It's unconscionable that the charter sector still places revenue streams over student needs

"…it's unconscionable that the charter sector still places revenue streams over student needs."—rds #EdReform #schoolchoice #lausd pic.twitter.com/YygjAwvfY8

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) November 29, 2016

It's unconscionable that the charter sector still places revenue streams over student needs

Eva Moskowitz's secret to charter school "success?" IEP discrimination, just like all charters.

Eva Moskowitz's secret to charter school success—IEP discrimination, just like all charters. http://t.co/U2He14Zre1 pic.twitter.com/cJ16dLMQPk

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) August 30, 2013

Success Academy parent's secret tapes reveal attempt to push out special needs student

Eva Moskowitz's secret to charter school "success?" IEP discrimination, just like all charters.

Schools Matter: David Coleman's New SAT: Still Racist, Still Classist

Schools Matter: David Coleman's New SAT: Still Racist, Still Classist: It should come as no surprise that the head of the College Board, David Coleman, has made the new SAT more in line with the Common Core.  O...

Schools Matter: David Coleman's New SAT: Still Racist, Still Classist

End Racist Scholarship at Harvard University

END RACIST SCHOLARSHIP! DEMAND A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO THE LATINO COMMUNITY BY JASON RICHWINE AND HIS HARVARD DISSERTATION COMMITTEE!

Sign the Online Petition:

https://www.change.org/petitions/end-racist-scholarship-demand-a-public-apology-to-the-latino-community-by-jason-richwine-and-his-harvard-dissertation-committee

INTRODUCTION Jason Richwine in his capacity as a Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, co-authored a controversial report arguing that immigration reform will cost about 6.3 trillion more in benefits than the country can collect from undocumented immigrants in taxes, attributing the gap to lack of human capital while cynically noting that the cost would be lower if the workers remain undocumented as this would keep them from accessing public benefits.

In his Heritage report, Richwine builds on the same arguments found in his 2009 doctoral dissertation, “IQ and Immigration”, from Harvard University. Based on outdated and repudiated research and methods, which we consider irresponsible and racist, the dissertation argues:

“Hispanic immigrants and their children have a low average IQ, which prevents the second generation from achieving equality with the native majority. Parental expectations for their children are not met, because they cannot be, given the level of intelligence present in the community.”

This kind of pseudo-science disguised as “scientific scholarship”, employs deficit reasoning that positions ethnic “minorities” and the working class as deficient rather than viewing people in dignified ways. We believe that Harvard University needs to apply stricter criteria in assessing not just the merits of scholarship but weigh its ideological content and effect.

DEMANDS: WE DEMAND A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO THE LATINO COMMUNITY BY JASON RICHWINE AND HIS DISSERTATION COMMITTEE, DR. GEORGE J. BORJAS, DR. RICHARD J. ZECKHAUSER, AND DR. CHRISTOPHER JENCKS.

WE DEMAND HARVARD UNIVERSITY CHANGE ITS RESEARCH POLICIES.


WHAT YOU CAN DO: Support this cause by signing on to this online petition and help us reach our goal of 5,000 signatures. We call on all progressive scholars, community members, educators and students, to denounce this kind of work and pressure universities so that they are responsible in their research.

You can contact directly members of Jason Richwine’s committee, who we believe are just as responsible for this kind of scholarship as Jason Richwine, and Harvard’s Institutional Review Board.

Dissertation committee:
George J. Borjas, gborjas@harvard.edu http://gborjas@harvard.edu , 617-495-1393 617-495-1393
Richard J. Zeckhauser, richard_zeckhauser@harvard.edu http://richard_zeckhauser@harvard.edu , 617-495-1174 617-495-1174
Christopher Jencks, christopher_jencks@harvard.edu  http://christopher_jencks@harvard.edu , 617-495-0546 617-495-0546

Harvard University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB):
Fanny Ennever, Senior IRB Administrator, fennever@fas.harvard.edu http://fennever@fas.harvard.edu, 617-495-1775 617-495-1775

Organizational Endorsements of This Campaign: Send organizational endorsements of this online petition campaign to RACE.organization@gmail.com<http://RACE.organization@gmail.com>

Access Jason Richwine’s dissertation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/jason-richwine-dissertation_n_3240168.html

End Racist Scholarship at Harvard University

Corporations have even found a way to co-opt words like urban "gentrification"

Corporations have even found a way to co-opt words like urban "gentrification" to deflect attention from what they do twitter.com/rdsathene/stat…

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) May 14, 2013

Corporations have even found a way to co-opt words like urban "gentrification"

"Almost equal" in Arizona

"It think this is a great country. In some countries I might be actually locked up for teaching the way I have, but in this country, I'm just banned from doing it." — Curtis Acosta (TUSD Teacher)

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Tucson's Mexican-American Studies Ban
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Tucson's Mexican-American Studies Ban is the Daily Show's humorous, but poignent look at the racist reactionary ban of ethnic studies in Arizona.

"Almost equal" in Arizona

Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

Anyone over the age of 30 should recall phrases including "school choice" were the clarion call of segregationists and southern dixiecrats. [Still are.] — Robert D. Skeels

Professor Christopher Bonastia's Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed is perhaps the best work I've read on the modern segregation and eugenics movements that are cloaked in the rhetoric of school choice. Packed with historical precedents and an honest assessment of today's empirical data, the essay is a powerful antidote to the nonstop stream of privatization propaganda pumped out by the deep pocketed charter industry. The following excerpt provides an idea of why everyone must read the whole piece:

The driving assumption for the pro-charter side, of course, is that market competition in education will be like that for toothpaste -- providing an array of appealing options. But education, like healthcare, is not a typical consumer market. Providers in these fields have a disincentive to accept or retain "clients" who require intensive interventions to maintain desired outcomes--in the case of education, high standardized test scores that will allow charters to stay in business. The result? A segmented marketplace in which providers compete for the "good risks," while the undesirables get triage. By design, markets produce winners, losers and unintended or hidden consequences.

Read in on AlterNet and share it widely.

Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

Sherman Alexie "Arizona has made our books sacred documents now."

First published on Schools Matter

"A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible to transformation." — Paulo Freire

The Progressive has been compiling the responses of authors whose books were banned by Arizona bigots and arch-reactionaries Tom Horne and John Huppenthal's racist HB 2281, which, among other things, banned Ethnic Studies in Arizona schools. Of course Huppenthal and Horne's vicious legislative colonization didn't actually ban ethnic studies, it just limited Arizona's curriculum to the oppressive historical narrative of "wealthy white male studies."

Today former Schools Matter contributor Kenneth Libby tweeted the response from author Sherman Alexie, which is among the most brilliant I've seen in response to the cultural sterilization and oppression that is Arizona's pogrom against brown peoples:

Let's get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I'm pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I'm also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.

Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and filmmaker. His book "The Lone Ranger and Tonto's Fist Fight in Heaven," was on the banned curriculum of the Mexican American Studies Program.

Sherman Alexie "Arizona has made our books sacred documents now."