U.S. Still Richly Rewarding Banksters-- Demonizing Schoolteachers

[proud2BlibKansan]

I got back from London a few hours ago, and Roland will be back a few hours from now. I came back to the long steam bath I was craving. He's coming back to an uncertain job situation at McKinley Elementary School in Compton-- a situation likely to have a national impact.

"It will be," as the L.A. Weekly explained last week, "either the first school seized from its district by unsatisfied parents, or it will be the first school to fight back so hard it defeats a bold new chance at reform. And it will not be the parents on either side who make this decision, though their signatures are needed. It will be the warring giants who back them," and a move by ascendant Latinos, backed by a for-profit, anti-union charter school company (Celerity) and Michelle Rhee, to take over a formerly all-African-American school system. This is all part of Obama's so-called "Race to the Top" initiative, which is likely to have as bad an impact on education as Bush's "No Child Left Behind."

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Charles Jarvis on September 28, 1820 that education society's protection against tyranny he didn't have for-profit corporations in mind.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutions power.

more . . . http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/01/us-still-richly-rewarding-banksters.html

[freshwest]

1. This stinks.

[madrchsod]

2. obama-duncan opened the public education to the thieves

[Starry Messenger]

3. recommend.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. What a sick, sick society we are.

For shame, U.S.A., for shame!!!!!!!!!!

[LWolf]

5. "a bold new chance of reform."

If the nation could simply accurately identify where the problems are, schools could actually have "a bold new chance of reform." As it stands, that's simply one more Orwellian phrase masking the destruction of public education.

At this point, every single person who enables that destruction by buying into, and spreading, the demonization of teachers, unions, public education, and pubic servants IS the problem, and is complicit in the destruction of public education and the rest of our public services. They are complicit in the harmful, ultimately self-destructive road our nation is on.

One of my strong characteristics, for better or for worse, is that I rarely forgive, and I never forget. I know the inherent problems with that kind of implacability. From my perspective, though, the opposite is doing untold damage. Those willing to forgive and forget because of "team spirit," because they crave some scraps, because they fear those they are forgiving, are instruments of unhealthy relationships and long-term losses.

[jody]

6. "parents to take over their children's school", how undemocratic! n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Actually, it's pretend democracy

"And it will not be the parents on either side who make this decision, though their signatures are needed. It will be the warring giants who back them,"

[jody]

10. You quote "parents . . . signatures are needed" which is the essence of democracy. How then can you

claim otherwise?

IMO those who oppose letting voters democratically decide social issues support the tyranny of a minority.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Do you understand how lobbying works?

These parents are being heavily lobbied by the folks with the money who are backing the reform. There have been numerous threads here on this topic.

[jody]

12. "Do you understand how lobbying works?" Yes, my state's teachers union is among the most successful

in the nation with Paul Hubbard as its incredibly powerful lobbyist.

Do you understand how democracy works?

[leveymg]

7. Ok - No more public education in America. Next step - move the middle-class into trailers.

All in the name of reducing costs of doing business here for the banks and multinationals that have just looted the Treasury.

Isn't IMF restructuring fun, Mr. Summers? Enjoying your job, Mr. Obama? How about you, Mr. Duncan - doing your part, I see.

[Initech]

9. They get the "change" we voted for. We don't get shit.

[GeorgeGist]

13. I think there's something to this notion that ...

Banksters had fucked up teachers.