Advocating Public Education Roundup 10W42 - Commentopia

‎"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. " — Paulo Freire


Alfie Kohn's How to Sell Conservatism: Lesson 1 -- Pretend You're a Reformer really calls out how manipulative and crafty the so called "education reform" crowd is. Here's an excerpt:

School reform, as these people understand it, and as I've discussed in a previous post, involves a relentless regimen of standardized testing; a push to direct funds to charter schools, many of them run by for-profit corporations; a weakening of teachers' job protection -- and the vilification of unions that represent teachers -- so that those who have failed to raise their students' test scores can be publicly humiliated or fired; threats to shut down low-scoring schools; initiatives to dangle money in front of teachers who follow orders and raise scores, or even in front of certain (low-income) students; and a contest for funding in which only (some) states willing to adopt this bribe-and-threat agenda will receive desperately needed federal money.

Here are the comments I posted under Kohn's article:

An outstandingly cogent analysis of how the so called edreform crowd implicitly supports the status quo.

In a recent exchange of polemics with one of Los Angeles' more wealthy Charter Management Organization CEOs, I was accused of "defending the status quo." I replied that for decades I've supported community controlled schools in contrast to the bureaucratic model (large districts) or the corporate model (charter-voucher). I then said "how is that a defense of the status quo?" There was no response. Frankly, the so called reform crowd is terrified of anyone that challenges the real "status quo."

This is why Arizona's Tom Horne has banned ethnic studies with AB 2281 and is trying to ban Paulo Freire! This is why Texas textbooks have become synonymous with fairy tale compilations. This is why Green Dot Public [sic] Schools was caught requiring their students to "demonstrate a belief in the value of capitalism." [1] This is why art, music, and bilingual programs have given way to what you astutely called "glorified test-prep centers."

I would go even further than saying the current crop of charlatans claiming the mantle of reform are defending the status quo, I'd say in many cases they pine for a return to 19th century pedagogical practices (at least for working class children).

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/18/ED3P1CHUEH.DTL

Sherry Wolf posted a great video in her post Teachers Fight Back vs. Superman movie on her SHERRYTALKSBACK blog.

I had the following comments:

Thanks so much for posting this Sherry. I take on Davis Guggenheim's embrace of the banking system of education in his charter-voucher informercial in my recent post Some thoughts on Rick Ayers' "An Inconvenient Superman".

Last night Dr. Diane Ravitch called Guggenheim's privatization propaganda piece a "pernicious movie."

I'm very excited about the pending release of The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman.

Patrick Goldstein's piece in the Los Angeles Times How did 'Waiting for 'Superman's' ' Davis Guggenheim become the right wing's favorite liberal filmmaker? states the obvious, but I couldn't let it go at that. Here's my response:

Davis Guggenheim is now the toast of The Cato Institute, Reason Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, American Enterprise Institute, The John Birch Society, The Hoover Institution, The Hudson Institute, and a whole host of reactionary right wing organizations.

It's great to know that the same failed economic principles that gave us the dot com crash, the housing market crises, and the current great recession are being proffered as solutions for our publicly funded schools. Who better than the slick, unscrupulous, hipster Guggenheim to try and sell us thoroughly discredited 'free market' ideology in the guise of reform.

While charter-voucher scandals [1] are a dime a dozen, and charter schools discriminate against the most needy of students, at least Guggenheim can rest assured that his well heeled executive friends in the corporate CMO/EMO charter-voucher industry are making a killing.

[1] http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/

Of course, Kenneth Libby of Schools Matter does a much better job at revealing just who Davis Guggenheim's far right funders really are and their reactionary agendas. Philip Anschutz and Walden Media: What Kind of Agenda? reveals such a frighting list of extremists, it gave me chills.

Lastly, the vile Jill Stewart of that trashy masseuse and porn ad pennysaver also known as The LA Weekly ran another pro-privatization screed.

Stewart wouldn't post my comments in response to her bizare stream of illogical thoughts. However, 4lakids Scott Folsom reprinted Stewart's piece and my response to it. Here are my comments:

Another school privatization cheerleading piece by right wing reactionary Jill Stewart? Corporate charlatan Yolie Flores-Aguilar isn't just an "UTLA enemy" but an enemy of all those in favor of public education. Just how is the Gates foundation employee, who has spent her entire career serving corporate interests like those of the lucrative charter-voucher sector, a "advocate of the poor?" Flores has never done anything for our communities, other than hand public property over to private institutions. Yolie Flores is a corporation in the disguise of a human being.

I know that Randites like Stewart conflate reform with privatization, but the rest us are astute enough to see through such craftiness.

Zimmer, who is no real friend of the hard working women and men who teach our children, would hardly have lost against the Beverly Hills Barrister Ben Austin. The well heeled corporate spokesman Austin is a charlatan of the highest order. He is also an unabashed racist. Outside of the 501c3 groups funded by the Waltons, Broad, and Gates Foundations, Austin is a pariah. For more on Austin see:

http://dailycensored.com/2010/04/24/political-patronage-for-green-dot-public-schools-chief-propagandist/

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/code-words-euphemisms-and-green-dots-pandering-to-westside-racism/

Jill Stewart should do us all a favor and read about pedagogy before subjecting us to more of her fact free rants. We appreciate that Stewart is making money off the charter-voucher sector, like her idol Yolie Flores. Flores isn't running because she is despised by the vast majority of her constituents in her district. Nobody is surprised that she was hired by a foundation started by a convicted predatory monopolist, she was working for the billionaire boys club long before that anyway.

I'd accuse The LA Weekly's Beth Barrett and Jill Stewart of yellow journalism, but you have to be able to write to be a journalist. Let's never forget that Jill Stewart's prose wouldn't be worthy of a disinterested high school sophomore. Maybe it's her own shortcomings combined with her John Birch Society ideology that fuel her inexhaustible hatred of teachers.

Advocating Public Education Roundup 10W42 - Commentopia

Mary Najara and Shirley Ford of Parent Revolution née Los Angeles Parents Union

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)

Mary Najara and Shirley Ford of Parent Revolution née Los Angeles Parents Union

Dr. Stephen Krashen - The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey

The entire basis for the national standards/testing movement is our low scores on international tests when compared to other countries. Our scores, however, are only low because we have such a high percentage of children in poverty, compared to other countries that participate in international tests. When we consider only middle-class children who attend well-funded schools, our math scores are near the top of the world (Payne and Biddle, 1999).

Here is another analysis, using reading test scores, that comes to the same conclusion. The PIRLS test was given to ten year olds in 35 countries in their own language. Bracey (2009) presented this data, along with relevant socio-economic data on the poverty level of the schools American children attended (defined as participating in free or reduced price lunch programs):

American students attending schools with

• less than 10 percent in poverty averaged 589 (14% of students).
• 10-24.9% in poverty averaged 567 (20% of students)
• 25 to 49.9% in poverty averaged 551 (30% of students)
• 50 to 74.5% in poverty averaged 519 (21% of students)
• 75% or more in poverty averaged 485 (15% of students)

Clearly, students in schools with lower levels of poverty did better. Of great interest to us is the fact that American children attending low poverty schools (25% or less) outscored the top scoring country, Sweden (561). Bracey also points out that "if the students in schools with 24-49.9% poverty constituted a nation, it would rank fourth among the 35 participating nations" (p. 155).

The problem is poverty, not our teachers, our unions, the parents, or the children. The solution is to protect our children from the disadvantages of poverty, through health care, nutrition, and access to books. Geoffrey Canada claims that his approach is to attempt to do just that in the Harlem Children's Zone schools (NY Times, October 12, 2010; but see Krashen, 2010a,b).

Thus far, the Arne Duncan department of education has chosen to ignore this route (while praising the Harlem Children's Zone), and spend billions on useless national standards and national tests, focusing on measuring rather than helping.
_____
NOTES
Bracey, G. 2009. Education Hell: Rhetoric Versus Reality. Alexandria, VA: Educational Research Service.
Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.
Krashen, S. 2010a. A suggestion for Geoffrey Canada. www.schoolsmatter.info. October 12, 2010.
Krashen, S. 2010b. Shocking revelations from Goeffrey Canada's autobiography. www.schoolsmatter.info. October 13, 2010.

Dr. Stephen Krashen - The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey

Right wing reactionary "Guggenheim on Unions, Green Dot"

This article was first published on Dissident Voice

Just continue to follow the money. This Race to the Trough will make the Reading First crooks under Bush look like dopey Boy Scouts. — Jim Horn, PhD (Educator, Writer) 

EdWize has a short on the Walton Foundation's mouthpiece—the vile Davis Guggeheim—called Guggenheim on Unions, Green Dot. It mentions an interview in which the propagandist further vilifies the hard working women and men that teach in our communities. I had the following response:

That's nuance? If by "reasonable" Guggenheim means reactionary, then I suppose he'd have a point. Given his specious understanding of pedagogy and pubic education in general, it's no wonder he doesn't see just how damaging his privatization propaganda piece really is. Hiding behind his own union hardly disguises his intentions. "Waiting for Superman" heralds the return of McCarthyism.

What's more, Guggenheim's suggestion that yellow unions like Asociación de Maestros Unidos (AMU) are a model as opposed to real unions exposes him for what he is. Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' yellow, or company union, AMU is nothing to praise despite CTA certification. AMU doesn't even have its own office or website, all of its activities stem from Green Dot's corporate headquarters. This explains a dearth of activism from AMU's members in the midst of the worst budget cuts imaginable. This company unionism also explains why Green Dot teachers' average experience, while marginally higher than the CMO average of 2 years [1], is still less than 3 years. This in turn probably explains Green Dot's dismal performance [2], despite all the advantages it holds in extra funding, motivated parents, and exclusion of ELL and special education children.

Nothing was more clear to demonstrate how powerless AMU was than when Marco Petruzzi made the fiat declaration that Green Dot was closing down Ánimo Justice HS. Teacher Judy Riemenschneider mentioned AMU's thin contract when she said "The ultimatum is at odds with Green Dot's principles, which call for teacher input into critical decisions." [3] Like any private institution, Green Dot felt no obligation to honor it's contractual obligations to its teachers or union. Like any private institution, Green Dot didn't care about the students, parents, or community when it shuttered Ánimo Justice. Like all charter schools, Green Dot was only concerned about their bottom line. Like Scott Folsom said at the time "The Animo Social Justice (?) Charter is closing for no other reason than Green Dot cannot show a return on their financial investment." [4]

When UdB held a community forum to halt the closure of several schools, including the above mentioned one by corporate charter darling Green Dot, I had a half dozen "unionized" AMU members tell me what it's really like working for a charter. [5] Maybe if Guggenheim spent time with teachers instead of millionaires like Geoffrey Canada and right wingers like Michelle Rhee, he would have heard reality. As a public education activist I get charter teachers telling me all the time what it's like to work for capricious EMO and CMOs. [6]

Guggenheim rails against unions and quotes "studies" by far right think tanks like Cato, AEI, and Hoover on how one can overcome "environmental issues like poverty." Thanks for the Ayn Rand free market lesson on pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps there Guggenheim! I hope you're enjoy all that money from the Waltons, Gates, and Broad foundations.

I'm always amazed that people shouting the loudest that race and class have nothing to do with academic performance are inevitably rich white males. Case in point -- the smug Davis Guggenheim.

_____
NOTES
[1] See http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2009/04/are_teachers_jumping_the_chart.html and http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/index.php?item=2637&cat=23 Of course, if Guggenheim was a real documentary filmmaker instead of a propagandist, he would have done his homework to discover this fact instead of making the ridiculously smug comment "I’m sure you’re going to find these teachers in these high-performing charters that burn out."
[2] as discussed by journalist Caroline Grannan http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2010/01/14-of-15-green-dot-schools-are-failing.html
[3] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-greendot23-2010mar23,0,1323354.story
[4] http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2010/04/fremont-high-animo-green-dot-social.html
[5] http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/neontommy/2010/03/two-south-la-high-schools-unit.html
[6] http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2010/04/advocating-public-education-roundup.html

Right wing reactionary "Guggenheim on Unions, Green Dot"

Thoughts on "Are Money and Profit Behind the Charter School Fever?"

"In one generation, we have completely reversed our idea of what a teacher should be from a humanizing mentor to someone who coaches kids through their first bureaucracy — Sean Leys (Social Justice Educator)

Yvette Carnell's Are Money and Profit Behind the Charter School Fever? piece on the Huffington Post was both excellent in content, honesty, and was a breath of fresh air given the site's constant pro-privatization stance. Remember, this is the same Huffington Post that prints charter charlatan Ben Austin's mendacity without fact checking and then censors all comments contrary to his lies. We all know what Austin thinks about parents that don't fit his idealized notions.

Carnell does a masterful job at pointing out the deep-seated greed of those in the charter-voucher school sector, and the real underlying motives of the cynical propaganda piece by Davis Guggenheim. Carnell calls out Oprah's one sided CMO/EMO charter-voucher school infomercial.

She even has the courage to call out fraud and millionaire Geoffrey Canada:

...aided by Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone, one of charter school's biggest advocates, who hustles American Express credit cards in television ads. The advertisement only highlights charter school's connection to free market principles. [1]

Carnell's short, but brilliant piece opened an interesting dialog. I had the following comments:

This marriage of discredited free market principals and charter-voucher schools is so intertwined, charters indoctrinate students with market ideology. While rich kids are taught critical thinking skills, inner city children are taught to "work hard and be nice." As Freire said, "Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor." It's no wonder the Broad, Gates, Ducan, Guggenheim, and Walton cabal are pushing charters so hard.

For example Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition contained language requiring students "demonstrate a belief in the value of capitalism." This was until Professor Ralph Shaffer wrote LAUSD demanding the disgusting language be addressed. Rather reluctantly LAUSD asked corporate behemoth Green Dot to remove their propagandistic and indoctrinatory language. After much resistance (AIG bailout recipient Eli Broad is their secondary funder) Green Dots' Daniel Chang, wrote a high handed screed to LAUSD and Prof. Shaffer with an official letter petitioning for the corporate charter capitalism love-fest language to be changed. Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition

Even more offensive are the extreme right wing reactionaries running American Indian Model Schools in Oakland. This school, which takes public funds, forces students to take a pledge to capitalism including the phrase "productive members in a free-market capitalist society." Time to regulate what charters are teaching

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NOTES
[1] Emphasis mine.

Thoughts on "Are Money and Profit Behind the Charter School Fever?"

Dr. Shaffer's Open Letter to Los Angeles Times on VAM

The Times' ill-conceived campaign to rate public school teachers on the basis of a badly-flawed and highly dubious process called "value added analysis" has claimed its first victim. Inexplicably, The Times has chosen not to offer an apology for the great pain it has inflicted on many teachers who now bear the stigma of "ineffective" or, as in this case, "less effective."

Supt. Ramon Cortines, however, has issued a hypocritical statement. Cortines, who had joined with The Times in demanding that value added analysis be a major part of the evaluation system, had the audacity to praise the deceased teacher as a "passionate and caring teacher" who made a difference in the lives of his students. "We need more teachers like him."

Good grief! Cortines and The Times declare the victim less than effective, but we need more like him. Yes, we do need more like the young man that irresponsible journalism and a hell-bent for "reform" LAUSD administration hounded to his death.

Let the journalists return to crusading for fewer potholes. Let the Superintendent and the one-track reform-minded crowd on the LAUSD board leave the evaluation of teachers to educators, not statisticians. Let The Times publicly admit its responsibility in this tragic event and turn its reporting on education over to those who know teaching because they've been there.

Ralph E. Shaffer
Professor Emeritus, History Cal Poly Pomona

Dr. Shaffer's Open Letter to Los Angeles Times on VAM

Dr. Diane Ravitch Speaks Truth to the Privatizers' Power

[Click if you can't view the video]

Dr. Diane Ravitch Speaks Truth to the Privatizers' Power

Debating Far Right Charter Voucher Supporters on Education Issues

Bill Grundfest, a disciple of Ludwig von Mises' Austrian Economics, and one of the most vocal founders of Los Angeles Parents Union (LAPU)/Parent Revolution debated several social justice advocates and public school teachers on education issues on Wednesday night.

Here is the radio show recording.

Listen to internet radio with Bronx Teacher on Blog Talk Radio

[Click if you can't view the audio player]

For those unfamiliar with this corporate charter voucher school spokesperson, and bosom buddy of Marco Petruzzi and Ben Austin, the following article provides a good background:

Billy the Big Bad Bully for Corporate Charter-Voucher Charlatans


Thoughts on the conversation

The radio show debate was very interesting. Mr. Grundfest is actually less combative verbally than when writing. While there were deep, fundamental disagreements between himself and all the other callers (myself including), the conversation didn't devolve into name calling, except when Grundfest discussed with much vitriol the UTLA president A.J. Duffy, and education luminary Dr. Diane Ravitch. Grundfest seemed taken aback that callers were able to rebut all of his arguments with ease, and were better versed in statistics than he was. He became very quiet when points about parents having even less power in charter-voucher schools were brought to the fore. It seemed as if in all his railing against the deficiencies of LAUSD (they are myriad), he hadn't considered the alternative is worse. He also needs to read about what tenure really is, instead of listening to the Ann Coulter/Ben Austin/Glen Beck explanation.

If Grundfest wasn't counter-posing privatization to LAUSD he would find me aligned on many points. Funny how the right wingers think they are alone in criticizing bureaucracy — social justice advocates and teachers would also rather see that money being spent in classrooms! Where we differ is that he is only critical of LAUSD administrators making big salaries, but when Anna Ponce, Judy Burton, or Marco Petruzzi make a quarter million a year, then there's no discussion from Grundfest of how that money should be "used for kids." On the left, we're consistent on our message, let's have the money go into the classrooms, whether in public schools or charter-voucher schools. We don't think public school administrators should be getting rich at the expense of children, and we certainly see the obscenity of poverty pimps like Geoffrey Canada making more than a half a million a year, while countless NYC public schools languish broke.

Grundfest was also surprised to learn that I was not in a union, which completely took the air out of his mantra: "this is only unions against parents." He was further surprised when I told him about how I would leave my house two hours early during the WGA strike to help the Writers Guild members picket Paramount Studios before I would go to work in the mornings. Grundfest is a member of the WGA himself. I explained that I support the rank and file of every union, because I believe all workers deserve protection from their capricious employers, doesn't matter if it's WGA, UTLA, ILWU or the NBA Players Association.

While I'm sure we'll continue to have heated debates with Grundfest, I'll give him credit for one thing: at least he is willing to debate the social justice crowd on education issues!

Cowardly Duncan, Broad, Rhee, Gates, Oprah, and all of their proxies like Ben Austin, Gabe Rose, and Davis Guggenheim avoid direct debates with public education advocates precisely because know they can't win the debate. The huge corporate privatization forces and their media outlets are excluding the left from this discussion precisely because they know communities and parents trust teachers. They know that working people naturally know that it is Wall Street, not public school teachers that are to blame. After all teachers are the ones that have dedicated their lives to helping children, not hedge fund managers and so-called philanthropists. Funny how the corporate lackies in the DLC/DFER crowd consistently say you cannot save public education by throwing money at it [1], but as soon as one of their privatized charter voucher schools are in trouble, they throw money at it, and lots of it! Mike Piscal is laughing all the way to the bank, while the taxpayers have been fleeced again.

If the so-called edreform crowd was really interested in improving education they would work with us instead of against us. Unfortunately they are only interested in profiting from what could be the very last of the public commons.

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NOTES
[1] http://www.parentrevolution.org/index.php/blog/entry/in_support_of_last_weeks_protests/

Debating Far Right Charter Voucher Supporters on Education Issues

Trailer for The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman Released

Check out this trailer for the upcoming expose of the nefarious reactionaries behind Davis Guggenheim's privatization propaganda piece. http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/



[Click if you can't view the video]

Trailer for The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman Released

Dr. Stephen Krashen - The Bad School Syndrome [1]

"[T]here should be no education marketplace." — Diane Ravitch (celebrated education professor and author)


Dr. Stephen Krashen and Jason Ohler

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1635

As is always the case, the recent Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll (PDK, September 2010) found that people rate their local schools much more positively than they do schools in the US in general.

The differences were striking: Forty-nine percent of respondents said they would give the public schools in their neighborhood a grade or A or B, but only 18% would give public schools in the nation A or B. When asked about the school their oldest child attends, 77% said they would give the school at A or B, suggesting that those who have more information about local schools rate them more highly.

How can this be so? Why do parents think their local schools are good, but at the same time think that Aermican schools in general are not good?

In his commentary, John Schnur makes the astonishing statement that this result shows that people overestimate how good their local schools are: "Parents need more, better information" (the title of his article). But parents get information of the best kind: First hand from direct experience.

In a column accompanying last year's poll, which produced nearly identical results, Gerald Bracey ("Experience outweighs rhetoric") gives a logical explanation for this phenomenon: "Americans never hear anything positive about the nation's schools," noting that "negative information flows almost daily from media, politicians, and ideologues." [2]

Parents' views of the nation's schools are thus similar to
George Gerbner's "Mean World Syndrome," the view that because of the media, people think the world is much more violent than it actually is. Gerbner argues that this phenomenon prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat.

Bracey's view can be characterized as the "Bad Schools Syndrome." Because of media reports, people think that schools are much worse than they really are, which prompts a willingness to allow programs to be introduced that would otherwise not be tolerated.

Bracey's many columns in the Kappan and his books provided overwhelming evidence that this negative perception of the quality of the nation's schools is undeserved, that the parents' perceptions are much closer to the truth than John Schnur's point of view.

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NOTES

[1] This paper is a slightly revised version of a paper published in Substances News exactly one year ago. Clearly, nothing has changed since then.

[2] Emphasis by Robert D. Skeels

Dr. Stephen Krashen - The Bad School Syndrome [1]

Save Ethnic Studies Tour presented by Base Paulo Freire of Unión del Barrio

Base Paulo Freire of Unión del Barrio, Los Angeles Presents

Save Ethnic Studies Tour
http://www.SaveEthnicStudies.org

Delegation of Arizona students and teachers speak out against SB 1070 and the attacks on Ethnic Studies (SB 2281).

Friday, October 1, 2010, 6:00PM

Centro Cultural Francisco Villa
2100 S. Maple Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90011

Endorsed by:
Association of Raza Educators, Los Angeles
UTLA Raza Education Committee
Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC)
Association of Mexican American Educators (AMAE), Santa Monica,
and many more...

For more information: info_la@uniondelbarrio.org

Save Ethnic Studies Tour presented by Base Paulo Freire of Unión del Barrio

UTLA Brings Dr. Diane Ravitch to Los Angeles

UTLA Brings Dr. Diane Ravitch to Los Angeles

Some thoughts on Rick Ayers' "An Inconvenient Superman"

"[S]ome charters are known to discourage less academically inclined students from enrolling." — Los Angeles Times


Rick Ayers' excellent essay entitled An Inconvenient Superman: Davis Guggenheim's New Film Hijacks School Reform points out Guggenheim's embrace of the banking concept of pedagogy. This is first pointed out on Fred Klonsky's blog:

Waiting for Superman accepts a theory of learning that is embarrassing in its stupidity. In one of its many little cartoon segments, it purports to show how kids learn. The top of a child's head is cut open and a jumble of factoids is poured in. Ouch! Oh, and then the evil teacher union and regulations stop this productive pouring project. The film-makers betray no understanding of how people actually learn, the active and agentive participation of students in the learning process. They ignore the social construction of knowledge, the difference between deep learning and rote memorization. The film unquestioningly bows down to standardized tests as the measure of student knowledge, school success.

Here were my comments on Davis Guggenheim and this hideous portrayal of how human beings learn:

"Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor" — Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed

But the banking system of education does, and that's why the film depicts "The top of a child's head is cut open and a jumble of factoids is poured in."

Broad, Gates, Tilson, Hastings, Fischer, and all the other nefarious funders of school privatization believe wholeheartedly in the banking system of pedagogy -- for working people of course. One of the telling symptoms of these late stages of neoliberalism is that these rulers now treat their own working class as colonial subjects.

The smug Davis Guggenheim looks down at all of us with the condescending banking notion. Smart rich white male saviors like himself will liberate us from evil teachers who might challenge us to develop critical thinking skills.

Later, when a winger tries to attribute Davis' disgusting film to white guilt, I have this to say:

My original comment had little to do with so-called white guilt, and everything to do with paternalism. Namely, what Freire calls the "the false generosity of paternalism," which the oppressor often extends to the colonized as a means of maintaining their roles.

The charter-voucher industry and their propagandists might put on an occasional liberal veneer, but underneath they're free market worshiping snake oil salesman who are making a killing gorging at the trough of pubic funds.

Some thoughts on Rick Ayers' "An Inconvenient Superman"

October 7th National Strike and Day of Action

October 7th National Strike and Day of Action!
¡7 de Octobre Día Nacional Huelga y Día de Demonstraciones!



Defend Public Education and Social Services
Para Defender Educación Publica y Servicios Sociales

WEEKLY PLANNING MEETINGS IN LOS ANGELES
JUNTAS DE SEMANALES DE PLANEACIÓN EN LOS ANGELES
Sundays 2:30PM * Domingos a 2:30PM
AFSCME Council 36 Building
514 Shatto Place, Los Angeles 90020

For More information contact
Omar Hussein
omarhussein@gmail.com
(818) 613-0146

Para Mas Información llama
Arturo Velasquez
arturovlsqz@gmail.com
(323) 428-5711

National Actions to Defend Public Education, October 7th 2010 – National

Education 4 the People!

October 7th National Strike and Day of Action

Justice for Manuel Jamines!

Join the community tomorrow to protest the murder of Manuel Jamines. The following articles give more background:

LAPD shooting stirs residents' anger — Victor Fressie

The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary — Dr. Danny Weil

Rally and protest information from the SCIC website:

Justice for Manuel Jamines!
Stop Killer Cops!
March and Rally
10 am Saturday, September 18th
6th St and Union

On Sunday, September 5th 2010, Manuel Jamines, a Guatemalan migrant, was shot twice in the head on a crowded street by an LAPD officer known in the community for his brutality. Frank Hernandez, the who carried out the shooting, has already been investigated for shooting an African-American woman and then again more recently for shooting an 18-year-old Latino. He has not been charged with murder or even fired, and is currently on desk duty at the 437 million Parker Center Police HQ.

Eyewitnesses from the community have come forward to expose the police cover-up and revealed that Manuel was unarmed when he was gunned down. But their testimonies were ignored by the police investigators. Shooting like this don't occur in wealthy neigborhoods—only in communities where African-Americans, Latinos and migrants live. The police is trying to cover up the anti-Latino racism tha characterizes their presence in Westlake, but the people are fed up!

District Attorner Cooley Prosecute Hernandez for Murder!
Stop Police Terror in Black, Latino, and Migrant Communities!
Stop the ICE Raids! We Demand Full Legalization!

Contact: 323-602-3480 or 213-712-0370 Dowload Flier for the this march and rally.

ANSWER's local site also has event information.

Justice for Manuel Jamines!

Jose Lara Speaks Truth to Power! No more LAPD atrocities!

Noted Los Angeles activist and social justice educator José Lara discusses LAPD's cold blooded murder of Manuel Jamines with RT's Kristine Frazao.



[Click if you can't view the video]

Jose Lara Speaks Truth to Power! No more LAPD atrocities!

Yet another white supremacist calls me a 'race traitor.' Don't they know that's a compliment?

I was just looking through my YouTube account messages, and noticed an interesting response to one of my comments defending my compañero Ron Gochez from right wing filth.

YouTube user AnnihilatingAngel had this flattering thing to say to me.

@rdsathene You're a dime-a-dozen "white" liberal punk brainwashed by the Social Marxism of Frankfurt School jews. Your kind pathetically tries to attain "righteous" status by lovingly sucking the stinky asses of "oppressed immigrants and the indigenous" while betraying your own besieged, dwindling people. But the brownies - who would NEVER Judas their own kind - still hold you in the contempt you deserve.

Nobody likes or trusts a traitor. Why not end it all right now? One shot, then peace...

First and foremost, I'm a LEFTIST, not a liberal.

Notice the AnnihilatingAngel accuses me of betrayal (whatever that means) twice. If there's any doubt of AnnihilatingAngel's leanings, his YouTube homepage features a confederate flag and his friends have screen names like Bobalex88. Don't know what 88 is in supremacist speak? SPLC has an excellent Racist Skinhead Glossary.

While being called a 'race traitor' is a badge of courage amoung us social justice activists, it's especially sweet when hurled at you by white supremacists, nativists, neo-nazis, and other right wing racist reactionary filth.

I remember receiving death threats for several brief entries I've written here, like this one. Let's not forget the vitriol and death threats my An open letter to anti-immigrant groups caused.

To be sure, the battles against school privatization, institutionalized racism, and vile nativism will earn you enemies. There's even reactionary right wing kooks like the so-called edobserver blogging about me from his mom's basement while listening to the Fountainhead book-on-tape and playing with his Milton Freidman action figures. Keep that whole libertarian, anti-union, pro-privatization, racist, bigoted LAPU/PR thing going there Anthony, it sure suits you. Sounds like you've been reading a few too many Texas textbooks and fantasizing about fellow charter-voucher school cheerleader and hedge-fund manager Whitney "we need a lot more well-off, well-educated white folks" Tilson. It's no small secret that most of the DLC/DFER charter-voucher advocate camp, like white supremacist scum, want a return to Jim Crow segregation.

I take their racist attacks in stride. I can sleep at night knowing that I take principled stands and fight for my working class sisters, brothers, and the oppressed on every occasion.

¡La lucha sigue y sigue!

Yet another white supremacist calls me a 'race traitor.' Don't they know that's a compliment?

On "Lessons from the Locke experiment"

"As for Charter schools, its not quite so simple. They collect the data, but often do not provide it reliably to the public school district." — Jason Felch (Los Angeles Times)

"The lowest-performing, based on test scores, is the large Green Dot chain." — Los Angeles Times

On Lessons from the Locke experiment


I applaud the Times for finally making a somewhat fair and sober assessment of the charter-voucher industry's long unchallenged claims. This statement in the editorial: "[T]he charter school movement [sic] in general, and Green Dot leaders in particular, criticized slow-to-improve scores at public schools for too long to now claim that it's unfair to emphasize those scores" is something I've said for years, and have even had Op-Eds I wrote to the same effect rejected by the Times on several occasions. 

Nevertheless, it's good to see the Times demonstrate a modicum of honesty in this piece, even though there is no mention of the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars Marco Petruzzi has used to create these 'modest' improvements at Locke. We have to ask if a publicly controlled entity wouldn't have used those same funds to better effect, not to mention in a democratic fashion.

Regardless, Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and Ben Austin's prognostications of complete proficiency in a year have been proven entirely false! While social justice advocates like myself don't place much credence in standardized tests, APIs were the blunt object those well heeled Green Dot executives used to club everyone into handing the public school over to them. They were the chorus of 'no excuses,' now they're there singing an entirely different tune.

On "Lessons from the Locke experiment"

Open Letter to Jed Wallace: Jason Felch statement conflicts with CCSA claims?

Mr. Wallace:

On numerous occasions you've asserted that charter-voucher school operations are completely transparent to both the communities they supposedly serve, and the taxpayers whose money they use to operate with. You've gone as far as to write an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles TImes making the highly specious claim that 990 tax forms contain all the information anyone would want to know. As recently as a few weeks ago you were on the Pat Morrison radio show claiming that charter-voucher schools are completely transparent and accountable. You further stated that all CCSA members are compliant with the Brown Act.

So imagine my complete astonishment when the Los Angeles Times' Jason Felch, whose bias and utter deference to your industry is legendary, said the following today:

Jason Felch: As for Charter schools, its not quite so simple. They collect the data, but often do not provide it reliably to the public school district. Because of this, we were unable to amass enough data to analyze their results.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2010/08/chat-about-grading-the-teachers-lausd.html

My question is, for all your bombastic bluster about charter-voucher school accountability and transparency, how do you reconcile the above Felch quote to the distorted reality you present?

Contemptuously

Robert D. Skeels

Open Letter to Jed Wallace: Jason Felch statement conflicts with CCSA claims?

Dr. Stephen Krashen - Why are educators supporting RTTT? Time to reread C Lutenbacher.

I am reposting Cindy Lutenbacher's letter to the NCTE from March.  It applies not only to NCTE, but to IRA, and to all 21 of the organizations that are demanding that they too be required to submit standards, and be tested.

What is going on?

It could be that people have no idea what is really happening. In a recent article posted on yahoo, it was pointed out that some members of congress are supporting Race to the Top but don't really understand it. Is this true of education professionals also? Do they know what the Duncan plan entails? Not just magnet schools, not just teacher evaluation connected to standardized tests, but also a skill-building based approach, and massive testing such as we have never seen before. I have posted the evidence.  The tests will be followed by texts, you can be sure.

Or could it be that people think that if they have a "seat at the table" they can soften the blow? Or take advantage of the situation and receive lots of stimulus money?  I have several responses to this: You won't soften the blow to any significant extent. Duncan et al have made it clear that it is their way or the highway.

And if you think you can personally profit from all this while students suffer, you have no honor.

Stephen Krashen


Cindy Lutenbacher letter:

March 12, 2010

Dear NCTE,

For many years, you were my professional organization, and I was proud to participate in the annual conventions.

But you betrayed me.

You sold your soul for a "seat at the table." You sold us out because "withholding expertise and comment from this effort would be inconsistent with NCTE's mission and could further isolate teachers from a process which might profoundly influence the conditions of teaching and learning" (Open Letter to NCTE Members). You pretend that you don't know what follows this "standards" or goal setting. Such pretense is specious at best, for this Duncan DOE is already accepting bids for the standardized tests.

Did you imagine that all of a sudden, Arne Duncan would throw out the absurd, research-denying multiple-choice "measures" and turn over the assessment to the teachers?

Did you imagine that Mr. Duncan would suddenly reverse his position that teacher jobs be tied to student scores, that he would suddenly trust us?

Did you imagine that what just happened in Central Falls was/is an aberration? In Central Falls, demographics make the story more complex and real: "According to the NECAP results (New England Common Assessment Program), of the Central Falls High School students who participated in the assessments, 22% were identified with Limited English proficiency with English as their second language compared to 3% for the state. Twenty-three percent had an IEP (individualized education plan designed for students with special needs) compared to the state average of 17% and 85% were classified as economically disadvantaged compared to the state average of 35%."

Did you imagine that we would forget the research that conclusively shows that poverty is the central problem with our schools? Did you think we wouldn't know that the United States has the highest rate of children in poverty of all industrialized nations in the world?

By sitting at this table, you have colluded with the very people whose motives are diametrically opposed to what education in a democracy must be. You have joined forces with the likes of the Business Roundtable and its cadre of corporations ready to steal fortunes from the pockets of taxpayers.

I said that you have sold us out, but the truth is far worse. For your precious seat at this poisoned table, you have traded the lives of our children, as if they were commodities on a stock exchange.

Shame.

Sincerely,

Cindy Lutenbacher
A former member of NCTE

Dr. Stephen Krashen - Why are educators supporting RTTT? Time to reread C Lutenbacher.

Blume piece mentions Perfidious Petruzzi and Mayor Failure*

The Animo Social Justice (?) Charter is closing for no other reason than Green Dot cannot show a return on their financial investment. Skeels' - a very adept freelance forensic accountant - questioning of Petruzzi's "We don't have a rich guy...." is right on. It shows that Green Dot's rich guys are putting their eggs in more lucrative baskets - like another Green Dot school on the Westside. [Read the Billionaires Boys Club chapter in Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System] — Scott M. Folsom (4LAKids)

Well, now we know why the Los Angeles Times set school privatization bulldog Jason Song loose on another fact-free teacher bashing tirade comprised of the highly discredited "value-added" theory over the weekend. It was to mitigate the damage from today's piece by Howard Blume, Annual test scores rise in L.A. Unified schools, which shows LAUSD Public School scores up, and privatized charter-voucher industry darlings like Green Dot and PLAS only making nominal gains. I had some thoughts on these very telling revelations which appear in the comments under the article. They are reproduced here.

Could Marco Petruzzi be any more contradictory or mendacious? He and Ben Austin railed endlessly about Locke's low APIs and the so-called achievement gap (since silver-spoon-babies like Petruzzi and Austin can't fathom how poverty effects performance) as part of their hostile take over of Locke. They used test scores like a club to pummel the district and the community into handing public property over to their little private clique. Suddenly "There is so much focus on test scores that people miss the bigger picture of what a turnaround is about."

Let me get this straight. When a school is run by a public and democratically controlled entity, test scores are the sole criteria for judging. When run by private and secretly controlled entities (CMO/EMO), test scores are irrelevant. Nice! Given the litany of lies Petruzzi told the Animo Justice community, it's astonishing that Howard Blume would quote the pathological liar to begin with. I guess Petruzzi's quarter million a year salary qualifies him to make statements no matter how fact-free they are.

As soon as Petruzzi went on public record saying Green Dot doesn't get outside money from millionaires, [1] he should have lost any and all credibility with the press. He and Austin also guaranteed that all Locke students would be proficient within in a year, but we'll ignore that for now. When will the Los Angeles Times just come out and admit the are the public relations arm of the DFER and charter-voucher industry.

Aside from exposing Green Dot's deviously dishonest CEO for being the serial liar he is, it's also great to see that the 'Education Mayor" has managed to pull off such stellar proficiency rates!

Just think. If we allow Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Marshall Tuck, Joan Sullivan, and Ryan Smith to apply their Project for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) best practices, derived from Green Dot Public [sic] Schools and Alliance for College-Ready Schools, district-wide, then the whole district can boast that "fewer than 2% of students scored as proficient in math."

Funny how all Los Angeles' CMOs, EMOs, and schools under mayoral control are also the leaders in remediation rates for the students they manage to get into college as well. Somehow, the Los Angeles Times ignores the smoke and mirrors there too.

-----
NOTES

[1] Perfidious Petruzzi

The former Bain Capital employee has made a fortune in the crooked charter-voucher industry. Well known for his mendaciousness, another of Petruzzi's despicable stream of lies starts around the 4:05 mark of this video. Gotta love when he says "We have no money. We're a non-profit. We don't have a rich guy that even [sic] gives us extra."

Even given the kind of wealth Petruzzi, Barr, and Austin are accustomed to, it's disingenuous at best for him to not consider Green Dot's extremely well heeled donors as not being rich. Eli Broad, William Gates III, The Walton Family, Reed Hastings, Donald Fischer, et al. certainly would qualify as those rich guys that perfidious Petruzzi denies receiving money from!



[Click if you can't view the video]

The "no rich guy" falsehood is just one of Green Dot Public Schools CEO Marco Petruzzi's standard fare of fallacies. This is the kind of dishonesty that only Jed Wallace, Gabe Rose, Yolie Flores Aguilar, and Ben Austin could love. Look for a full blown article on this real soon.

I KNOW EXECUTIVES AND BUSINESSMEN HAVE A DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING, BUT I WAS TAUGHT THAT WHEN YOU INTENTIONALLY SAY SOMETHING YOU KNOW IS UNTRUE — IT'S A LIE. I SUPPOSE THAT IS THE SO-CALLED STATUS QUO I'M ALWAYS ACCUSED OF DEFENDING, TELLING THE TRUTH.

* The reference to Mayor Failure, of course, comes from the absolutely brilliant cover of the June 2009 Los Angles Magazine. The milquetoast article it was plugging isn't all the critical of the pro-corporate, pro-privatization, pro-business Mayor, but it was a start.

Blume piece mentions Perfidious Petruzzi and Mayor Failure*

Open Letter to Journalist Pat Morrison Regarding Public Education

Not only do the teabaggers and the edreform crowd use the same right wing reactionary think tanks, they both cling stubbornly to the thoroughly discredited notion that markets benefit anyone outside the ownership class. That's why Whitney Tilson quotes AEI, Ben Austin quotes the Hoover Institution, and RiShawn Biddle writes for 'Reason' magazine. These, and the rest of Arne Duncan's most stalwart supporters are to public education as the teabaggers are to civil rights. Not that there isn't a ton of overlap between teabagger and edreform memberships in the first place.

Open Letter to Journalist Pat Morrison Regarding Public Education

Written in response to her recent radio show on KPCC featuring CCSA Executives


I want to invite Pat Morrison to discuss this issue with grassroots and volunteer public education activists, rather than just highly paid charter-voucher industry demagogues like Jed Wallace and Ben Austin. While I sincerely hope that Ms. Morrison has had to opportunity to read celebrated education professor and author Diane Ravitch's watershed book: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, she would also do well by talking to public education advocates. I for one, and many of my fellow public education activists engaged in the struggle to preserve public education from privatization, would be happy to be interviewed, or consulted on this issue.

Many of us have spent years observing the real effects of privatization and other fallout of the so-called 'edreform' movement (I'm loathe to call anything funded by billionaires a movement). We've also watched hucksters like Wallace, Tuck, Barr, Ponce, Canada, Ressler, Christie, Smith, Piscal, Austin, Petruzzi, Burton, and McFarlane all get rich off the booming charter-voucher industry.

Over the years, Pat Morrison has tended to report from a progressive angle, and we all appreciate that. One wonders if she is aware that not only are these charter-voucher spokespersons she allows on her show in total agreement with institutions like The Heritage Foundation, The Hoover Institution, The Cato Institute, AEI, and other far right think tanks on these issues, but they frequently quote and use information from these reactionary organizations to forward their privatization agenda.

Those of us that advocate public education are in favor of fully funded, democratically run public schools, in which community, families, and faculty participate in the decision making for running schools. This is a far cry from the agenda of those private, secretive, unelected boards of EMO, CMO, and other charter-voucher institutions whose members are typically comprised of investment bankers, CEOs, businessmen, and hedge fund managers--none of whom have children in those schools, nor live in our communities. Rather than pit working class parents against working class unionized teachers, as Wallace and Austin do on a constant basis, we seek to unite both of those groups with the rest of the community and use our public schools as a focal point to forward the struggle for social justice, equality, and egalitarianism.

Please Ms. Morrison, give the social justice side of this debate a fair hearing. Businessmen like Austin and Wallace already have enough corporate media outlets for their antiquated and discredited ideas.

Open Letter to Journalist Pat Morrison Regarding Public Education

Advocating Public Education Roundup 10W31

Barr's parent organization [LAPU/Parent Revolution] 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)

A really interesting piece on the self colonized queen of privatization — Yolie Flores Aguilar's real employer!

IS THE GATES FOUNDATION INVOLVED IN BRIBERY?

Of course, what more could we expect from the cutthroat capitalist and convicted predatory monopolist from Redmond, who, by the way, has been caught engaging in more malfeasance as of late. To wit: Bill Gates' other company dinged for fraud. The corruption, graft, fraud, billionaire bribery, and general malfeasance will continue unabated until the charter-voucher school industry is confronted by communities and social justice activists.

Special thanks to 4LAKids for sharing this story. I have a big piece featuring Yolie coming out soon — stay tuned.

This is from Leonie Haimson's excellent NYC Public School Parents blog:

"Diane Ravitch and Leonie Haimson on Democracy Now"



[Click if you can't view the video]

Push back against their propaganda

Some responses to some very unfortunate pieces in the always charter-voucher friendly local corporate media.

First a response to Joan Sullivan's utterly disgusting Op-Ed in the Daily News.

The Mayor's failed PLAS experiment should be enough to condemn his efforts, along with those of Marshall Tuck, Joan Sullivan, and Ryan Smith as untenable. Whether we look at PLAS schools' miserable API scores, their laughable remediation rates for the students they do manage to get into higher education, or the fact that their own staff have voted no confidence in the institutions, Sullivan's assertion that PLAS is a model is like Green Dot suggesting Animo Watts II is a top school!

Sullivan then trots out the highly discredited phrases of the privatizers' handbook: "competition, choice, and innovation." Three concepts that when put into practice have demonstrated to be utter failures. Whether we look at Chicago's failed renaissance 2010, Bloomberg's heavy handed blunders in NYC, or Los Angeles own rogues gallery of PLAS and charter-voucher disasters, it becomes clear that letting business executives without even a cursory understanding of pedagogy run schools always results in disaster.

We understand the Mayor wants to appease and ingratiate himself to the reactionary, wealthy, and powerful advocates of school privatization like Broad, Gates, and Hastings. We understand he hopes to garner their financial support for his future political aspirations. However, offering up our communities and children's futures to these vile robber barons is despicable. He needs to understand that our communities will fight him and his wealthy patrons tooth and nail.

We want PUBLIC schools that serve our communities! We want PUBLIC schools that are accountable to our communities! We want PUBLIC schools with publicly elected transparent boards! We want PUBLIC schools that treat students, teachers, parents, and employees with dignity! In other words, we want the exact opposite of what Villaraigosa, Wallace, Tuck, Barr, Ponce, Ressler, Christie, Smith, Piscal, Austin, Petruzzi, Burton, and McFarlane are trying to foist on us. PLAS, like all it's charter-voucher counterparts, is a money making scheme at the expense of the public.

Sullivan should apologize to the DN readers for perpetrating this fact-free op-ed on them, and then be forced to read Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Next a comment on the ever charter-voucher obsequious Los Angeles Times Weeding out underperforming charter schools

The CCSA is only worried that the smaller charter-voucher schools can't contribute enough to Jed Wallace's already bloated salary. Avaricious Austin and the charter-voucher industry lackeys on the State Board are making noise about this for two reasons. First, it provides them some political cover in their ongoing march to privatize public schools and garner more coveted public funds for their wealthy friends — who just happen to be charter operators. Second, it insures that only the largest, best capitalized members of the charter-voucher industry are able to funnel more public tax money into their coffers. When we look at any measure, API, remediation rates, the CREDO study, the charter-voucher 'movement' (I'm loathe to call anything funded by billionaires a movement), has proven to be a bust. Well, a bust for everyone except those getting rich from it. Tools like quatidion try hide their pro-corporate agenda by blaming organized labor, but we all know that charter-voucher bubble is nothing more than the next big housing crash. Our communities, families, and children deserve better than having our futures dictated by Broad, Gates, Hastings, Fischer, et al.

Here's a novel idea, let's weed out any school that won't commit to educating every child. That requirement would shut down the entire charter-voucher industry!

Advocating Public Education Roundup 10W31

Take the Offensive! L.A. Peoples' Campaign for City Council

The following is courtesy of activist Jubilie Shine

We must get off the habitual defensive if we are to actually accomplish the goals we proclaim. Even from a defensive position we need to mount a counter offensive if we are to win:

1. To build serious grassroots organization door by door and block by block
2. To convert activists into organizers
3. To unite democratic and revolutionary forces
4. To win positions of power and influence and convert those resources into weapons for the peoples' struggle
5. To concretely expose the irreconcilable contradiction between peoples' democracy and imperialism/monopoly capitalism

Protest campaigns are not enough! cursing your enemy is not the same as fighting him, as Mao said. campaigns for positions we are not now able to win are handcuffed at best and at worst, providing objective assistance to the most dangerous elements of the enemy.

But through local electoral campaigns we can raise all the large issues. war, immigration, economy, police abuse, the universal is in the particular!

In March '11 the even numbered city council districts are up in L.A. -- cross-hairs on bernard parks, Crenshaw District 8.

The disgraced (Rampart!) ex-LAPD Chief ran unopposed last time and won with a patry 6,480 votes. Since then he ran for County Supervisor and got thrashed by Ridley-Thomas. Now his own campaign manager has filed a $146,000 lawsuit against him. His machine is fractured. 3 people so far have stepped up to challenge him--all likely business candidates who will split their votes.

The door is wide open for an aggressive, uncompromising, peoples' campaign to run our own candidate on a united front platform and seize a seat in city government or at minimum establish unprecedented working unity among all local progressive forces.

We do not want a personality showcase. We want an issues-driven program democratically determined by the community itself as the driving force. We are proposing a PEOPLES' CONVENTION! In which all residents can participate--regardless of residency status, prison record, or affiliation--to openly nominate and democratically elect their candidate behind the platform they will ratify, to challenge the city establishment and its corrupt ex-police chief for who best represents the interests and needs of the community.

We are inspired by the recent city council victories of Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, Mississippi, of Ras Baraka in Newark, NJ, and our very own sweep of the south central neighborhood council.

We invite all honest forces who are ready to put in work to our jump-off meeting. 1:30 pm sharp! Saturday, August 7 at the Afiba Center, 5730 Crenshaw North of Slauson. Parking in the US Bank next door.

City of Newark 2010 Inauguration -- Ras Baraka Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjTyjurLKY

Unite the many, defeat the few!

Take the Offensive! L.A. Peoples' Campaign for City Council

What Are Teachers Worth?

[Click if you can't view the video]

What Are Teachers Worth?

Caught Ben Austin and Jed Wallace's incessant lies on KPCC today

"The original vision of charter schools was that they would help strengthen public schools, not compete with them." — Diane Ravitch (celebrated education professor and author)

Pat Morrison featured pathological liars, and charter-voucher industry beneficiaries, Ben Austin and Jed Wallace on KPCC today. Sadly, since Morrision is very unfamiliar with the topic, she allowed her guests to continue unabated in a non-stop stream of lies, misinformation, and propaganda. One of the more memorable — and certainly laughable — fallacies was Austin's reactionary claim that market forces will fix education. The second coming of misanthrope Ayn Rand, or all time huckster Milton Freidman anyone?

Fortunately, several people (myself included) were able to call into the radio show and make an effort to expose these two charlatans. Unfortunately, in most cases we weren't able to rebut the fact-free responses of the charter-voucher industry's highly paid representatives.

Here are edited comments I typed on the KPCC page for the show segment.

Charters are private institutions taking public funds and extending education to a small subset of public students. Charter-voucher schools are not subject to most laws, including the Public Records Act. They have private, unelected boards that do not accommodate community or even the parents whose children attend their institutions. A perfect example of this is how Green Dot closed Animo Justice without any input whatsoever from the students, parents, teachers, or community where the school served. Here are some articles addressing that:

A REAL Parent and Student Revolution brewing at Corporate Green Dot CMO Charter Schools

South Central protests school closures

Taking on a charter school closing

Wallace and Austin have both made a killing on the Charter-Voucher industry. For an in depth look at Austin's shady dealings, please see this piece:

Political Patronage for Green Dot Public Schools' Chief Propagandist

What the CCSA, Austin, Wallace, and all the others making a fortune in the charter-voucher industry won't tell you amidst their claims of college placement are their epic remediation rates. Some of Green Dot's schools boasting placement in the CSU system have up to 70% of their students having to take remedial math. Their percentages for English aren't much better. There is so much to expose about charter-voucher schools, but since they are generating so much money for their executives and vendors, many are looking away.

I don't know if anyone remembers the well heeled Jed Wallace's nonsensical piece defending charter-voucher accountability in the Los Angeles Times a little ways back. In the piece he makes the outrageous statement that a charter school's 990 form has all the information the public were ever needs to know about their closed and secretive operations. Really? Trying to determine a 501c3 operations from a 990 is akin to grokking someone's lifestyle from a 1040EZ form. They're both tax returns! The California Charter School Association's Jed Wallace and his slimy charter-voucher counterparts like Barr, Ponce, Ressler, Christie, Smith, Piscal, Petruzzi, Burton, and McFarlane don't want the public to know any details of their money making machines — they're far too profitable!

A very special thanks to the la_teacher_guy for contacting me about the broadcast and encouraging me to call in to put the heat on scoundrels like Wallace and Austin. I'm sure both of them were well compensated for their misinformation campaign today.

Caught Ben Austin and Jed Wallace's incessant lies on KPCC today

Education and Liberation With Adrienne Johnstone and Elizabeth Terzakis

Education and Liberation: Toward a Marxist Pedagogy from International Socialist on Vimeo.

[Click if you can't view the video]

Education and Liberation With Adrienne Johnstone and Elizabeth Terzakis

A small dose of sanity in an unexpected place

Dr. Krashen wins an award. Let him tell you about it...

I just discovered that my letter, "Well Crafted," won special recognition from Southwest Airlines. It was featured prominently in the last issue of Spirit, the Southwest Airlines Magazine and won their "top letter" award. Winners of this award win a free Spirit T-shirt.

Well crafted

Published in Spirit (Southwest Airlines Magazine), July, 2010.

"Dream Job" is the right article for America at the right time. With the current emphasis on academics and high test scores, our country appears to be moving away from the time when "fixing things" and other forms of practical expertise was, as Mike Rowe says, "not only celebrated but also revered."

Former US Cabinet member John W. Gardner pointed out that we all lose when we lose respect for non-academic work: "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

Stephen Krashen, PhD
Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California

Original article at: http://www.spiritmag.com/features/article/dream_job/

The Spirit editor included this comment after my letter: We’re all for academics, Stephen. (Some of our best friends are emeritus professors.) But you’re right. If we’d all think more like craftsmen, our world would be—well, better crafted.

A small dose of sanity in an unexpected place