Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

December 27, 2016December 28, 2016 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Antonin Scalia, Arne Duncan, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Hillary Clinton, John King, John Podesta, Journalism, Labor, Local Control, Media, Obama, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teachers, union busting, Unions, White Allies, White Fragility, White Privilege 2016, 2017, blogs, children, culture, education, end of the year, Politics, Students, teaching, year in review

Is it just me or did 2016 really stink?

Both personally and publicly, it was a year I’d rather not revisit. I lost family. I lost idols (RIP, David Bowie and Prince). And we lost a horrible, protracted Presidential election.

But as has become a tradition, I find myself in front of the computer compelled to compile this list of the best of my own writings.

It would be easy to just say nothing much of value happened in 2016 so let’s just move on. But that wouldn’t be true.

There were good things. I’m just stumped to remember many of them right now. Perhaps as time goes on we’ll look back fondly on a smattering of events from this year that was. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature. That was kinda cool. There were some decent movies and a heck of a lot of good TV shows. The Arrival, Star Trek Beyond, Deadpool… Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, two excellent series about O. J. Simpson. We got a Harry Potter sequel of sorts – and another movie! I thought “Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winters was quite good. We got an amazing musical in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton.” Technically it opened in 2015, but it swept the Tonys this year. And hey! We stopped the Dakota Access Pipeline – for now.

It was certainly a productive year for blogging.

There was so much to write about.

This little education and civil rights blog went into overtime. I almost doubled traffic to the Website and got 2,145 more followers for a total of 11,335.

Gadflyonthewallblog, or if you prefer Gadfly on the Wall Blog, has been going strong since July 2014. In those two and a half years, I’ve gotten 849,000 hits – 363,000 just this year, alone. I also increased the number of posts I write a year. Last year, I only managed about 90 posts. This year it was 120 posts – a full 30 additional articles.

I hope you’ve enjoyed them. I hope you’ve found them valuable.

Sometimes readers send me a note saying that they’re going to share this post or that post with their school board or their representative in the House or Senate. I’m always very flattered to hear that something I wrote is helping someone else fight for what’s right. Of course, I do get a lot of hate mail, too. No death threats yet, but it’s getting awfully close. Readers have wished I was dead, but no one has offered to give me that little push to the other side.

I hope that no matter what your reaction, you’ll remember these are just the writings of a humble public school teacher and father. No one pays me, though sometimes I do get donations for the right to reprint something elsewhere. I write all this stuff because I have to. So few people seem to care what people like me have to say – even in my own profession. Like many others, I’ve stopped waiting to be asked.

So for your end of the year amusement, I offer this top ten list of my most popular writing from 2016. And here’s to a better 2017.

10) F is for Friedrichs… and Freeloader: A Supreme Court Nightmare

Published: January

Views: 5,550

Description: Some crazy lady didn’t want to pay the union for benefits that she got as a member and didn’t want to give them up. And rich folks everywhere had her back. They slobbered all over and pushed forward a bull crap case through the Supreme Court that probably would have made it much more difficult for labor unions everywhere had not Justice Antonin Scalia died deadlocking the vote. This article was my attempt to show how absolutely absurd the argument was against being forced to pay for something that benefits you.

Fun Fact: Now that Congress blocked President Obama’s Constitutional right to appoint a replacement for Scalia, and Donald Trump will probably get to pick a replacement, look for a similar case to come down the pike and win! Oh, 2016, will you ever truly leave?

9) The Charter School Swindle – Selling Segregation to Blacks and Latinos

Published: June

Views: 6,489

Description: Charter school promoters often sell these institutions to minorities as being “Separate but Equal.” Hm. Didn’t Brown v. Board outlaw that kind of practice because if schools were separate, they usually were anything but equal? This article is my attempt to explain how charter marketers are really selling minorities on segregation and trying to talk them out of their own civil rights.

Fun Fact: During the Obama years, it was common practice to sell corporate education reform as a way of increasing civil rights while it actually violated them. It will be interesting to see if that rhetoric gets left behind in the Trump years when lawmakers already seem to have little interest in them at all.

8) ‘We’re Sorry Teachers are Unfairly Blamed’ says John King – Man Responsible for Unfairly Blaming Teachers

Published: February

Views: 6,832

Description: When John King became temporary Secretary of Education, he went on an apology tour telling educators that the federal government was sorry for how terribly it had treated teachers. In particular, he was sorry the department had blamed educators for societal problems that our schools need to fix without giving them the resources necessary to actually correct them. However, King was personally guilty of many of these same practices in his old job in New York. It was typical disingenuousness from the Obama administration and the Democrats – ignore and abuse their key constituents until election time and then make positive noises in their general direction hoping we’d support them at the polls.

Fun Fact: It didn’t work.

7) Bernie Sanders is Right: We Should Federalize Public School Funding

Published: January

Views: 6,947

Description: The way we fund public schools in this country is messed up. In many states, we rely heavily on local property taxes which result in poor communities being substantially underfunded and rich ones having more than enough of everything. In most of the world, funding is done much differently – the burden is handled mostly by the federal government who then distributes it equitably from place-to-place. Bernie Sanders proved he was the real deal by suggesting we do the same thing here in the US, a suggestion that no one in either party was ready for.

Fun Fact: Even some of my readers were uncomfortable with this one. They feared that if the federal government took responsibility for funding, it would increase their ability to micromanage local school districts. This is a fair concern, but there is a way to do this without increasing federal control of education policy, just funding. In any case, funding disparity is an issue that hardly ever even gets acknowledged less than discussed. Thank you, Bernie!

6) Summer Break – the Least Understood and Most Maligned Aspect of a Teacher’s Life

Published: June

Views: 7,429

Description: Just about every teacher gets crap from non-educators about summer break. Everyone thinks they know what it’s like to be a teacher and how easy we’ve got it. This post was my way of shutting up the ignorant. It explains why educators aren’t teaching in summer, what they’re actually doing and how the public benefits from giving teachers this time. Share it with someone you love.

Fun Fact: Or just shut someone up with it.

5) Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager is a Longtime Corporate Education Reformer

Published: March

Views: 9,268

Description: Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, is not a nice man. I unearthed a speech he gave to corporate school reformers including Jeb Bush in 2012 where he pledges his allegiance to conservative, market-driven school policies. And THIS is the guy who was influencing Hillary’s approach just like he influenced Obama’s when he worked on that campaign. Legend has it, Podesta is responsible for giving us Arne Duncan. He suggested Duncan over Obama’s campaign education advisor Linda Darling Hammond, a critic of high stakes testing. These were truths that needed to be told and tell them I did.

Fun Fact: That this came out was a huge embarrassment to the Clinton campaign. All they could do was suppress it. Even dedicated supporters who read the article had to admit that she would probably not be very good for education – but she’d be better than Trump. It’s these kinds of Faustian bargains that derailed her campaign. How much better off we would have been had we had a real progressive to vote for than just another Democrat in Name Only!

4) What Antonin Scalia’s Death Means to the People I Love

Published: February

Views: 14,001

Description: Scalia was a terrible Supreme Court judge who used his position to justify hurting a lot of people. While others tried to hide their excitement at his passing, I let mine show. It might not be nice to say, but the world is a better place without him in it. I had hoped my honesty would make it harder for anyone like him to ever reach that office again. Unfortunately, weak Democrats and an incoming Republican President mean his replacement will probably be just as bad as he was.

Fun Fact: Originally my title was much more provocative – something like “Antonin Scalia was a Terrible Person and I’m Glad He is Dead.” It got over 10,000 hits in a few hours, but then I reconsidered and changed the title. People almost immediately stopped reading it.

3) Without Black Culture There Would Be No American Culture

Published: June

Views: 15,519

Description: We often talk about black people as victims. Police brutality, civil rights violations, economic disparities – but this is only half of the story. There is a buried history of success that rarely gets mentioned. Think of what American culture would look like without black people. It would be something completely different. This was my attempt to tip my hat at the incredible ways black Americans have made their mark on our society especially in the field of music.

Fun Fact: Black Twitter really liked this article. It was especially gratifying to see how appreciative people were. Of course, at the same time, some folks’ white fragility couldn’t handle it, either. Some readers tried to bully me into making changes here or there for no reason other than that it made black people look too good. Sorry, folks, no one determines what I put on this blog but me.

2) The Essential Selfishness of School Choice

Published: November

Views: 40,268

Description: School choice is less an education policy than a propaganda effort. Most people don’t understand what it really is. They don’t understand how essentially selfish it is like cutting a piece of pie from the middle of the dish so no one else can get a whole slice. I tried here in the most simple, direct language I could to explain why.

Fun Fact: With the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary and Trumps’ promise to spread school choice across the land like a Trump University franchise, the article remains popular. A lot of readers told me that it helped make sense of the issue for them for the first time. No doubt it’s been sent to policymakers across the nation. And it all started when I saw that picture of a ruined pumpkin pie on Reddit. I started to think – isn’t that a lot like school choice?

1) Top 10 Reasons School Choice is No Choice

Published: January

Views: 77,139

Description: Both Democrats and Republicans love school choice. So I thought that real education advocates needed a quick list of the main reasons why it is bad policy. There’s nothing really new or amazing here. We’ve known this for decades, but this keeps getting brought up again and again like zombie legislation. The wealthy will push this forward whether we want it or not. There’s just too much money they can make if it passes. That’s why it’s good to know why what they’re peddling is so harmful to students, parents and communities. Consider it ammunition for quick come backs.

Fun Fact: I wrote this long before the Trump administration was a prospect to be taken seriously. This was long before DeVos or the Donald pledged to bring this to the national stage. It has continuously gotten a steady flow of hits since it was published. If my goal as a blogger is to be useful, I think this post more than any other written this year fits the bill. You can quibble with one or two points here, but all ten are enough to show any rational person why school choice is no choice.

The Ongoing Resistance to Trump, Neoliberals & Anyone Else Trying to Destroy Our Schools

December 21, 2016December 22, 2016 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Arne Duncan, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, John King, Obama, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Republican, School Choice, school closings, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Teachers, White Privilege Barack Obama, Betsy DeVos, children, Corporate Education Reform, Donald Trump, education, neoliberal, plutocracy, Politics, Rex Tillerson, Steve Bannon, Students, teaching, Trump

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.” —Dale Carnegie

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

-Nelson Mandela

Buck up, Education Activists.

I see that hopeless look on your faces. I see it because it’s the same look reflected back at me in the mirror every morning.

Donald Trump will be our next President, and he’s filling his cabinet with people who are determined to destroy the very offices where he’s putting them in charge.

His Education Secretary doesn’t believe in public schools. His Labor Secretary doesn’t believe in worker’s rights. His Housing chief doesn’t believe in public housing. His head of Environmental Protection doesn’t believe in protecting the environment. Heck! You pick a department and he’s found someone to lead it who doesn’t believe in doing that job!

And to top it all off, he’s got a literal white supremacist as his chief strategist.

But you know what? I’m not scared.

You know why? Because I’m still here.

Seriously.

The forces of greed and ignorance have been salivating all over the prospect of destroying public education for decades, and they haven’t been able to do it.

We’re still here. In almost every municipality, district or borough, our public schools remain open.

Sure, they’re a bit worse for wear in some neighborhoods. But despite billions of dollars being spent to crush them under foot, we survive to fight another day.

And that day is today.

Why should we despair when we behold the glass menagerie of fools Trump has assembled to populate his administration? Glass breaks.

Why despair when hearing the tired rhetoric of Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South coming out of his mouth? We defeated both! We can do so again.

Take Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for Education Secretary. She’s a religious fanatic who’s dedicated her life to destroying public schools.

I’m not scared of her. We just fought off Arne Duncan and John King – two of the Democrats Ivy League privateers who actually knew what they were doing! If we can stop those jackholes from giving away community schools to rich corporations, we can take this rich Republican lady who never held down a real job and only knows how to get her way by bribing people to do her bidding.

Sorry, Miss Betsy, but your school vouchers aren’t driving my family out of our neighborhood school so my kid can be taken advantage of by multinational corporations and Christian Cult madrasas. We’re wise to your B.S. “School Choice” fantasies.

Then there’s Rex Tillerson, another corporate vampire who’d like to suck our classrooms dry. The Exxon CEO and Trump’s pick for Secretary of State is a climate denying gasoline peddler who’s dimwitted enough to think he knows everything. Drawing on his zero years of experience with children, he actually said aloud that struggling students were “defective products” as if they were irregular widgets being pressed out on the assembly line and unfit for service at his service stations.

I’m not worried about that gashole. He’ll be too busy enriching himself in backroom deals with foreign leaders to pay much attention to our schools. He’s no threat.

Okay. I’ll admit Steve Bannon makes my skin crawl. Trump’s picked a literal neo-Nazi propagandist as chief strategist, an alleged wife beater who apparently thinks black people don’t necessarily deserve the right to vote. Well, my grandfathers taught me how to deal with jackbooted Eurocentric thugs. Bannon can goosestep his way back to Brietbart and take his orange-faced Reality TV star Commander in Chief with him.

Look, Trump is a monster and he’s assembling a cabinet of monstrosities to back him up. But that doesn’t make him scary. The best way to fight monsters is to turn on the light. And we have the brightest light of all – the light of knowledge, experience, and wisdom.

We’ve been doing it for the past 8 years with the Democrats, people who were supposed to be our friends and allies. You think it’ll be harder with GOP nitwits declaring themselves our enemies!?

For all the cosmetic ways the Obama Administration was better, they were almost as enthusiastic about boosting privatization and making sure every child had a standardized test that was written above their level and biased towards rich white kids. All their talk about championing civil rights didn’t stop them from closing poor black kids schools and forcing them into unaccountable charter operations that often provided fewer services, achieved dismal academic results and boosted racial segregation. All their talk about equity didn’t result in any more funding for minority children – only more Common Core, unqualified Teach for America temps and testing, testing, testing. Yet their donors in the standardized testing, publishing and privatization industry raked in obscene profits.

I’m sorry if this hurts some people’s rosy-eyed view of politics, but Obama was no friend to education. Plutocracy isn’t just a practice on the other side of the aisle. The Democrats are almost as beholden to their corporate masters, and like good servants, they do what their rich donors tell them to do.

This isn’t news to us. We’ve been on the outs before. In fact, we’ve never been on the ins.

Donald Trump? Shit! We lived through an administration that wanted to destroy us and actually knew how to do it! We can take Tiny Hands, the Bankruptcy King any day! This is a guy who couldn’t make a profit running casinos – you know, a business where the house always wins! You expect us to cower in fear that he’s going to take away our schools. Son, we’ve fought better than you!

We just need to stop, take a deep breath and re-energize ourselves.

We need a moment of rededication, time to size up our newest antagonists, and prepare for the battles ahead.

Yes, we’re surrounded on all sides. But it’s never been any different.

Yes, we don’t have any political party that supports us. So we’ll either take over the Democrats or build our own legislative network.

I don’t mean to minimize the threat. Trump represents a clear and present danger to our nation, our people and our schools. But we represent a clear and present danger to him. He hasn’t even been sworn in yet and the clock is already ticking. He’ll be lucky to last four years in the ring with us.

So in that spirit, I offer the following advice. And not just to you, my brothers and sisters at arms. I’m speaking to that broken down father, teacher and activist in myself, too.

Chin up, Bucko. We aren’t done yet. Not even close.

Together we can win this fight. We’ve been doing just that for years.

We have nothing to fear from Trump. He and the neoliberals have much to fear from us.

“Fate whispers to the warrior ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispers back ‘I am the storm.’ ”

– unknown

“If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you!”

–T. Harv Eker

Corporate School Reform for Rich Kids: A Modest Proposal

July 20, 2016 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Education, Junk science, National Academic Standards, No Child Left Behind, Obama, Politics, Poverty, privatization, Propaganda, satire, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers, Toxic Testing #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, annual testing, charter schools, common core, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, education, education reform, modest proposal, Politics, public schools, rich kids, satire, school funding, standardized testing, teachers, Wealthy

Screen shot 2016-07-19 at 8.37.14 PM

America’s wealthy children are in a crisis.

Every year they score better than most of their foreign counterparts on international tests.

They’re better in math. They’re better in reading. They’re better in science. Heck! American students just won the International Math Olympiad for the second year in a row! They beat heavy hitters like Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, North Korea, Russia, the UK, Hong Kong, Japan and 90 other countries!

Yet our media still refuses to acknowledge their accomplishments by lumping our wealthiest students in with the middle class and poor. They say American students are failing when it’s just the poor kids. And even when you add them all together, we’re in the middle, and we’ve always been in the middle since these international tests began.

It’s just not fair that our wealthy students don’t get recognized for their accomplishments. The media takes their exceptional scores and mixes them in with those of children living in broken homes going to under-funded schools in high crime neighborhoods. Obviously those kids are struggling. It’s not fair to make the wealthy look bad by mixing their scores in with these “ghetto” kids.

But that’s not the worst part. All this negative publicity is actually starting to force lawmakers to do something about it. There is a policy movement in our country that’s been around for nearly 20 years made to combat this exact problem. It’s called corporate education reform, and the rich kids are being left out!

Just look at all the programs being aimed at improving education for poor kids. I mean, sure, more than half of public school children live in poverty these days. But why should they get all these innovations?

If things keep up this way, the rich kids will get totally left behind. In the interests of fairness, we must make some of these same reforms available for the wealthy.

For instance, why is it only the poor kids who get the benefit of being taught by Teach for America recruits? These are idealistic youngsters who have a college degree – but not a degree in teaching – who get to come into an underprivileged environment and educate the masses. What about those from privileged upbringings? Shouldn’t they get the benefit of this program, too?

Think about it! These are young adults with lots of knowledge about the world and a real desire to help kids learn! Sure they don’t have enough desire to go out there and learn how to actually teach, but that’s just liberal indoctrination. You don’t need a degree to do that. A six weeks training program is fine!

Their enthusiasm makes up for any shortcomings in pedagogy. It’s like someone who loves medical dramas volunteering to do your surgery. Or maybe someone who watched every season of Law and Order volunteering to defend you in court. The attention to detail of a Trekkie at a Star Trek convention tops the knowledge of an astrophysicist any day!

Why is it only the poor kids that get that!? Rich children are being robbed of this opportunity. It’s time we furlough all their fancy teachers with their PhDs and Masters degrees and replace them with Teach for America.

But of course that won’t be enough.

The poor kids also have a huge leg up when it comes to academic standards.

Many wealthy families send their children to private schools with the best of everything. They have a wide curriculum, extracurricular activities, arts and music – everything impoverished public schools lack. But what they don’t have are universal standards.

That’s right. In most states, only our public schools have been forced to enact Common Core State Standards. These are a set of academic standards for all school children to ensure every student will be ready for college and/or a career by graduation.

Where are these standards for our rich kids? They’re being left behind! We let their private school teachers make up their own standards! How can we trust them with that? Despite their manners and good breeding, these are just teachers we’re talking about! What do they know about education?

Common Core standards were created with hardly any input from classroom teachers or child psychologists. Instead we relied upon self-appointed experts from the standardized testing industry. They decided what should be taught so it will line up exactly with their state-mandated tests.

Just imagine! Rich kids don’t get that benefit! No one teaches them to the test! Their teachers just guess and – still they get good grades – but imagine how well they’d do if they had the same benefits of the poor kids! If impoverished children fail, these same test corporations provide the remedial material! What better way to improve?

And that’s another thing! Why are the wealthiest kids who go to exclusive private schools exempt from taking state-mandated tests? How do we know they’re getting the best education possible if they haven’t demonstrated it on a multiple choice exam? These private schools could be totally faking it! We don’t know they’re providing a world class education without the proof standardized testing affords. Rich parents need to demand their kids be tested just like the poor kids.

One way they could do that while still reaping all the benefits of private schools is by enrolling in charter schools.

Rich parents rarely take advantage of that if they can afford the prestigious preparatory academies. But why? Choice is great and even more choice is greater!

Charter schools are really just private schools paid for with taxpayer money. They’re often run by private companies or unelected boards and in many cases expected to turn a profit. This also means they don’t have to do the same things as traditional public schools though for the most part they are subject to giving state-mandated tests.

In fact, they have very loose transparency requirements. We don’t really know much of what they do. But everywhere they’re touted as a massive improvement to the public school system.

They’re so good we don’t even demand that they prove how good they are. It’s just that obvious! (Pay no attention to peer reviewed studies that show them to be no better and often much worse than traditional pubic schools. That’s just scientific method mysticism.)

So why can’t there be more charter schools just for rich kids? Administrators get to pick which kids attend these schools anyway. Why not select just the upper crust, the crème de la crème, a better class of students? In fact, in many cases they already do. They select the students who already do the best academically and boot those with sub par skills or who are in need of special education. That’s how they inflate their test scores. But they also could select for economic factors instead of just academic ones.

Now you have to be careful. There have been a couple charter schools (actually quite a lot of them) that have been found to be scamming the public. Think Trump University for K-12. These schools steal taxpayer money, cut services, increase profits, disband and sneak away in the night. But there are many… well… a few high quality ones out there. And since choice is always good, shouldn’t rich families roll the dice on these institutions just like poor families?

Yes, there’s a chance rich kids educations will be ruined at charters – a big chance – but shouldn’t the wealthy have the same opportunity to gamble on their children’s futures that the poor do?

The point is this: there are plenty of shiny corporate education reforms out there aimed almost exclusively at the poor. If these reforms are so great, shouldn’t the rich get them, too?

Otherwise, these reforms are just opportunities for private industry to get rich quick off the backs of impoverished children! That can’t be right, can it?

The fact that the rich almost never take advantage of these reforms has to be a coincidence, right? Maybe they just don’t know how great these corporate school reforms are. I just can’t understand why no one is telling them, selling it to them.

After all, many of the people who create and propose these reforms have children who go to educational institutions that don’t use them. Arne Duncan was U.S. Secretary of Education, and his kids don’t experience the very policies he imposed on impoverished youngsters. Neither do Bill Gates’ and President Barack Obama’s kids. It’s just so unfair to them.

So I’m asking, please, let the children of the rich and powerful experience these same corporate educate reforms. Every child deserves the right to be taught by an untrained instructor. Every child should have an education devised by non-experts making huge profits off the results. Every child’s success should be determined through mass marketed, standardized, A,B,C exams. Every child should get to go to a school where the administration can reduce services and maximize profit.

Only then can we finally compare test scores between rich and poor. Only then will be one America!

Only then will no rich child be left behind.

(Or we could just give the poor kids all the benefits of the rich ones and throw away this corporate education crap, but no. That’s too radical. This is only a modest proposal.)

I Was a Radical Republican – For About a Week – And I Didn’t Change a Single Progressive View

March 17, 2016 stevenmsinger Arne Duncan, Bernie Sanders, Charter Schools, Common Core, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Election, John King, Local Control, memes, NCLB, New York, No Child Left Behind, Obama, Opt Out, Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania, Politics, President, Race to the Top, Republican, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, standards, Teachers, Unions #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, Bernie Sanders, bipartisan, charter schools, common core, Corporate Education Reform, Democrat, Democrats, education, education reform, Election, John King, Politics, public schools, Republican, Republicans, Social Media, standardized testing, teachers, Twitter

I do not like Ronald Reagan.

I own no guns.

Back in high school I won a debate arguing for pro-choice.

Trickle Down sounds more to me like a bladder condition than an economic theory.

So why was it that last week so many right wingers were retweeting me on Twitter?

Did I say “retweeting”? They were taking my words and memes and sending them out to the Twitterverse as their own thoughts with a reference to my account.

I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I think Michelle Malkin pushed down the new heart emoticon on something I wrote.

She may have retweeted me, too. Heck! I may have retweeted her back!

“What new Hell is this?” I thought. “Why am I getting so much love from people who – if they met me in person – would probably try to give me a wedgie and scream, “NERD”?

It turns out I was caught in a maelstrom of political events. And his name is John King.

President Barack Obama named the former New York Education Commissioner as his pick to replace Arne Duncan as US Secretary of Education.

As a public school teacher, this really pissed me off. It pissed off just about every public educator in the country.

Are you kidding, Obama!? John-Freaking-King!? The guy whose only previous experience was teaching for three years at a “no excuses” charter school!?

This is the guy who oversaw the systematic destruction of schools in one of the most populous states in the country all the while pointing his finger at teachers. He approved an obviously fraudulent charter school run by an obvious conman. He ignored and dismissed parents at various education forums. The people of New York hated him so much, he sparked the largest opt out movement in the nation.

And THIS is the guy you’re nominating as Secretary of Education!?

It’s not like he’s even pretended to change his stripes. After New Yorkers booted him out of their state, he was offered a job at the US Department of Education – a prime example of falling upward. Soon afterward, his wife took a job at a corporate education reform company, Bellwether Education Partners!

Isn’t that a conflict of interest? I mean – through her – Bellwether will have the ear of the highest education official in the land. And the rest of us will just be supplicants sending letters, making phone calls hoping for an audience with the King.

THIS was why I was upset. THIS was why I was writing angry blogs and pounding out my rage on Twitter.

And I wasn’t alone.

The usual gang of educators and far left progressives gave me the usual support.

But we were soon joined by a tsunami of social media activists from the other side of the aisle.

Very soon someone made a popular hashtag, #StopJohnKing, and I started seeing hundreds of retweets, restatements and messages of support.

Two of my tweets were particularly popular: one about the conflict of interest of King’s wife working for Bellwhether, the other a seemingly unrelated message about the need to fund public libraries.

That’s when I started to notice the Twitter accounts of the people joining in. There were folks proclaiming their love for Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. They described themselves as libertarians and refused to speak to “libtards.” And the pictures on their Twitter accounts were often famous conservatives, racist cartoons of the President, pictures of themselves packing heat or just the darn guns, themselves.

“What the heck have I gotten myself into?” I thought.

That’s when I questioned why they were supporting me. For many of them I wondered if it had less to do with how terrible King would be as Education Secretary than with who nominated him in the first place.

Ever since Antonin Scalia died, many Republicans have sworn a blood oath not to approve any of Obama’s nominees – for the Supreme Court or ANY office.

For them this wasn’t about opposing a terrible Presidential pick. It was about blocking everything Obama did.

I had to face it. I had become a radical Republican, and I hadn’t even needed to change one of my positions to do it. The GOP came to me.

I have to admit, my right wing supporters were mostly very nice. I felt like I had a stronger group behind me than during most progressive campaigns.

There was some strain, however. A few times I could tell they were choking back anti-union rhetoric. “Why don’t we fund our libraries? Because unions,” apparently. “Who needs libraries – I home school.” That kind of thing.

And unfortunately, my progressive buddies were starting to notice the right wing support and take offense.

I got trolled by several lefties demanding I support Common Core.

“How can you be against it?” they’d ask. “Rand Paul hates Common Core. Do you agree with Rand Paul?”

I’d respond politely that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Card-carrying Democrats refused to listen to any criticism of the Obama administration’s education policies. Little did these progressives realize, they were the exact opposite of the GOP activists they hated.

Many Republicans hate Common Core because Obama touched it. Many Democrats love it for the same reason.

The majority of teachers throughout the country hate it because we’ve read it, tried to use it and seen what a load of bullshit it is. We know it was developed with very little input from classroom teachers or child psychologists. We know it has no research behind it to show that it works. We see how it erodes our autonomy in the classroom and increases the amount and difficulty of high stakes tests for our students.

But my progressive friends refused to accept that anything Saint Hope and Change approved could be so terrible.

I’d turn to my newfound Republican posse only to find many of them hated Common Core beyond reason. It wasn’t just bad practice – it was going to turn our kids gay. It was a liberal plot to make children progressive atheists.

Oy vey.

The week just flew by. Eventually the Senate voted to approve King, both Democrats and Republicans – though the opposition was almost entirely in the GOP.

In my home state of Pennsylvania, the Senator I can usually count on to have my back (Bob Casey) stabbed me in the same place. And the Senator who usually only votes for things that are officially endorsed by Lord Satan, himself, (Pat Toomey) was my boy.

What kind of a topsy-turvy world am I living in!?

Elizabeth Warren – the liberal lion – said she wasn’t going to vote for King but ultimately gave in. Oh, Elizabeth. They got to you, too?

There were two points of light though. First, there was one Democrat who actually voted against him: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York – the sight of King’s last catastrophe. Second, my Presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, didn’t vote at all. Fwew! I can irrationally justify that – he was too busy, that’s all. Bernie would never have voted for King. Tee-hee!

So once again we see the two major parties as mirror images of each other. Where Republicans made the right choice for the wrong reason, Democrats made the wrong choice for the right one. Progressives were circling the wagons around the President. They were making a point that they weren’t going to let the evil GOP block his nominees – even if one of those nominees was an absolute pathetic failure.

This is politics in 2016, folks.

Decisions are rarely made because of logic, experience, or sound judgement. It’s all political maneuvering, personal gain or both. Meanwhile, the world goes to Hell.

After the vote, I got a smattering of conservative retweets and then… nothing. As quickly as they had come, they were gone.

My tiny caucus of teachers, academics and other ne’er-do-wells are still there. We shout our truths into the wind hoping someone will hear.

On days like today it seems impossible.

But perhaps there is a silver lining in there somewhere. If people from such opposite sides of the political spectrum can agree on something like how terrible John King is, maybe there’s hope. If we can shake hands over the fatuousness of Common Core, maybe we can find other points of agreement.

Maybe these brief moments of concord are opportunities for understanding. Sure my GOP compatriots supported me for the wrong reasons, but maybe some of them were exposed to the right ones.

I know I’ve learned from them. I consider myself an FDR Democrat with an abiding faith in a strong federal government. But even I can see how both the Bush and Obama administrations overstepped their power with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

I don’t buy any of that baloney about Big Government vs. Small Government. But I do think that some things like education policy don’t belong at the federal level. The federal government should ensure public schools are funded properly and maybe regulate outright abuses, but local communities and districts should be deciding how to educate the children in their care.

If those ideas rubbed off on me, what rubbed off on my brief Twitter followers?

Will there come a day when we meet again, join hands and fight for our common good?

Can we overcome the blinders of party and politics to build a better world?

#IHopeSo

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager is a Longtime Corporate Education Reformer

March 8, 2016March 9, 2016 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Election, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, National Academic Standards, NCLB, NEA, No Child Left Behind, Obama, Politics, President, Race to the Top, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, standards, Teach for America, Teachers, Toxic Testing, Uncategorized, Unions, Value Added Measures, VAM, voting #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, Ann O'Leary, charter schools, common core, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, education, education reform, Election, election 2016, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Politics, public schools, standardized testing, teachers

Meet John Podesta.

He’s a Washington lobbyist working hard to support high stakes tests, Common Core and charter schools.

He’s also Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.

That’s right – the 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate who has been endorsed by the leaders of the national teachers unions has a corporate education reformer running her campaign.

Here are a few choice quotes from a speech Podesta gave in 2012 to the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a corporate education reform think tank established by Jeb Bush.

On Competition in Education:

“I think this emphasis that President Obama and Secretary Duncan have placed on competition – not just Race to the Top but competition throughout the system of education – is quite a good one, and I think the federal resources can be used to both support the development of new models and can force state experimentation in a way that’s quite healthy.”

On Using Student Test Scores to Evaluate teachers:

“In my view, [education] requires an accountability system that ensures students achieve at the highest levels… It requires a teacher and principal workforce that are rigorously trained, highly skilled and comprehensively evaluated.”

On Teachers Unions’ Resistance to Corporate Education Reform:

“I would argue that while there are clearly still strong rejectionist voices in unions, national union leadership has come a fair distance in recognizing that teacher effectiveness matters, and that evaluation systems need to include student outcomes… The majority of teachers have less than 10 years experience, and younger teachers know what counts. They’re more reform minded… So the question I think for reformers is how do you keep the pressure on unions to change, how do you keep the pressure on to put kids first without demonizing teachers in the process?”

On School Vouchers and charter schools:

“I think vouchers are an unneeded distraction. We should concentrate on PUBLIC school choice.”

On the Bipartisanship of Corporate Education Reform:

“In my opinion, the Obama administration has made its key priorities clear. The Republicans are pretty much in the same place…”

On the new frontier for Corporate Education Reform:

“Early childhood education is ripe for investment and reform.”

It’s all there on video. I strongly recommend you put aside 42 minutes and watch Podesta cozy up to Bush and Chester E. Finn, President of the ultra-reformy Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Podesta is probably the single most effective person at destroying public education of which you’ve never heard.

You know Arne Duncan – the worst U. S. Secretary of Education of modern times. But did you know that Arne wasn’t President Barack Obama’s first choice?

Obama almost picked Linda Darling-Hammond – his education advisor during his 2007 campaign. Hammond is a former teacher turned Stanford education professor. She is also a vocal critic of Teach for America.

However, Podesta oversaw the transition committee that helped Obama make cabinet choices. Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the President, but it was Podesta who suggested and lobbied for Duncan, the know-nothing Chicago Schools CEO for U.S. Education Secretary. In fact, Duncan’s selection is an achievement of which Podesta is given gleeful responsibility by the privatization and standardization crowd.

And now guess whose ear he is whispering into?

Podesta has a long history with the Clintons. He was Bill’s Chief of Staff for three years during which time the President pushed hard for voluntary national standards – a school policy that has become known by another name – Common Core State Standards.

Podesta also founded the reform think tank Center for American Progress, a bastion for neoliberal thought. The organization routinely hires the crème de la crème of corporate education reformers who then push for test and punish policies in the media and on Capital Hill.

Podesta has already helped push Hillary closer to the dark side.

Remember when she shocked the neoliberal establishment by suggesting that some charter schools game the system by refusing to accept the most challenging students? (Which, by the way, is 100% factual.)

This really turned off some super-wealthy donors. According to the Wall Street Journal, after hearing the comment, one of Clinton’s longtime supporters, Eli Broad, turned off the money faucet.

Broad allegedly refused requests for contributions to a Clinton-friendly super PAC until Podesta personally assured him Hillary supports charter schools.

Also running interference on this issue was Clinton’s education adviser Ann O’Leary.

She wrote an op-ed calming charter fans because Hillary does, in fact, support charter schools – if they’re equitable and accountable.

Unfortunately, O’Leary has a strong corporate education reform streak, herself.

While an aide to Clinton in the Senate in 2001, O’Leary pushed Hillary to support No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

This was the bill that changed the federal role in education from ensuring equity to enacting an endless series of high stakes tests and expanded school privatization more than ever before. By it’s own measures of success, it was a terrible failure.

But O’Leary sees it differently.

“It was a really important moment,” O’Leary says. “When you look back at what happened, this was serious, bipartisan, constructive work. We were committed to high standards and helping states get there.”

O’Leary has somewhat stepped back her support of this bill. However, she blames the problems on implementation and not on the basic idea of high stakes testing.

She takes the same tack with Common Core. Implementation is the problem, not the policy.

And THIS is the woman advising Clinton on education!

By the way, she served with Podesta on the same Obama-Biden transition team that helped create our current disastrous U.S. Department of Education, though her focus was early childhood.

If Hillary Clinton really wants to forge a new path for U. S. schools, it’s surprising she’s surrounding herself with the same people responsible for the status quo.

Funded by wealthy privatizers, advised by standardization true believers, it is difficult to accept a second Clinton Administration would be anything more than a seamless continuation of the Testocracy.

Special thanks to Jake Jacobs who brought much of this to my attention.

Dr. Jill Stein is the Best 2016 Presidential Candidate, But Can She Win?

February 29, 2016 stevenmsinger Accountability, AFT, Arne Duncan, Badass Teachers Association, Bernie Sanders, Charter Schools, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Dr. Jill Stein, Education, Election, ESEA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Green Party, Hillary Clinton, Media, NEA, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Politics, President, privatization, Republican, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Unions, United Opt Out, voting #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, Bernie Sanders, charter schools, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, education, education reform, Election, Green Party, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Politics, public schools, standardized testing, teachers

GetAttachmentThumbnail

In 2008, I shook Barack Obama’s hand.

Yesterday Dr. Jill Stein gave me a hug.

Eight years ago, I was so inspired by Obama’s campaign speech in my hometown of Pittsburgh that I rushed forward along with the crowd to grab his hand. It was soft but firm with a tinge of moisturizer. Now I look at his incredibly regressive education policies and feel the need to scrub my palm.

This weekend in Philadelphia, I was at the United Opt Out Conference and saw Stein sitting in the audience.

I walked past the Green Party Presidential candidate the first time thinking I must be mistaken. Then her name tag removed all doubt.

“You’re Jill Stein!” I stuttered.

She smiled warmly, stood up and said, “You’re Steven Singer!”

I want to believe she knew who I was, but I was wearing a name tag, too.

We talked for a moment about what most of us were here for – education policy. She reaffirmed that she wanted to end all high stakes testing and school privatization.

Think of it – a presidential candidate speaking in specifics. Not “We test too much.” Not “Some charter schools are bad.” But I want to end these two perverse school policies!

And to top it all off, before she hurried off to tidy up as the time approached for her campaign speech, she game me a warm, tight hug.

Compare that to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

As part of the Badass Teachers Association, we reached out to all the Democratic and Republican candidates on these exact same issues. The Republicans ignored us entirely, but both Democrats gave us phone calls by campaign aides.

Even then, the Democratic response was far from convivial. It mostly came down to something like “Education is important.” Well, duh.

In Sanders’ case, we had to conduct an impromptu sit-in at the Senator’s Washington office before anyone would talk to us about policy. And Hillary only started to speak in measured tones about public schools after our national teachers unions voted to endorse her – well, the leaders of those unions voted. No one ever really asked us, rank-and-file.

Moreover, when Sanders voted for the horrible Murphy Amendment of what became the Every Child Succeeds Act, several teachers including myself wrote him an open letter asking him to explain his apparent support for a Test and Punish education provision. One of his aides sent us a reply – some nonsense about accountability.

And Jill Stein just gave me a hug.

The difference is huge!

When activists were holding this conference centering on the movement to Opt Out of Standardized testing, Sanders and Clinton didn’t even send campaign literature. Stein came in person and even gave a keynote address!

Don’t get me wrong. Hillary is far preferable to any Republican candidate seeking the office. I just wish her Presidential bid wasn’t funded by the very people we’re fighting against.

I love Bernie, too. I’ve even got the t-shirt to prove it. I just wish he loved us as much by throwing out a few more specifics. The general thrust of his campaign seems tailor-made to support test resistance and a fight against corporate education reform, but he rarely connects the dots with anything that we could hold him accountable for saying.

And then you have Stein, perhaps the most human politician I’ve ever met.

One look at her platform and it’s obvious she’s the best candidate for President in 2016. But is she electable?

Think about that for a moment.

What does it say about our country?

Design an excellent platform that benefits the most people, organize a movement to get your message out there, draw on the experience of experts in various fields… and you’re an incredible long shot to win the office.

The media says the same thing about Sanders as he speaks to overcapacity crowds and struggles against party politics seemingly written to hobble any populist campaign like his.

Yet Stein has no giant crowds. She has no adoring fans, no comedian on Saturday Night Live giving her friendly jibes.

She’s almost completely ignored by the media. Yet her actual policies make even a progressive like Sanders look like… well… Hillary Clinton!

For instance, Sanders wants to make college free to everyone. Stein wants to do that, too, AND erase all existing student debt.

Sanders is (kind of) against for-profit charter schools but has been vaguely supportive of Test and Punish school accountability practices. Stein is unequivocally against all forms of school privatization and high stakes standardized testing.

Sanders wants single-payer healthcare paid for by raising taxes (but net savings over all). Stein wants single-payer healthcare paid for by cutting our bloated military budget with no raise in taxes.

In fact, while Sanders is against unnecessary military action and an increase in military spending, he is in favor of keeping the $1 trillion military budget mostly intact. Stein wants to cut it by 50%, stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, stop giving weapons to Israel, freeze terrorist-funder’s bank accounts, end the War on Terror and engage in a policy of peace.

Moreover, Stein wants the savings from slashing our biggest federal expenditure to be used to fund a New Green Deal, creating full employment and a living wage all while transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but all of Stein’s policies sound rather sane and measured. Yet she is the one the media labels a radical and out-of-touch – if they talk about her at all.

It’s a testament to how perverted our politics have become: Sanity looks like the exact opposite. Logic and intelligence are revolutionary concepts.

And only the activists and intellectuals seem to know this is happening.

When Stein was done speaking, someone asked her the inevitable question about Ralph Nader. Wouldn’t casting a ballot for her just divide the Democratic vote and give the race to the Republicans as it did in 2000?

Her response was a bit evasive – the only time, in fact, where she seemed a bit uncomfortable.

She said that Nader wasn’t a member of the Green Party, where she is. She is engaged in building the party and the movement even beyond 2016.

On the one hand, it sounded like she was suggesting that even if she loses, it will bring real progressive issues into the limelight. However, this is not what happened when Nader lost as a third party candidate against Bush and Gore.

On the other hand, she stressed that she actually could win. About 43 million people are trapped by student debt, which she wants to unilaterally eliminate, she said. That’s a large enough chunk of the population that if they all voted for her, she would win.

It’s time for a Hail Mary moment, she said. We have to take a chance to vote for the best policies and not continue to compromise by supporting the lesser evil. Concession is the road to what we have now – continued oligarchy and global hegemony.

We need a functioning world for our children. If we don’t do something about Climate Change, the Earth may not be habitable in as little as five decades.

It’s now or never, she said.

I offer all this not as an endorsement of Stein. Nor of Sanders or Clinton (though seriously stay away from the Republicans, they’re freaking crazy).

I offer this only as food for thought.

Stein is offering us the best platform, bar none. But can we afford to vote for her? Can we afford not to?

‘We’re Sorry Teachers are Unfairly Blamed’ says John King – Man Responsible for Unfairly Blaming Teachers

February 21, 2016February 24, 2016 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Common Core, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Education, Election, ESEA, Every Student Succeeds Act, John King, Junk science, Obama, Opt Out, Philadelphia Schools, Politics, President, privatization, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Value Added Measures, VAM, voting #StandUpForPublicSchools, common core, Corporate Education Reform, education, education reform, Election, John King, Politics, public schools, Secretary of Education, teachers

John King AP

Sometimes the messenger matters.

You wouldn’t expect Native Americans to believe an apology from Christopher Columbus.

You wouldn’t expect African Americans to believe an apology from David Duke.

So why the heck do the Democrats expect teachers to believe an apology from John King!?

The acting U.S. Secretary of Education is – himself – responsible for more attacks on public educators than almost anyone else.

In his former role as New York Chancellor of Education, he refused to fix a school system he was responsible for destroying all the while pointing his finger at teachers.

However, late last month in his new federal position, King gave a speech at a Philadelphia high school acknowledging the mistakes of the Obama administration in tying teachers’ evaluations to student test scores – a practice he was guilty of in New York.

“I think there’s just such an urgency around making sure that teachers feel valued in our society,” King said in an interview with the Washington Post in January.

“It’s one of the things I worry a lot about. I want young people to see a future for themselves as teachers.”

Seriously!?

Were you worried about teachers in New York when you tied their evaluations to unproven and inferior Common Core tests? Were you worried about students when you approved an obviously fraudulent charter school run by an obviously fraudulent con man? Were you worried about the profession when you ignored and dismissed parents at various education forums? Were you worried about public schools when you sparked the largest opt out movement in the country?

I’m sorry, but this apology rings hollow to most educators. We know you. We know that your biggest qualification for your position in charge of the nation’s public school system is a three year stint teaching in a “no excuses” charter school with a high suspension rate.

It’s kind of hard to believe you mean a thing you say. And by extension, it’s hard to believe a thing President Barack Obama says about education, either. He was the dunderhead who picked Arne Duncan to be his first Secretary of Education and then you to succeed him.

It must be an election year.

Since a few months before the Presidential Primaries, the Democrats have been apologizing for the damage they’ve done to public education.

Obama says he wants to reduce standardized tests. That’s great – with less than one year left in his second term! After increasing it beyond even the wildest dreams of his predecessor George W. Bush!

But since we’re talking apologies here, are you, Mr. King, willing to actually do anything to make things better for the nation’s teachers?

For instance, do you think the U.S. Department of Education should be exempt from regulatory capture? In other words, should a regulatory agency like the Department of Ed advance the commercial or political interests of special interests that dominate the industry it is charged with regulating?

In other words, should any employee of the department or their immediate family be permitted to collude with the corporate interests seeking special favor in the field of education? Should a prominent member of the department also be allowed to work for an industry seeking to profit off our public schools? Should his wife?

No? Then perhaps your wife Melissa Steele King shouldn’t be accepting a position at Bellwether Consultants, a leading corporate education reform organization. They represent The New Teachers Project, New School Venture Fund, KIPP, IDEA Charter Schools, Gulen Charter Schools, Rocketship Charters and many others.

So while classroom teachers will only be able to communicate with you through official correspondence, a representative of the standardization and privatization movement will be right across from you at the dinner table every night!

If you really wanted us to take you seriously, your family wouldn’t be pulling this crap.

Your latest apology is just an attempt to smooth over your own Senate education committee confirmation hearing on Thursday, Feb. 25. You want to show how much bipartisan support you have so you can become the official Education Secretary and not just acting Education Secretary.

Look, you might say. I just threw a bone to teachers. They love me!

What a steaming pile of bullshit!

Does that offend you? Oh. Then please accept my most heartfelt apology.

NOTE: Diane Ravitch also posted about this article on her blog.

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

December 31, 2015 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, AFT, Arne Duncan, Badass Teachers Association, Bernie Sanders, Bill Gates, Black Names, Budget, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, ESEA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Hillary Clinton, Labor, Media, NCLB, NEA, No Child Left Behind, Obama, Opt Out, Parents, Police, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, Race to the Top, Racism, Refugees, Republican, Rick Smith, School Funding, school violence, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Teachers, Unions, Violence Against Children, voting, White Allies, White Fragility, White Privilege, Yohuru Williams #blacklivesmatter, #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, annual testing, badass teachers association, Bernie Sanders, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, education, education reform, Election, Hillary Clinton, Politics, public schools, racism, standardized testing, teachers

“Pennsylvania educator and public school advocate Steven Singer is one of the most powerful voices in the nation when it comes to speaking out for students, parents, teachers and our public schools.”
–Jonathan Pelto, founder of the Education Bloggers Network

“Steven Singer wrote these five terrific posts last year. I didn’t see them when they appeared. Probably you didn’t either. You should.”
– Diane Ravitch, education historian

“Your name should be Sweet Steven Singer. You are a delight.”
–Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union

Hello. My name is Steven Singer, and I am a gadfly.

I make no apologies for that. It’s what I set out to do when I started this blog in July of 2014.

I told myself that people were too complacent. There was no curiosity. People were too darn sure about things – especially education policy and social issues.

They knew, for instance, that standardized testing was good for children. Why? Because Obama said so. And he’s such a nice man. It’s too bad all those mean Republicans keep making him do all this bad stuff.

They also knew racism was over. After all… Obama! Right? Black President, therefore, the hundreds of years of struggle – finished! Move along. Nothing to see here.

Yet all this “knowledge” went against everything I saw daily as a public school teacher.

Standardized tests are good for children? Tell that to more than half of public school kids now living below the poverty line who don’t have the same resources as middle class or wealthy kids yet are expected to magically ace their assessments. Tell that to the kids who get hives, get sick, or throw up on test day. Tell it to the black and brown students who for some unexplainable reason almost always score lower than their white peers.

Racism is over? Tell that to all my minority students who are afraid to walk home from school because they might get followed, jumped, beaten or killed… by the police! Tell it to their parents who can’t get a home loan and have to move from one rental property to another. Tell it to the advertising executives and marketing gurus who shower my kids with images of successful white people and only represent them as criminals, thugs, athletes or rappers.

So when I started this blog, I consciously set out to piss people off. But with a purpose. To quote the original historical gadfly, Socrates, my role is, “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” It seems well suited to a school teacher. After all, Socrates was accused of “corruption of the youth.”

It’s been quite a year. When I went to the Network for Public Education conference in Chicago last April, some folks actually seemed to know who I was. “Don’t you write that Gadfly blog?” was a common question.

When I met NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and AFT President Randi Weingarten, they both said, “I read your blog.” And then they looked me up and down suspiciously as if they were thinking, “THIS is the guy who writes all that stuff!? THIS is the guy giving me such a hard time!?”

Of course, I am human, too. One can’t sting and bite every day. Sometimes the things I write are met with love and approbation. Some weeks even Lily and Randi like me. Sometimes.

Education historian Diane Ravitch has given me tremendous moral support. I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to have one of your heroes appreciate your work! Her book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” really woke me up as a new teacher. I’m also on the steering committee of the Badass Teachers Association, an organization that has changed my life for the better. The more than 56,000 people there are my support. I would never have had the courage to start a blog or do half of the crazy things I do without their love and encouragement.

And there are so many more people I could thank: my fellow bloggers Jonathan Pelto, Peter Greene, Russ Walsh, Nancy Flanagan, Mitchell Robinson, and Yohuru Williams. Also the good people at the LA Progressive and Commondreams.org. The incredible and tireless radio host Rick Smith.

There are just too many to name. But no list of acknowledgment would be even close to completion without mentioning my most important supporter – you, my readers. Whether you’re one of the 9,190 people who get every new post delivered by email or if you otherwise contribute to the 486,000 hits my site has received so far, THANK YOU.

So in celebration of my first full year of blogging, I present to you an end of the year tradition – a Top 10 list. Out of the 90 posts I wrote in 2015, these are the ones that got the most attention. Often they incensed people into a fury. Sometimes they melted hearts. I just hope – whether you ended up agreeing with me or not – these posts made you think.

Feel free to share with family, friends, co-workers, etc. After all, I’m an equal opportunity gadfly. I always cherish the chance to buzz around a few new heads!

10) The Democrats May Have Just Aligned Themselves With Test and Punish – We Are Doomed

Published: July 17, 2015
Views: 7,122

Description: It hit me like a slap in the face that almost all Senate Democrats voted to make the reauthorization of the federal law governing K-12 public schools a direct continuation of the same failing policies of the Bush and Obama years. Heroes like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seemed to be turning their back on teachers, parents and school children. And they were stopped in their efforts by… Republicans!

Fun Fact: This story had some legs. It inspired a bunch of education advocates like myself who are also Bernie Sanders supporters to write the candidate an open letter asking him to explain his vote. His campaign eventually responded that it was about accountability!?

9) Punching Teachers in the Face – New Low in Presidential Politics

Published: Aug. 3
Views: 14,735

Description: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie thought he’d run for the Republican nomination for President. He thought threatening to metaphorically punch teachers unions in the face would get him votes. It didn’t.

Fun Fact: This new low in Presidential politics came just after Donald Trump had announced he was running. Christie’s new low now seems almost quaint after Trump’s calls to tag all Muslims and monitor their Mosques. How innocent we were back in… August.

8) This Article May Be Illegal – Lifting the Veil of Silence on Standardized Testing

Published: April 18
Views: 15,818

Description: Teachers and students may be legally restrained from telling you what’s on federally mandated standardized tests, but we’re not restrained from telling you THAT we’re restrained. Is this just protecting intellectual property or direct legal intimidation of educators and children?

Fun Fact: I have not yet been arrested for writing this piece.

7) Stories about Teachers Union Endorsements of Hillary Clinton

–Did the AFT Rank and File REALLY Endorse Hillary Clinton for President? If So, Release the Raw Data

(July 12 – 4,448 hits)

–The NEA May Be About to Endorse Hillary Clinton Without Input From Majority of Members

(Sept. 21 – 3,873 hits)

–A Handful of NEA Leaders Have Taken Another Step Toward Endorsing Hillary Clinton Despite Member Outcry

(Oct. 2 – 739 hits)

–Teachers Told They’re Endorsing Hillary Clinton by NEA Leadership, Member Opinions Unnecessary

(Oct. 4 – 7,074 hits)

Published: July 12 – Oct. 4
Views: 16,134 TOTAL

Description: You expect your union to have your back. Unfortunately it seems our teachers unions were more interested in telling us who we’d be endorsing than asking us who the organizations representing us should endorse.

Fun Fact: I broke this story pretty much nationwide. News organizations like Politico were calling me to find out the scoop.

6) Why We Should Have ZERO Standardized Tests in Public Schools

Published: Jan. 30
Views: 16,443

Description: Someone had to say it. We don’t need any standardized tests. We need teacher-created tests. And that’s not nearly as crazy as some people think.

Fun Fact: This was written back when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was being rewritten and naïve fools like me thought we might actually get a reduction in high stakes testing. Spoiler alert: we didn’t.

5) Atlanta Teacher RICO Conviction is Blood Sacrifice to the Testocracy

Published: April 3
Views: 18,187

Description: There is something terribly wrong when we’re using laws created to stop organized crime as a means to convict teachers cheating on standardized tests. I’m not saying cheating is right, but the mafia kills people. These were just teachers trying to keep their jobs in a system that rewards results and refuses to balance the scales, listen to research or the opinions of anyone not in the pockets of the testing and privatization industries.

Fun Fact: Watching all those seasons of “The Wire” finally came in handy.

4) Not My Daughter – One Dad’s Journey to Protect His Little Girl From Toxic Testing

Published: March 20
Views: 26,420

Description: How I went to my daughter’s school and demanded she not be subjected to high stakes testing in Kindergarten.

Fun Fact: They were very nice and did everything I asked. If you haven’t already, you should try it!

3) I Am Racist and (If You’re White) You Probably Are, Too

Published: June 2
Views: 28,906

Description: White folks often can’t see white privilege. This is my attempt to slap some sense into all of us. If you benefit from the system, you’re responsible to change it.

Fun Fact: Oh! The hate mail! I still get it almost every day! But I regret nothing! A black friend told me I was brave to write this. I disagreed. Anytime I want I can hide behind my complexion. She can’t.

2) I Am A Public School Teacher. Give Me All the Refugees You’ve Got

Published: Nov. 19
Views: 45,196

Description: Our public schools are already places of refuge for our nation’s school children. Send me more. I’ll take them all. I’d rather they end up in my classroom than drowned by the side of a river.

Fun Fact: I got equal love and hate for this one. Some folks were afraid of terrorists. Others didn’t think we could afford it. But many told me my heart was in the right place. Lily and the folks at the NEA were especially supportive.

1) White People Need to Stop Snickering at Black Names

Published: Sept. 6
Views: 96,351

Description: Maybe we should stop laughing at black people’s names. Maybe we should try to understand why they are sometimes different.

Fun Fact: You’d have thought I threatened some people’s lives with this one! How dare I suggest people should stop mocking other people’s names! If you want to know how strong white fragility is in our country, read some of the comments! But many people thanked me for bringing up something that had bothered them for years but that they had been too polite to talk about, themselves. This is easily my most popular piece yet.

Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing

October 25, 2015December 13, 2015 stevenmsinger Arne Duncan, Bernie Sanders, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Election, Hillary Clinton, John King, No Child Left Behind, Obama, Politics, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Toxic Testing, Value Added Measures #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, annual testing, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, charter schools, Civil Rights, common core, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, Democrats, Department of Education, education, education reform, Election, Hillary Clinton, John King, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, standardized testing, Value Added Measures

The Obama Administration must think the nation’s parents, teachers and students are pretty darn dumb.

President Barack Obama and his hand-picked Department of Education are solely responsible for the knuckle dragging academic policies strangling our public schools day in, day out. Yet instead of doing anything to reverse course to proven methods that might actually help kids learn, the department trudges out its annual apology.

It goes something like this:

Hey, Everybody! So sorry about all those high stakes tests, Common Core Standards and Value-Added teaching evaluations. We know they’re bad and we’re going to stop.

Then whatever functionary drew the shortest straw toddles back into the building and for the rest of the year things continue on exactly the same as they always have.

Let’s just pause for a moment and imagine how incredibly stupid they must think we are. I’m surprised they don’t issue public service announcements reminding us to exhale, multi-colored pamphlets on the benefits of blinking, and puppet shows instructing us how to use the potty.

The Obama Administration has had 7 years to fix this mess, and the only things they’ve done are to make it worse. Most of us voted for this so-called progressive because we thought he’d improve upon George W. Bush’s astoundingly wrongheaded school policies. But instead he doubled down on them! We hired a competent janitor but he was successful only in creating greater disorder.

We thought someone with the intelligence and grace of Barack Obama would be able to understand more than the eternal C-student Bush that you can’t ensure equity by standardized testing. That’s like trying to ensure a bathtub was filling with hot water by using nothing but Tarot Cards. The cards don’t give you an accurate reading and even if they did, you’d need to adjust the faucet at some point!

We thought a Constitutional scholar would understand that a national school curriculum violates federal law – even if you get a faux state commission to propose it and slap a new name on the thing! The federal government is allowed to do some things and state governments are allowed to do others. It’s not that hard. Moreover, armchair generals who have zero understanding of educational pedagogy, psychology, sociology and no classroom experience have no business telling teachers what they should be teaching!

We thought a political party that claims to be on educators’ side wouldn’t then turn around and initiate a witch hunt against us using poor student test scores instead of pitch forks and torches. Every independent, peer-reviewed study shows that poor kids do badly on standardized assessments and rich kids do well. Every statistician says you can’t use a test created to measure one thing (students) to measure another (teachers). Yet this is exactly what this so-called intellectual president mandates, and then he and the Democrats expect us to be there for them at the polls!?

In short, we expected a liberal Democrat, but got instead a Conservative Democrat in Name Only (DINO). He took far right ideas that Bush could barely officiate and made them much more efficient and thus much more damaging.

And every year like an alcoholic stumbling off a bar stool, the administration swears they’re not going to take another drink. Then they hire the head of Anheuser-Busch (John King) as a nutritionist. And some of us still believe them!

Just look at the crumbs they’re throwing out to us, peons!

Hey, Girl. We’re going to cut testing down to 2% of the school year.

That’s 23 hours! Almost 3 full days! Imagine if the dungeon master told you he was only going to put you on the rack for 2% of the time! Would you thank him? Maybe, but it would be a pretty half-hearted thank you.

Can the administration prove any positive value for standardized testing? I’m not asking them to trot out the tired party line about equity. I mean can they prove that testing actually helps children learn in any appreciable way? If the answer is no (and Spoiler Alert: it is!) then we shouldn’t be wasting any more time with it. Not 2%. Not 1%. ZERO PERCENT!

Moreover, Obama has been talking about reducing testing since he ran for office in 2008. America’s schools are still waiting for him to come through on that one. Maybe on his last day in office we’ll have a testing moratorium. Fingers crossed!

The department says, “The assessments must be worth taking.” No shit. That’s exactly the problem! They aren’t! And they’re shrouded in secrecy under the guise of test corporations intellectual property. How will we be able to determine they’re “worth taking”? Will you just tell us? THAT sure puts my mind at ease!

You know what assessments have been proven worth taking? The ones created by teachers. Yet these are exactly the kinds of tests that schools have been forced to cut back on. Perhaps this is what the administration has in mind. No more teacher-created tests. Let’s just have tests made by the professional test creators who have no idea what the heck they’re doing!

And speaking teachers, this one’s for you: “No standardized test should ever be given solely for educator evaluation.” It sounds like a condemnation of Value-Added Measures (VAM), of evaluating teachers on student test scores. However, it’s just the opposite. Notice the word “Solely.” We’re not going to give kids tests if we ONLY use them to evaluate their teachers. Well woop-de-do! Professional flunkies will talk to you for hours (if you pay them enough) about how great the tests we give now are at doing both! So no change in policy, just some purple prose to light on fire and blow the smoke up educators hind ends.

Perhaps worst of all is the use of English Language Learners (ELL), students with disabilities and minorities as props. We’re doing it all for them, they say. Bull! Shit!

The administration has nothing to say about fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). There’s nothing about sanctions on districts that don’t provide proper services for ELLs. There’s nothing about ensuring adequate, equitable and sustainable funding for all students – especially the poor and minorities. Instead the Department of Education pretends like high stakes tests are candy bars and what poor disadvantaged minority ELL disabled kid doesn’t love the soft velvety chocolate taste of a multiple choice test!?

This announcement is not reason to celebrate. It’s more of the same fake apologies soaking wet in crocodile tears and bad candor.

If Hillary Clinton wants to get elected President, she’d better do more than that. If Bernie Sanders wants a shot, he’d better do more than spout socialism about Wall Street and silence about K-12 schools.

You can only lie to our faces for so long. Despite your best attempts to trash public education in the name of saving it, we’re not so dumb as to believe any more of your evasions, deceit and dishonesty.

NOTE: This article also was published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.

Near Silence on Education at First Democratic Debate

October 14, 2015December 13, 2015 stevenmsinger AFT, Arne Duncan, Bernie Sanders, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Election, Hillary Clinton, NEA, Schools #BATsAsk, #DemDebate, #LetTeachersTeach, #StandUpForPublicSchools, 2016, AFT, Arne Duncan, Bernie Sanders, common core, corporate, Corporate Education Reform, Debate, Democratic, Democrats, education, education reform, Election, Hillary Clinton, John King, NEA, President, teachers

None.

Null.

Nada.

That’s how many questions CNN anchors asked presidential hopefuls about America’s public schools at the first Democratic Debate.

Imagine if Anderson Cooper and company had been silent on Climate Change. The candidates would have brought it up anyway. Bernie Sanders actually did talk about the threat to the environment when asked a question about national defense.

Imagine if moderators had no questions about gun violence. Candidates competed with each other to demonstrate which took a stronger stance against the National Rifle Association.

Imagine if no one asked about finance reform. On that stage each candidate tried to position his or herself as the new sheriff of Wall Street.

But when it comes to one of the most important issues of the day – our children’s struggling schools – the media apparently thought it was of no interest to the viewing public.

Admittedly both Hillary Clinton and Sanders briefly brought it up when asked about other things.

Clinton said we need universal pre-kindergarten and good schools. However, she neglected to say what those good schools would look like.

It’s almost like saying nothing at all. EVERYONE wants good schools – Even dunderheads like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump! But their ideas of good schools differ greatly from that of most parents, teachers and students. McCharter schools for the poor and Cadillac campuses for the rich isn’t exactly what real progressives have in mind.

And universal pre-k? Great! But that’s kind of the flavor of the month. Who really disagrees that we should help toddlers prepare for school? It’s like asking, “Who wants ice cream?” in a room full of little kids on a hot day. EVERYONE wants ice cream – even the kids who are lactose intolerant!

Sanders took a second in a diatribe about social services to mention the need to fund schools. However, he didn’t say a thing about equity or if that funding would have strings attached. President Obama talked about funding schools, too, when he was running for president in 2008. Once he got into office those education dollars came at the cost of accepting untested and developmentally inappropriate Common Core State Standards. And equity meant closing poor schools to save them.

I wonder if CNN would have felt more pressure to ask even a single token education question if the largest national teachers unions hadn’t already endorsed Clinton. Both the American Federation of Teachers representing 1.5 million members and the National Education Association representing 3 million members have backed Clinton.

Well, leadership has. Member outreach, polling, even voting by the organizations largest representative boards has been almost entirely absent.

But now that teachers have been pigeonholed in Clinton’s camp, what’s the point of asking education questions? In the public eye educators have already chosen their candidate. Why would they need to hear Clinton’s thoughts on education policy? Why hear her opponents thoughts? Their minds are made up.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to run roughshod over teachers concerns. For 7 years education professionals from all walks of life have complained about the administration’s failing school policies and its buffoonish education secretary Arne Duncan. But now that Duncan is leaving, the President replaces him with John King – ex-New York State Commissioner of Education who enraged parents so much he was run out of the state on a rail.

The media just doesn’t care about public education. Nine times out of ten if they even print a story about schools, it’s a puff piece spin doctoring a school reform policy that isn’t working, never has been working and is – in fact – making things much worse for our nation’s students. Otherwise it’s an expose of how teachers can’t make these horrendous policies work so its their fault and don’t even glance at the ballooning child poverty rate – that’s completely irrelevant to the issue of all these lazy teachers who can’t be fired because we’d have to prove they’re bad first.

And what of the candidates? Do they care about public education?

The Democrats say they do and then zip their lips. They might make positive noises about preschool or universities – especially when it comes to funding. But they have next to nothing to say about K-12 schools. When the issue comes up, they deflect to toddlers or the college campus.

Meanwhile Republicans can’t contain their glee about mentioning teachers during debates and stump speeches. They want prospective voters to know that conservative types like them want to punch teachers in the face. During the first Republican debate, at least half of the candidates in that crowded boasted how much they stood up to the teachers unions.

And so there you have it, folks. That’s what passes for a substantive Democratic debate of all the important issues of the day. Now voters can make an informed decision in the primaries. There will be a few more debates, but they’ll probably be no different than this one.

And if you actually care about public schools, if you have children in the system, or derive your livelihood from it, or even if you just don’t want to live in a society of uneducated dummies – you’d be better served using Tarot cards to determine where the Democrats stand on this issue.

NOTE: This article also was quoted extensively on Diane Ravitch’s blog and published by Commondreams.org and on the Badass Teachers Association blog.

gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

Arne Duncan

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

10) F is for Friedrichs… and Freeloader: A Supreme Court Nightmare

9) The Charter School Swindle – Selling Segregation to Blacks and Latinos

8) ‘We’re Sorry Teachers are Unfairly Blamed’ says John King – Man Responsible for Unfairly Blaming Teachers

7) Bernie Sanders is Right: We Should Federalize Public School Funding

6) Summer Break – the Least Understood and Most Maligned Aspect of a Teacher’s Life

5) Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager is a Longtime Corporate Education Reformer

4) What Antonin Scalia’s Death Means to the People I Love

3) Without Black Culture There Would Be No American Culture

2) The Essential Selfishness of School Choice

1) Top 10 Reasons School Choice is No Choice

Corporate School Reform for Rich Kids: A Modest Proposal

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager is a Longtime Corporate Education Reformer

Dr. Jill Stein is the Best 2016 Presidential Candidate, But Can She Win?

‘We’re Sorry Teachers are Unfairly Blamed’ says John King – Man Responsible for Unfairly Blaming Teachers

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

10) The Democrats May Have Just Aligned Themselves With Test and Punish – We Are Doomed

9) Punching Teachers in the Face – New Low in Presidential Politics

8) This Article May Be Illegal – Lifting the Veil of Silence on Standardized Testing

7) Stories about Teachers Union Endorsements of Hillary Clinton

–Did the AFT Rank and File REALLY Endorse Hillary Clinton for President? If So, Release the Raw Data

–The NEA May Be About to Endorse Hillary Clinton Without Input From Majority of Members

–A Handful of NEA Leaders Have Taken Another Step Toward Endorsing Hillary Clinton Despite Member Outcry

–Teachers Told They’re Endorsing Hillary Clinton by NEA Leadership, Member Opinions Unnecessary

6) Why We Should Have ZERO Standardized Tests in Public Schools

5) Atlanta Teacher RICO Conviction is Blood Sacrifice to the Testocracy

4) Not My Daughter – One Dad’s Journey to Protect His Little Girl From Toxic Testing

3) I Am Racist and (If You’re White) You Probably Are, Too

2) I Am A Public School Teacher. Give Me All the Refugees You’ve Got

1) White People Need to Stop Snickering at Black Names

Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing

Near Silence on Education at First Democratic Debate