for the lucrative charter-voucher industry, and your prose reads as yellow journalism of the worse kind. I've written about your shameful defense of the vile Ben Austin in the past, but your recent disgusting op-ed smearing UTLA and public education deserves attention as well. It's disconcerting to see you use your high media profile to push reactionary ideas and serve as a spokesperson for school privatization. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Advocating public education and social justice

Robert D. Skeels

Candidate District 2 LAUSD Board Seat 2013

Open note to Jim Newton regarding his July 18, 2011 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed

A reader speaks out on CNCA Corporation's Shannon Leonard's questionable credentials

I pressed the issue and asked, "so was [Mr. Leonard] a professor of education?" LMU's Director of Communications and Media retorted, "No, he was part time faculty."


The essay Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again? on EchoParkPatch demonstrated again that the well paid business executives running the corporate charter have little respect for the truth, and even less respect for our community. Catching Camino Nuevo Charter Academy Corporation in yet another lie precipitated much feedback, mostly positive, although several right wing privatization fanatics were angry that ordinary people were paying attention to corporate malfeasance.

However, one reader went further and actually did more research than anyone on Mr. Leonard's highly suspect resume. I feel it's worth reproducing here.

I read your blurb about Shannon Leonard, and did a little cyber-digging and found this:
 
"Shannon Leonard '01 selected for Echo Park's new school" Experienced educator Shannon Leonard has been selected to lead Echo Park's new school, Central Region Elementary School (CRES) #14."
 
it's at William & Mary's alumni page: https://www.wmalumni.com/?alumninews
 
My point is... this means that, as an 2001 B.A. Graduate of William & Mary, he should be, at most, 31-32 years of age (i.e. he turn 32 in calendar year 2011);
 
Now, it's a stretch to believe that he has done all of  the following since graduating from William & Mary in May 2001:
 

• Received 1 Master's Degree from UCLA;
• Received a 2nd Master's degree from Loyola Marymount;
• Earned "his California administrative credential from UCLA’s Principal Leadership Institute" (from the Camino Nuevo website... also someone else posted skepticism about the "UCLA's Principal Leadership Institute")
• Then worked "a distinguished educator with over ten years (!!!) of experience as both a teacher and a leader in urban and international school settings." (from the Camino Nuevo website.)
• Worked as a "Professor in Loyola Marymount's Department of Education"

Wow!!! That's a busy ten years!!!

Busy is an understatement, clearly when CNCA Corporation's public relations people were making his resume up, no one had the presence of mind to do the math and see if it added up. Perhaps the reactionary right wing M.V. person that claims that they will "support [Leonard] in any way possible" can explain how someone can have over ten years experience teaching when they have only been a graduate themselves for ten years. It's astonishing that CNCA can get away with such perfidy.

There's lying, and then there's mendaciousness that's nothing short of duplicitous. CNCA Corporation seems to have created a pervasive culture of the latter. No wonder, since their COO Hoa Truong is a graduate of the vile Broad Residency in Urban Education.

My recent Schools Matter piece Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie addresses the smug and sullen MBA Truong's Broadyte influence on CNCA Corporation:

Sure enough, in practice CNCA's principles and actions reflect that of their funders. Remember this tidbit from the Broad Residency FAQ:

[P]rivate sector experience is important because there are business best practices which can improve the way the education organizations are operated.

I'm always wondering which of the three core business practices (lying, cheating, and stealing) Broadytes are referring to. Well in this case it's lying.

Given the magnitude and the scope of all the things CNCA Corporation has been dishonest about to this point, we should all have grave concerns about all of their dealings. Every community deserves better than to have corporate charlatans running their schools, but fighting the groundswell of lucrative charter-voucher organizations out to profit off the public commons will take organizing and struggle on a much greater scale than we've seen so far.

A reader speaks out on CNCA Corporation's Shannon Leonard's questionable credentials

EchoParkPatch: A Mother's message to LAUSD Trustee Nury Martinez

"If there's one thing I hope comes out of this is that Ms. Martinez thinks about the incident and reflects upon how she and the other board members ignored our community's voices throughout the entire process." — Windy Anne Bunts O'Malley


A Mother's message to LAUSD Trustee Nury Martinez contains my interview with Windy O'Malley, the local mother who was wrongly and viciously accosted by LAUSD Trustee Nury Martinez at the March 25, 2011 School Board Meeting. Following the interview is analysis of how Martinez was sidestepping issues of removing democracy and ignoring community voices.

The incident further exposes the so-called Public School Choice (PSC) resolution as the farce it is. PSC has always been about privatization, never about "choice" or to respond to communities. We also see in the essay how right wing privatization 501C3 groups, like the vile Families That Can, have unfettered access to LAUSD's halls of power, while actual parents and community members are entirely shut out. Here's a quote from the essay addressing why Martinez was so quick to hurl the hurtful accusations.

What this was about was silencing any dissent against the lucrative privatization of our public schools, and the filtering out any parents or community members that actually represent their constituent communities instead of well funded astroturf 501C3 groups.

Ultimately, Ms. Martinez should consider stepping down from the LAUSD board after she showed that she has nothing but contempt for parents and community members. Sadly, since LAUSD's Board currently serves the interests of plutocrats instead of constituents, she'll be around at least until the end of her term.

Published on EchoParkPatch, please read it there and share widely.

EchoParkPatch: A Mother's message to LAUSD Trustee Nury Martinez