I'd been trying to pen something on this and searching for articles, Karmadillo at DU posted this, please share, and keep an eye out for more...

on edit, should have known to search the socialist sites... this has been a brutal week...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/scho-m13.shtml

The Obama administration is spearheading an unprecedented assault on public education in the US. The White House and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are promoting a nationwide wave of school closures, teacher and staff layoffs, attacks on teachers’ wages and conditions, and an expansion of privately run charter schools—all in the guise of education “reform.�

<edit>

Obama’s policies have encouraged these attacks on public schools. The administration and the Democratic-led Congress have refused to provide emergency funds to enable states and localities to close huge budget deficits resulting from rising unemployment and falling tax revenues, even as they handed over trillions in taxpayer dollars to bail out the banks.

The White House is seeking to exploit the fiscal crisis to push through its anti-public education agenda, tying whatever federal funds are on offer to attacks on teachers’ jobs and pay, the closure of schools in working class communities, and the expansion of publicly subsidized but privately owned charter schools.

Speaking before an audience of business executives at the US Chamber of Commerce March 1, the president welcomed the mass firing of teachers at a public high school in Rhode Island. Obama insisted that the 74 teachers and 19 other school employees at Central Falls High School, a “failing school,� had to be held “accountable.�

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

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

more...
governments...are a conspiracy of the rich, who on pretence of managing the public only pursue their private

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7907821&mesg_id=7907821

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-acts-reagan-1981-union-buster

from throwing rocks at that asshole.

I think the greatest parallel of Reagan and Obama is that they are the most bald faced liars in my lifetime.

I guess we'll figure out 'what it's gonna take' when we get there.

but I'll post the link here so other people can see it:

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

She's got an excellent two-parter on the current fucking mess:

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2010/03/broad-effect.html

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2010/03/broad-effect-part-two.html

Did you post it elsewhere and I missed it?? Thanks so much, I'll be sharing...what a bunch of assholes she's uncovered...

I am so tired from a week of hell, friends losing jobs, and the district asking us to freeze our pay, no way, no way...I'm an art teacher, not secure at all, but no way should they touch the pay...it would mean opening the contract...this is an attempt to bust the unions, just like the articles say, NO!

its exhausting...

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/sep2008/4/8/47181130-CFCC-326F-556314BE580BEB55.jpg

The first part has links to the excellent work Hannah Bell did over at DU on RI. I like this blog, I hope Perimeter Primate does more. She really pulled in a lot of information and organized it well.


:hug: I'm sorry about hell week. Districts where I live are starting to feel it too. This is going to be an awful year. :(

we will prevail, definitely fires me up! a good thing!

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-doubles-down-on-nclb.html


The Times article has both Harkin and Miller - the heads of the Senate and House committees - saying they like the proposals and everything should go through.

Great.

More testing, more school closures, more fear-based policy-making, and more fear-based teaching.

That's doubling down on NCLB, not changing the law for the better.

For some reason Arne Duncan says the punitive measures of NCLB are gone in this Obama re-do.

How is that?

Teachers and administrators will be fired if they do not raise the test scores of their students, schools will closed if the test scores of their students do not go up, and states will only get Title 1 money by showing the Obama administration how "innovative" they are - in other words, the Race to the Top competitive grants are going to be enshrined in the new education law every year and districts are going to have to do what the administration wants, like tie tenure and evaluations to test scores and open lots of charter schools in order to qualify for Title 1 money.

And for some reason known only to the Great Obama, schools that are already doing well on their measurements will receive more money while schools that are not doing well will be closed or re-structured a la Duncan's policy in Chicago and Bloomberg's here in NYC.

This is really really bad.

Any teacher who voted for Obama who still supports this man needs to have his or her head examined.

Within a few years, the entire public school system - both urban and suburban - will have been destroyed by Obama and Duncan.

We can only hope some people in Congress come to their senses and put a stop to this.

But I am not optimistic about that.

We can also hope that the teachers unions - the AFT and the NEA - come to their senses and say publicly that Obama is now the enemy.

No more of this "at least we're at the table" bullshit.

actually Mickey Rourke's face should do it on its own...hhhmmm wonder if I could find a mask...

unfortunately the rep from our school is the one who said "we should work on getting rid of the bad teachers here"...I called him out as anti-labor, but I'm the bad guy...

Anyway, a friend of mine, retired, is also going. We should be hearing what plans they have...probably, tighten your belts, we have to support the democrat bull shit...

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/03/even-more-punitive-approach-for-our.html



Today’s article in the NY Times on Obama’s plan to revamp NCLB might fool the uninitiated that the administration’s proposals will help solve the myriad problems that NCLB helped create – too many schools labeled as failing, too much emphasis on standardized testing, and the use of harsh accountability measures that hurt rather than helped improve learning conditions at our public schools:

The proposals would require states to use annual tests and other indicators to divide the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools into several groups: some 10,000 to 15,000 high-performing schools that could receive rewards or recognition; some 10,000 failing or struggling schools requiring varying degrees of vigorous state intervention; about 5,000 schools that would be required to narrow unacceptably wide achievement gaps; and perhaps 70,000 or so schools in the middle that would be encouraged to figure out on their own how to improve.

That clears it up. The Washington Post and AP stories are a bit more understandable.

Rather than 100% student proficiency, the new proposal would have as its goal “college readiness” (as taken from the current emphasis of the Gates Foundation.) Schools and teachers would be evaluated on the basis of test score gains rather than absolute standards.

Here, from the AP story is the “spin” from the administration, of a supposedly less punitive approach:

In the proposed dismantling of the No Child Left Behind law, education officials would move away from punishing schools that don't meet benchmarks and focus on rewarding schools for progress, particularly with poor and minority students.

Yet what the administration is really proposing is even more punitive, to expand the pro-privatization and destabilizing policies represented in its "Race to the Top" slush fund, including school closures, charter takeovers, and/or supposed “turnaround models”, where at least half the staff would be fired, to all of the nation’s lowest performing schools, or else risk having their Title one funds being withheld:




Duncan wants to come up with a new name for NCLB. How about Children Left Behind, And For Good Measure We're Tossing Them a Granite Life Preserver? Children Walk The Plank.


http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae35/mpkartist/edupirate.jpg

This "go along to get along" mentality seems to have seeped in from the business world to our field. Gah! Will these people finally wake up when they find themselves wearing WalMart vests and teaching from a binder of corporate bullet points for $10 an hour?

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/03/broad-inside-game.html


Check out this posting on “The Broad Effect” , about how the Broad Foundation influences educational policy by inserting graduates of his Broad Superintendents Academy into top positions at urban districts from throughout the country, to pursue its privatization agenda, sometimes provoking controversy in the process.

Just as the Gates Foundation plays the "outside game" by putting its people inside the US Dept. of Education, where they can use the Race to the Top funds to bribe states to adopt their policies, Broad plays the inside game.

The Rhode Island State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, who recently ordered the firing of the entire teaching force of Central Falls HS, is a Broad graduate.

Here in NYC we have much experience with the grads of this fabled institution. The first was Chris Cerf, Class of 2004, formerly head of Edison charter schools, who became Deputy Chancellor for “Strategy and Innovation” at DOE, then moved over to the Bloomberg campaign, and is now is selling science curricula in Brazil. (See the inspired illustration above, thanks to David Bellel; sadly Cerf now seems to be excised from the “featured” alumni on the Broad website.) Also:

* Marcia Lyles, class of 2006, former Deputy Chancellor of Instruction, now Superintendent of the Christina School District in Wilmington Del.
* Jean-Claude Brizard, class of 2007, former DOE “senior executive for policy and sustainability” and now superintendent in Rochester, NY.
* Shael Polakow-Suransky, class of 2008, (currently Chief Accountability Officer at DOE).
* Garth Harries, class of 2009, former head of Office of Portfolio Development and now asst. Superintendent in New Haven.

* Currently, John White is in the Broad class of 2010, now Cerf’s successor as “Deputy Chancellor for Strategy” (he now apparently leaves off “Innovation” from his title)


One cranky troll on DU just called all this a "conspiracy theory". Uh, yeah right. It's not really a conspiracy when it's all out in the open. They're just hoping most people are too beaten down to pay attention.

so many kids will be lost...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/12/in-defense-of-our-school




WHAT WAS the response of students and teachers at CFHS to the election of Obama?

THE KIDS loved the idea of Obama. He looks like most of them. I mean, who wouldn't want that "Yes we can"? It's an old Spanish phrase: "Sí se puede." They love that, they love Obama. They were really into him.

Of course, on the staff, you have Republicans, Democrats, whatever--so the staff was pretty divided politically on who they wanted. But the kids were pretty sure it was Obama, all the way.

HOW DID that change when President Obama came out in favor of the firing of the teachers?

THE KIDS were very upset. They talked about it with their way of dealing with things with sarcasm: "Our boy dissed us in the press." "Obama doesn't know what he's talking about." "Obama needs to come to CF." "When's Obama coming to CF?" "I know Obama made a mistake, but I still love Obama." "I'm not giving up on Obama yet."

But all of them were disappointed. All of them felt like, "Whoa, what are you doing?"

AT THE national level, we saw the arrival of Education Secretary Arne Duncan as part of the Obama administration. At the state level, we had a new commissioner, Deb Gist, who came in last spring from a position in the Washington, D.C., schools. What is your opinion of this new wave of educational leaders?

I THINK they have an agenda--it's union-bashing. I think their agenda is to privatize. They're coming in and instead of saying, "Let's work with you," but they're trying to put programs on top of us. They never ask us what knowledge we have. They never consider our successes.

If we give them our successes, they downplay them; if we criticize them, we're whiny. So they always have a response that fits their agenda.

They've been throwing out ideas of charter schools within a school that's unionized. They took out the departments and made academies. Now, instead of having an ESL team or academy, they're putting in a charter school just for that population. So if they can't break the union one way, they want to push outside nonunion workers in. It's a different thing. We've never had that before.

Are we ready to deal with it? I don't know. I think we definitely have to get ready, because it's going to be a reality.

WHAT DO you think of the response of the unions, and what would you like to see from the union leadership?

I'D LIKE to see them immediately address even the minor issues at a bigger level, because they're being played up by the management. Turning a negotiation about six points into a firing mechanism is kind of extreme.

So if they're going to go extreme, we have to go extreme. In order to be ready to do that, you have to have the mechanism in place with the PR people to deal with the issues as they come up.

It took a little bit to get organized. In Central Falls, there was a union, but the strategies that management had took us by surprise.

But we shouldn't be surprised. We have strong unions. We should be ahead. We need to strategize ahead, instead of being reactive. I think I'm seeing that now, but I would have liked to see it at the beginning. I would like to see a more proactive union immediately involved when a district is being attacked from management--whether it's East Providence or Central Falls or Warwick or anywhere.

Proud to be an embarrassment

Owen Hill, a junior at Hunter College in New York City and an activist against budget cuts and tuition hikes, explains why he isn't well-liked by the college president.

March 10, 2010

Hunter College students, faculty and staff rallied during the March 4 Day of Action (SW)Hunter College students, faculty and staff rallied during the March 4 Day of Action (SW)

MY COLLEGE president thinks I'm an embarrassment to Hunter. I know this because she told me.

It happened two weeks ago when I was invited to attend an event related to Hunter College, but taking place off campus. President Jennifer Raab gave an arrogant introduction to a keynote speaker, during which she claimed that since its founding, Hunter (and by implication its administration) had maintained "an unwavering commitment to keeping Hunter accessible to everyone...despite class, race or gender."

Go ahead, let that sink in for a little bit. Read it a couple times. Mull it over, I'll wait. It took me a good minute to process what she said.

Now, think about any of a number of things currently happening at Hunter. Which of them suggest an "unwavering commitment" to keeping Hunter accessible? Is it the turnstiles? The budget cuts? The tuition hikes? The attempt to steal space from the Children's Learning Center?

By the time she was done, I was furious. Raab needed to be challenged at some level for lying to a large audience. But I didn't come that day to make a scene, so I waited until the keynote speaker had finished, slapped on my cheesiest grin and bounded forward, determined that I should be the first person she talked to.

"Hello, President Raab," I jumped right in, "I wanted to talk to you about something you said in your talk. You said that Hunter's administration has maintained an unwavering commitment to keeping Hunter accessible to everyone despite class, race or gender, but I actually feel like your administration hasn't maintained this commitment. I mean I haven't seen your administration do anything to fight the budget cuts or tuition hikes."

Not looking pleased, Raab stepped back with her right foot and began trying to pull an associate into the conversation, clearly attempting to exit, "This really isn't the place for this."

This wasn't the kind of reply you'd expect from someone who was maintaining an "unwavering commitment" to accessibility at Hunter, so I pressed on. "But what have you actually done about the budget cuts and the tuition hikes?" Her lips pursed, and she apparently thought it wise to actually respond, "What about the $4 million I raised?" she snapped.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOW, $4 million is a good chunk of money, but there are two reasons that this answer hardly suffices.

First, trading public money for private money is actually a disservice to the City University of New York (CUNY) system. If there's one thing most people have learned from Barack Obama's first year as president, it's that corporations don't ever give money away without expecting something in return, and this principle is just as true for CUNY as it is for the nation's highest office.

I don't know about others, but personally, I'm far from excited about the new Coke® Cafeteria or Shell Environmental Solutions Studies ("New Study from Hunter College Confirms Global Warming a Myth!").

The second glaring flaw in this argument is that $4 million doesn't even scratch the surface of what has been cut from CUNY's yearly budget in the last year and a half--$172 million for anyone who's curious.

I imagined my first argument wouldn't exactly win over a Rudolph Giuliani appointee, so I went for hard numbers: "Well, CUNY's budget is being cut by over $80 million this semester alone." I think this caught Raab off guard, because she went back towards evasion, although this time with a sharper edge in her voice. "I'm sorry, there are guests I have to greet," she said.

But I wanted to make a final point before she could go. "What about the Children's Learning Center?" I asked. "Your administration is cutting that, and that's--"

She cut me off quickly, "You need to get your facts straight. We never tried to cut the Children's Learning Center."

Not only was she getting much louder and the anger in her voice clearly building, but now she was flat-out lying. "Yes, you did," I replied, "You tried to take away a whole room until--"

Again, I was cut off, and again, Raab got louder and angrier: "You need to get you facts straight. It was ONE room that was underused." That the Learning Center is composed of only four rooms, and that the room's removal would mean lowering legally licensed attendance by nine pre-school slots and three after-school slots--this was apparently irrelevant to President Raab.

By this time, it was clear to me that our conversation had begun to attract some very real attention. Raab was talking very loudly, and as I looked around, I noticed that all heads in the immediate vicinity were pointed directly at us. I even felt a tug at my arm; someone was clearly trying to dislodge me from the confrontation.

My memory of what I said next is pretty fuzzy. I know I pressed on, and I imagine it was something along the lines of "That's still cutting the Children's Learning Center." But to be honest, this recollection is completely overpowered by the memory of Raab's response. For at this point, Raab, clearly not accustomed to having her hypocrisy called out, was absolutely livid, her face was red, and she was nearly shouting at me. "I hope you know that you're an embarrassment to this college."

As she continued she got louder, and "nearly shouting" became an inaccurate description. "You're an embarrassment to this college," she said, "and you're an embarrassment to your fellow Hunter students, because you don't have your facts straight. You do this every time I see you, and you don't have your facts straight, and it's totally inappropriate."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I WAS shocked. I let myself get pulled away, and the encounter ended. It wasn't just that I had been berated before a sizable crowd by the New York City's 41st most powerful woman (according to the New York Daily News). Being berated by powerful people should be an expectation--nay, a goal--of any activist hoping to fundamentally challenge the inequality of our society.

What shocked me was how rapidly things had escalated and how little I had done to escalate them. I assumed I'd be brushed aside with relative ease and tact, perhaps with a couple offers to "Come to my office, let's sit down and talk."

Maybe it's just that Raab has a particular hatred just for me, and another student intellectually challenging her arguments would not have provoked the same reaction. After all, "You do this every time I see you" was one of the very few things she said that afternoon that was not a lie. For in the interest of full disclosure, readers should know that I've made it a habit of confronting Raab about her role in the neoliberal project of privatizing CUNY, and driving poor and working class students, students of color and student parents out of my school.

In their place, administrators such as President Raab and Chancellor Matthew Goldstein are consciously trying to bring in an expanding base of white, middle class, out-of-state students who can and do pay much higher tuition than native New Yorkers--making them much more profitable acquisitions.

This is certainly not the fault of these students, many of whom have been economically wrecked by the crisis and driven out of the private university system by the unbearable cost of tuition. I myself am a white, out-of-state student with parents in good-paying, union jobs.

But since I arrived at Hunter three years ago, I've learned a lot about what CUNY means to New York's working class, to its poor and oppressed millions. I've learned about the struggles of these New Yorkers to gain and retain access to CUNY. And I've also faced my share of increasing economic hardship--and last year's $2,000 jump in out-of-state tuition certainly didn't help. Next year, I may have to declare residency in New York to continue my education, which would mean losing access to my parents' health care.

Because of my own situation and the situation of my fellow students, I find Raab's roles--both as a passive and active agent of the neoliberal agenda--nauseating and completely unacceptable, and I make sure she knows it.

So maybe her reaction was just because of our own history. But why would she be so flustered because a 20-year-old student doesn't like her? I mean this is Jennifer Raab--cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, president of one of New York's most prestigious public institutions, someone with money, power, influence and connections. And she freaked out. I mean, freaked out. I don't think I've been yelled at like that since I went through the "hide-behind-corners-and-scare-the-shit-out-of-my-jumpy-father" phase in elementary school.

But after thinking about our encounter for a bit, her reaction started to make sense. It's now clear to me that Raab, besides being someone with wealth and power, is also someone who is totally unaccustomed to having to answer to an informed and defiant student body, and that's why I was able to frazzle and embarrass her so easily. That's why she considers me an embarrassment to her college as a whole.

It's not because I don't have my facts straight. It's because I have my facts straight--and I know how to use them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IF THAT'S what it means to be an embarrassment to Hunter College, then I think this school needs more embarrassments. It's high time Gov. David Paterson, the legislature in Albany and CUNY's complacent administration feel the palpable anger of our campus, wherever they are. If we can't continue our lives unhassled, unassaulted by the daily attacks of this crisis, then neither should they.

They need to know we're watching them, and that we are not happy with what they're doing. In this respect, individual confrontations are important, and it's why I make a point of confronting Raab and other top administrators about the issues that are directly affecting the quality of my life whenever I see them. After all, shouldn't our administration be accessible and accountable to its student body?

But individual confrontations are not enough to fundamentally change the state of affairs at CUNY and in the state as a whole. For that, we need social movements.

The first reason this is true is that social movements, unlike individual confrontations, give everyone at Hunter the chance to protest against the things they don't like. Not everyone can just walk up to the president of their college and give her a piece of their mind.

Partially, this is simply an issue of confidence. As a straight, white man in an utterly racist, sexist and homophobic society, I was socially conditioned to be more loud, confident and assertive than the majority of working class people. Additionally, I don't have to worry being deported if I "talk back" to my president, and I maintain high grades, meaning I'm relatively secure from administration backlash.

However, mass protest and social movements provide something individual confrontation never can: safety in numbers.

If numbers provide us with safety, they also provide the second crucial reason we need to build mass social movements: efficacy.

Sure, one person can vent repeatedly at President Raab, can embarrass her, maybe even make her slip up. But it takes hundreds of people targeting the administration at every opportunity to force them to fundamentally alter their plans. To accomplish this, we need a living movement: networks of students, professors and faculty who are confident and politically sharp. Social movements are training grounds, where unengaged and demoralized students and workers become engaged and confident.

I was always an able public speaker, but I only found something worthwhile to say after participation in movements--after having my own understanding of how the world worked get constantly challenged and enlarged by those engaged in struggle around me. I also saw for myself why what I was fighting for was fundamentally right when I saw hundreds of people join me in protest and discussion.

So consider this essay a call to action. We all need to start building movements to social movements that train a whole new generation of embarrassments to Jennifer Raab. In the wake of March 4, I am optimistic about our ability to do so.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/10/proud-to-be-an-embarrassment