Prejudice

Koch Bros Funded Publication Criticizes – ME – on School Choice!

stevenmsinger Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Cyber Charter Schools, Democrat, Detroit Schools, Donald Trump, Education, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Unions , , , , , , , , ,

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You know you’ve made it when the Koch Brothers are funding a critique of your work.

Most of the time I just toil in obscurity.

I sit behind my computer furiously pounding away at the keys sending my little blog entries out onto the Interwebs never expecting much of a reply.

Sure I get fervent wishes for my death.

And the occasional racist diatribe that only tangentially has anything to do with what I wrote.

But a response from a conservative Web magazine funded by the world’s most famous billionaire brothers!?

I guess this is what the big time feels like!

The article appeared in The Federalist, an Internet publication mostly known for anti-LGBT diatribes and climate change denial. But I had the audacity to write something called “Top 10 Reasons School Choice is No Choice.”

I had to be taken down.

And they had just the person to do it – far right religious author Mary C. Tillotson.

You may remember her from such hard hitting pieces as “How Praying a Novena Helped Me Process This Election,” “Sometimes, Holiness is Boring,” and “Why It’s Idiotic to Blame Christians for the Orlando Attack.”
This week her article is called “Top 10 Reasons HuffPo Doesn’t Get School Choice.”

Which is kinda’ wrong from the get-go.

Yes, I published my article in the Huffington Post, but it is not exactly indicative of the editorial slant of that publication. Sure, HuffPo leans left, but it routinely published articles that are extremely favorable to school choice. Heck! Michelle Rhee is a freakin’ contributor!

So I don’t think it’s fair to blame HuffPo for my ideas on school choice. A better title might have been “Top 10 Reasons Singer Doesn’t Get School Choice,” but who the Heck is Singer and why should anyone care!?

Then she gives a quick summary of how my whole piece is just plain wrong: “Steven Singer of The Huffington Post would have you believe that when parents have more choices, they have fewer choices.”

That’s like writing “Steven Singer of Consumer Reports would have you believe buying a used car means you may not be able to get anywhere.”

I stand by that statement. They’re both scams, Mary. The perpetrators of school choice want to convince you to choose a school that gives you fewer choices than public schools do. Just like a used car salesmen may try to convince you to buy a clunker that won’t get you from point A to B.

Claim 1: ‘Voucher programs almost never provide students with full tuition.’

She says I’m wrong because I’m right. She basically admits most vouchers won’t pay the full tuition but that it’s still a help.

Okay. But parents have already paid for a full K-12 public school education that they will not have to supplement at all. That’s a much better value.

Moreover, Mary, you pretend that the cost of the voucher is going to pay for at least 2/3 of private school tuition. This isn’t true. Most of Donald Trump’s kids went to the Hill School in Pennsylvania for more than $55,000 a year. A thousand or two isn’t going to help much.

But Mary disagrees. Most rich folks aren’t eligible for voucher programs, she says, so the hyper elite academies are off the table.

It’s true that most vouchers are given to poor students, but that’s only temporary. The goal is to increase them to middle and upper class students. It’s the first thing they do after initially limiting vouchers to the poor. And she knows this. She’s read Milton Friedman, the conservative nutjob who thought up this scheme to destroy public schools. “The ideal way would be to abolish the public school system…” he said. How? “Privately conducted schools… can develop exclusively white schools, exclusively colored schools and mixed schools,” Friedman wrote.

What a brave new world you’re defending, Mary!

Claim 2: Choice schools don’t have to accept everyone.

She writes, “Singer would have you believe that charter schools and private schools receiving voucher money are cherry-picking the best students to stoke their egos and stats. This isn’t true, and even if it were, it would still provide more choices.”

Um. Okay. So you admit this could be true but it doesn’t matter. Choice is all that matters. Very telling.

Then she goes on to talk about schools that actually do pick their own students, and she argues that it’s okay.

It’s not, Mary. Schools that accept tax dollars should have to accept all students. Otherwise, you’re just guessing that somewhere out there is a school for all kids, but you’re doing nothing to ensure this is true.

Children and families from places destroyed by vouchers and underfunding of public schools such as Detroit have been complaining of this very thing. They go from school to school never able to find one that meets their needs. It’s not that this is a failure of the system either – this IS the system working properly! This IS school choice – a system that only ensures choice but never quality or excellence. It is predicated on the semi-religious belief that the market will take care of everything.

It doesn’t. Ask Dannah Wilson about it.

Claim 3: Charter schools are notorious for kicking out hard-to-teach students.

She acknowledges the point and then changes the subject. She says there are great charters out there like KIPP. Yes, KIPP – a system that does exactly what I just said it does! Look at the huge numbers of students KIPP schools kick out. Look at the very few who make it to graduation. This is a terrible model for your school. I guess Mary lives in a universe of alternative facts where terrible equals great.

I’m kind of embarrassed for you. Let’s just move on, shall we?

Claim 4: Choice schools actually give parents less choice than traditional public schools.

Mary says that every parent should have the right to vote with their feet? Why? I’m not sure. Maybe this explains her position:

“Singer writes, “If you don’t like what your public school is doing, you can organize, vote for new leadership or even take a leadership role, yourself.” But seriously, who has time for that? Some people, yes, but not the single mom working two jobs to make ends meet. It’s a lot easier—and a lot faster, which matters in the life of a child—to enroll a child in a different school than to slog through the political process.”

So it’s a lot easier to have fewer options? Mary, you just argued AGAINST choice. You just said choice is too much work. No one has time for choice? Make up your mind.

That is ridiculous. But moreover it’s untrue. Do you really believe parents have the time to go shopping for new schools every week? That single mom doesn’t have time to go to board meetings but she has the time to enter these charter school lotteries and hope her kids get in? And if they don’t, she has time to trudge across town to another school and when it closes suddenly, she has time to start the process all over again? And again? THIS is the time saving process!? When she could actually be building something as part of her community?

Claim 5: Charter schools don’t perform better than traditional public schools.

She just says both can be good or bad. This sidesteps exactly how bad charter schools can be. Charter operators can take all the money and run. Charters can close without warning. Cyber charters have been found to actually provide less education in math and reading than not going to school at all.

Traditional public schools can struggle, and when they do it’s almost always because they’re underfunded. Yet, they NEVER provide an education that is as bad as the worst charter schools. And most traditional public schools do the best they can with what they have. The problem is strategic disinvestment. We could make almost every traditional public school excellent if we just funded them fairly. But unfortunately billionaires like the Kochs are paying for people like Mary to convince us otherwise.

Claim 6: Charters and vouchers increase segregation.

She basically offers a defense of white parents who want their kids schooled separately from black ones. That’s just choice, baby, and choice is always good.
No, it’s not. We’ve seen that it is better for everyone if children are educated with diverse people. It helps them understand people unlike themselves. It builds a more tolerant and just America.

Yes, our traditional public schools have become more segregated because of the way district lines are drawn. But that doesn’t mean we should double down on segregation. It means we should fight to reverse it.

Then she tells a fairytale about Obama attacking choice schools in Louisiana. He CREATED that system! He was a booster of the all-charter system! He was not an enemy of school choice. Corporate Democrats are not the enemy of school choice! They love it! They are the allies of your own corporate masters, Mary. Do some research.

Claim 7: Charter and voucher schools take away funding from traditional schools.

She basically agrees with me and then says public schools should find a way to deal with it. That’s what private schools do.

But public schools can’t operate like private schools and they shouldn’t for many of the reasons already enumerated here. They accept everyone. They don’t intentionally segregate. Etc.

Moreover, instability is a terrible basis for a school. You want to ensure it will be there for children when they need it. You don’t want schools competing with each other for resources like businesses. Most businesses fail. You don’t want that for schools. You need them to succeed. That means artificially ensuring their success with a steady, reliable stream of funding just like you give to the military. You wouldn’t suggest the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines compete for funding. Why do that to our public schools?

Claim 8: Funding a variety of schools would be wasteful and expensive.

She says I’m thinking “bureaucratically, considering ‘school systems’ instead of the actual children who are the reason schools exist in the first place.”

Uh, these systems serve children. You need to be able to run them FOR THOSE STUDENTS.

Claim 9: School choice distracts from the real problems: poverty and funding equity.

She agrees that poverty is important. Then she pulls the old “throwing money at problems is a terrible idea” card. Public schools just need to find ways to cut costs. They spend too much. Blah, blah, blah.

She ignores the facts. Public schools spend dramatically different sums on students depending on whether they’re rich or poor. We need equitable school funding. That means spending more on poor children and not complaining about “throwing money” at the problem. No one complains about that at the rich schools where they spend so much more than the poor schools. No one calls it “throwing money” when it’s your own child. That’s “investing in children.” It’s only when it’s THOSE kids that it’s “throwing money” at the problem. It betrays a class conscious prejudice against the poor and – most likely – children of color.

She then goes on to complain about the increase in administrative costs at public schools. This is laughable! Charter schools spend so much more on administrative costs than traditional public schools! A study by Michigan State University and the University of Utah found that charter schools spend on average $774 more per student on administration and $1,140 less on instruction than do traditional public schools.

And then she talks about student achievement not increasing at public schools. Actually, it depends on how you measure it. Standardized testing is a poor measure of achievement. And when you adjust for poverty, our schools are some of the best in the world.

Claim 10: School choice is supported by billionaires, not the grassroots.

Here she just talks about all the events planned during school choice week.

Mary, these are attended by private and parochial schools during the school day. The staff is literally paid to be there. The school children are literally forced to be there because their schools are closed and they are bused in to these events.

That’s not grassroots. That’s the definition of astroturf.

Do some people support school choice? Yes. Less than 10 percent of America’s students attend these schools. But the overwhelming majority of Americans support public schools.

Mary goes on about all the people applying for vouchers but she ignores a much more pertinent fact. Whenever school vouchers have been put to a referendum, voters have always turned it down. This despite who-knows-how-many-millions of dollars in advertising and propaganda to influence voters to support it!

No matter what the position, you can find someone to support it. But the majority of school choice proponents are billionaires and corporatists trying to fool regular people into doing what’s not it their own best interests.

Just ask your editors at the Federalist, Mary. You and your article are a case in point.

But thank you so much for critiquing my article. I’m just a public school teacher. I so rarely get corporate employees writing responses to my work.

Frankly, I didn’t find your piece very convincing, but what do I know? I’m a union thug with an advanced degree, a masters and a national certification. I don’t represent Trump’s America like you do.

I just represent the majority who may one day wake up and take it all back.

How to Get Trump to Support Public Education: A Military Proposal

stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Guns, Politics, Prejudice, President, Propaganda, Republican, satire, School Choice, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Donald Trump is dead set on destroying public education.

 

He and his mega-donor Education Secretary Betsy DeVos want to flood the market with vouchers to divert tax dollars to private and parochial schools thereby starving traditional public schools into closing.

 

But watching the orange one speaking to Congress last night, I got an idea. I know how to get this dimwitted blowhard to support public schools. And every conservative lawmaker will back him up.

 

Sound impossible? Not really. But the best part is we don’t need the Democrats to do a darn thing. As if they could. Their thumbs are planted so firmly up their own asses it would take an army of proctologists to save the party.

 

We don’t need them. All we need is language. Just rename things.

 

It’s the same tactic Nazis have used to take over the Republican Party. They’re no longer called Nazis. Now they’re “white nationalists,” or just members of the “Alt-Right.”

 

So we can use the same ploy: Conservatives won’t support “public schools” so let’s call them something else – something they will support no matter what.

 

Here’s the plan: Trump wants to increase military spending by $54 billion. So we reclassify education as a branch of the military.

 

Defense spending already tops $600 billion a year. Federal education spending is only about $70 billion.

 

We could combine them and call it an increase in the military!

 

I know what you’re thinking. If we do that, the armed forces are going to gobble up school funding. Not necessarily.

 

They can’t spend all the money they get now! The waste, fraud and abuse in the military is legendary. Piles of money – literally piles of cash – simply go missing and no one knows where they went or is held responsible.

 

But you’re right. We need a reason to prioritize some of that military spending for school kids.

 

And there’s a simple solution: disaster capitalism.

 

It’s the same way testing corporations and book publishers got the Bush and Obama administrations to invest in high stakes testing and Common Core. We simply make up a problem and then offer a solution that requires all this federal spending.

 

I propose we start the following: A WAR ON IGNORANCE!

 

Every red-blooded Republican can get behind a new war. It’s their white, Christian duty to protect the country. And if they don’t, we can call them “soft on war” or “snowflakes” or “cucks” or some other euphemism for having a small penis.

 

Think of it.

 

Our country is under attack from ignorance. We can’t let our children get left behind so we need to invest in the Education Forces. We need an army of teachers equipped with brand new military bases (formerly schools) that will protect us from foreign illiteracy. ISIS hates our science and math. Russia is jealous of our reading comprehension and historical acumen. China despises us for our creativity and scholarship.

 

If we look at it as a military problem, we’ll be bound to find workable solutions. Do you think the armed forces would allow some military bases serving black and brown soldiers to be underfunded and lacking in guns and tanks? Do you think the Joint Chiefs would permit white military bases to be stocked with missiles and grenades while black bases go wanting? In fact, do you think they’d put up with segregated bases at all!?

 

NO WAY.

 

If Education was considered a matter of national security, these problems would go away in a matter of weeks. Each Educational Fortress would be stocked with everything it needs.

 

And just to make extra sure – let’s change the name of these resources. No more books, computers, desks, etc. We’ll call them knowledge pistols – because pistols are protected by the Second Amendment. No Republican would dare block schools from arming students with Brain Guns that shoot information into their sage skulls. No conservative would stop kids from “Open Carrying” a stack of neatly bound scholar cannons.

 

Imagine what this would do for teachers. They would no longer be agents of the “government-run” “socialist” system. They would be soldiers, majors, lieutenants, generals in the military. No serious right-winger could bring themselves to criticizing a four star intellectual brigadier general. He’d have to support the troops!

 

Terrible programs like Teach for America would come to an abrupt end, too. The military wouldn’t let you send a lightly trained trooper into the harshest war zones to do battle. So no more lightly trained teacher temps dropped into our urban schools for a year or two before entering the business world. We only want educator commandos who have gone through rigorous training programs and received full degrees at our university citadels.

 

And no more evaluating Cranium Commanders with standardized test scores. Value added measures have been proven to be ineffective. The Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines wouldn’t put up with that – so neither should our Grey Matter Training Centers.

 

Since we’re at it, no more standardized testing for students either. The military doesn’t use a multiple choice test as the ultimate assessment of battle readiness. They use multiple measures especially the recommendation of commanders and drill sergeants.

 

Wait a minute. What about school choice? The Trump administration has already committed itself to this policy. He of the billion dollar comb over will never allow such a change in policy. It would look – WEAK!

 

So don’t change it. Just redefine it.

 

We can still have school choice. Lots of choice. Great choice. Better choice than anyone ever dreamed. Believe me.

 

All you do is define exactly which schools are eligible to receive these vouchers.

 

First, they must accept everyone. That eliminates the majority of private, parochial and charter schools.

 

Second, they must have an elected school board, open meetings where they discuss how public funding is being spent. Also they must teach only secular curriculum – we can’t risk getting left behind other secular nations in science, math, etc. And the voucher must cover the entire cost for the student.

 

When you’re done with these and other stipulations, either choice schools will have to become what used to be called public schools or else they’ll have to forgo the vouchers entirely.

 

How could Trump and his Tea Party followers possibly object?

 

This is a good plan! A great plan! The best plan anyone ever thought of anywhere in the history of this great country!

 

This is an increase in the military!

 

This is in the interest of national security!

 

We can’t afford NOT to do it!

 

Come on, Conservative America! Support the WAR ON IGNORANCE!

 

It’s one protracted, never-ending battle that everyone should be able to get behind.

 

God bless, America!

 

(Or we could just prioritize knowledge and children more than guns and death. We could acknowledge an obligation to the next generation that goes beyond mere birth. And we could scrap everything corporate-controlled Republicans and Democrats have been pushing for the last several decades and listen to classroom teachers and other experts! —But no! That’s too radical! Better to enact this modest proposal!)

Trump Can’t Fight Anti-Semites. They’re His Base!

stevenmsinger Donald Trump, Election, Hate Crimes, immigration, Journalism, Politics, Prejudice, President, Racism, Republican, Schools, Violence Against Children, Whiteness , , , , , , , ,

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“In a short time, a large number of Jews are going to be slaughtered. Their heads are going to [sic] blown off from the shrapnel. There’s a lot of shrapnel. There’s going to be a bloodbath that’s going to take place in a short time. I think I told you enough. I must go.”

This is one of at least 89 bomb threats at Jewish institutions since Donald Trump was inaugurated.

Just yesterday, alone, at least 21 Jewish community centers and Jewish day schools across the country received bomb threats.

So far, at least 72 Jewish cultural centers in 30 U.S. states and one Canadian province have been affected, according to the Jewish Community Center Association of North America.

Besides bomb threats, hundreds of graves at Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, there was a foiled massacre at a synagogue and swastika graffiti has dramatically increased in public spaces.

American Jews are victims of more reported hate crimes than any other group in the United States, and have been subject to the majority of religiously motivated offenses every year since the FBI started reporting these statistics in 1995.

Such offenses were not unknown in this country before Trump’s rise, but the rate is increasing.

This is consistent with a rise in hate crimes for all ethnic groups across the country. Southern Poverty Law Centre recorded more than 1,000 hate crimes in January alone – the same amount usually reported over a six-month period.

Far from helping the situation, Trump has made it worse.

His statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day deliberately left out any mention of Jewish people – a direct nod to Holocaust deniers everywhere.

At a press conference, an Orthodox Jewish reporter asked him about “an uptick in anti-Semitism and how the government is planning to take care of it.” Trump asked him to sit down, saying it was “not a fair question” and “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

His supporters would cheerfully disagree. Ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is one of his biggest boosters. White nationalists have been recorded literally shouting, “Hail Trump!” and making a gesture similar to the Hitler salute.

In fact, his entire Presidential campaign was predicated on race baiting and xenophobia. He has gone after undocumented immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, women, Muslims and the disabled.

He led the “birther” movement challenging President Obama’s standing as a natural-born American; used various vulgar expressions to refer to women; spoke of Mexico sending rapists and other criminals across the border; called for rounding up and deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants; had public feuds with prominent Latino journalists and news outlets; mocked Asian accents; let stand a charge made in his presence that Obama is a Muslim and that Muslims are a “problem” in America; embraced the notion of forcing Muslims to register in a database; falsely claimed thousands of Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey; tweeted false statistics asserting that most killings of whites are done by blacks; approved of beating up a black demonstrator at one of his events; and publicly mocked the movements of journalist Serge Kovaleski, who has a chronic condition limiting his mobility.

If that’s not prejudiced, racist and bigoted, I don’t know what is.

But when it comes to anti-Semitism, the situation gets complicated.

His supporters will counter that Trump can’t be anti-Semitic because his daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism to marry his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

But does that really follow?

Trump appears either to be an anti-Semite, himself, or certainly to be tolerant of anti-Semitism.

Even Ivanka’s behavior is suspect. She offered the following strange tweet about recent bomb threats: “America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC”.

On the surface of it, she’s asking for the violence to stop. But why is her only mention of Judaism an abbreviation in a hashtag? Doesn’t that minimize the point just like Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day message?

This appears to be a kind of plausible deniability.

It’s like a black person telling racist jokes about black people. We might let him get away with it because he’s black. We might say, It’s Okay because he can’t be prejudiced against black people.

However, actions speak louder than words. And Trump’s are clearly on the side of prejudice – even anti-Jewish prejudice.

The Alt Right movement tries to pull the same kind of thing with Breitbart News. The publication has been rife with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, yet many of its editors and/or writers claim Jewish ancestry. Andrew Breitbart – the conservative media pundit for which the site is named and who died in 2012 – was Jewish. So were many of his colleagues and successors, among them former editor-in-chief Joel Pollak and former editor-at-large Ben Shapiro. Even former senior editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos claims some Jewish ancestry.

Yet Breitbart is the publication of choice for Neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The organization is pushing an anti-Jewish agenda and appealing to racists and bigots as its readership.

The organization has published multiple articles denigrating minorities, championing white nationalism and denying the existence of anti-Semitism – or at very least claiming it only exists on the left.

Trump is deeply connected with the organization through his senior adviser Steve Bannon, one of its founders.

This is the same constituency that propelled the President into the national spotlight. It’s naive to ask Trump for help stop the wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes. The people perpetrating them are most likely his hard core supporters.

Though Trump eventually did make a weak denunciation of the bomb threats and anti-Semitic violence, he can’t be too forceful. He can’t send out a series of tweets critical of Nazis and white nationalists. He can’t turn to his supporters demanding peace. He needs them. They’re just about the only folks left who support him.

In the latest national Quinnipiac poll, only 38% of American voters approve of Trump’s job performance, while 55% disapprove. These are the lowest numbers for a new President in at least 40 years, according to the Washington Post.

If Trump proposes spending federal dollars to fight anti-Semitism with tolerance programs in schools, he’s bound to upset his base. If he appoints a special task force to catch those committing hate crimes, he’s going to anger the only reliable group committed to supporting his political agenda at the polls.

So instead we get half measures. He’ll make a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement – but not mention Jews. He might admit that anti-Semitism is bad but refuse to acknowledge that it still exists.

He’s hoping to make his statements vague enough to be interpreted in two ways. He hopes his critics will interpret them as asking to stop the violence, but he wants his supporters to interpret them as tacit agreement with their anti-Semitism.

This is the exact opposite of moral courage. And it is taking its toll on the Jewish community, and every other minority.

Without Progressive Opposition, Trump Will Win in 2020 and Beyond

stevenmsinger Bernie Sanders, Campaign Donations, Democrat, Donald Trump, Election, Election Reform, Hillary Clinton, Labor, Obama, Politics, Prejudice, President, Republican, Unions, voting , , , , , , , ,

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“You maniacs! You Finally did it! Oh damn you all to Hell!”

This was Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes.”

But it could just as easily have been progressives everywhere after the Democratic National Committee voted for corporate shill Tom Perez to lead the party over bonafide change agent Keith Ellison.

What the Hell is wrong with you, DNC?

Perez supports the TPP, he’s a friend of the big banks and the donor class – AND he was part of the disastrous, dirty, LOSING Hillary Clinton campaign.

Don’t you get it? We lost against a reality show TV clown, Donald Trump, and you’re just repeating the same mistakes!?

And don’t give me this Russia hacking crap. Yes, they probably helped Trump win by exposing DNC emails. But they were real DNC emails. Democratic operatives actually wrote that stuff.

You will never convince me that it was enough to turn the election. If we had had an actual progressive running (Cough! Cough! Bernie Sanders!) it wouldn’t have mattered.

This was a choice between a corporate candidate and Donald Trump and people chose Donald. F’ing. Trump!

That’s on you.

And what is the first thing you do to fight back? You vote for another corporate Democrat to lead the party to oppose him!?

You maniacs! You Finally did it! Oh damn you all to Hell!

The Democratic Party is all but dead now.

Trump will walk into a second term in 2020 – no matter how terrible he continues to be between now and then.

He could take a dump on his desk in the oval office on live TV and there is probably NOTHING. We. Can. DO!

There is no opposition party.

No one is going to vote for Trump-lite.

This is not an opinion. It is a demonstrable fact. Just look back at freakin’ November!

Almost a million people signed a petition for Ellison. He won the backing of key unions – including the Teamsters, steelworkers, Communications Workers of America, and UNITE HERE. He won the backing of key activist groups including Democracy for America, 350.Org, the Center for Popular Democracy, MoveOn.Org, the Working Families Party, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and others. He was supported by notable progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Zephyr Teachout, Gloria Steinem, Walter Mondale, and Dolores Huerta ( co-founder of the United Farm Workers). He won over left-leaning publications like The Nation, whose editorial board wrote, “It is Ellison who combines the ideals, skills, and movement connections that will revitalize the party.”

Yet he lost by 35 votes to Perez.

When it came down to the 447 party insiders actually eligible to vote, Perez won by 235 to 200 (not counting abstentions).

If the DNC were a child, I would praise them for making progress. But it’s not a child. It’s supposed to be a national political party that can put up a robust challenge to the neo-facist in the White House!

This is completely unacceptable. And party leaders know it.

That’s why Perez immediately made Ellison his co-chair.

Good try, but too little, too late.

Perez, not Ellison, will be in charge of key decisions about the future of the party. As party chairman, he holds the balance on the makeup of the DNC Unity Reform Commission.

Were you one of millions of Americans who thought the party’s use of superdelegates during the primary was undemocratic? Well this is the commission that can eliminate them.

Sanders and Clinton delegates at the DNC convention in Philadelphia this summer clashed over these issues until Clinton agreed to let the matter be decided later by creating this group. It was a way to avoid a floor debate at that time and unify the party.

Clinton’s team gets to name nine members of the commission, and Sanders’ team gets seven. Now, Perez, as DNC chair, will control three additional votes. For those of you counting at home, that’s a 12-7 majority on the commission for the corporate Democrats. So superdelegates won’t be going anywhere. So if you want a Democratic party that is more democratic and more responsive to rank-and-file Democrats, well you can just stuff it.

Of course, all that’s in the future. How can we know now that Perez and other Democratic leaders won’t commit themselves to reform anyway?

Because of how else they voted at yesterday’s convention in Atlanta.

Before voting for Perez, they actually decided to vote down a resolution that would have reinstated former President Barack Obama’s ban on corporate political action committee donations to the party.

Resolution 33 also would have forbidden “registered, federal corporate lobbyists” from serving as “DNC chair-appointed, at-large members.”

And the DNC said, “Nah. We want that corporate money.”

Just what we need. More corporate donors, more support from big business and the rich – less impact from the working class people the Democrats actually need to vote for them to take back the country!

The Democrats need new blood. The party needs a top-to-bottom reorganization. It needs young people, working class people and minorities. It needs to rebuild county organizations and follow Sander’s $27 average donations.

Consolidating power among corporate donors and refusing to make any real structural reforms is not going to accomplish any of it.

Why did Ellison lose? Short answer: Israel.

Ellison is an African American Muslim who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and continued expansion into disputed territories. His position is well within the party mainstream – even for many Jewish members. More than 60 percent of Democrats agree Israel should stop expanding in the West Bank or else face sanctions. Sanders – a Jew, himself – holds similar views.

However, prominent Clinton supporters spearheaded a smear campaign to deflate Ellison’s candidacy. His most vocal critics were the Anti-Defamation League, mega-donor Haim Saban, and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

So instead the DNC has picked Perez, Obama’s former Labor Secretary who did next to nothing to help labor.

But Perez was a trusted adviser to Clinton on how to defame Sanders during the primary election.

He famously sent an email to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta published by Wikileaks suggesting Clinton paint her rival as an angry white male candidate with little minority support.

He wrote:

“Emmy and the team have a good plan to attract all minority voters. When we do well there [Nevada], then the narrative changes from Bernie kicks ass among young voters to Bernie does well only among young white liberals—that is a different story and a perfect lead in to South Carolina, where once again, we can work to attract young voters of color. So I think Nevada is a real opportunity, and I would strongly urge HRC to get out there within a couple days of [New Hampshire].”

Like others Clinton staffers, he described Nevada as her “firewall” and was unconcerned about how minorities would feel if they were described in such exploitative terms.

The Nevada caucus was the only decisive victory for Clinton with African Americans, according to entrance polls. However, more Latinos voted for Sanders so the state did not make it abundantly clear that Sanders was incapable of attracting support from people of color.

Despite smears by the Clinton campaign, there was never evidence Sanders supporters were motivated by white male angst. In fact, American National Elections Studies found white identity was more important to Clinton supporters than Sanders supporters.

But Perez’s loyalty to Clinton and other corporate Democrats has paid off.

Trump immediately responded with a tweet literally thanking the Democrats for choosing Perez and increasing his own chances of re-election.

Repeating the same failing strategy over-and-over is not the definition of political success. It is the definition of insanity.

Perhaps one day the Democrats will realize that and run actual progressives for leadership roles and higher office. But by then, it will be far too late.

Every day Trump further erodes our freedoms and social services. Every day he endangers our lives with his incompetence and undiplomatic relations with foreign governments. Every day he breaks our laws, spouts blatant lies and fosters hate and discord.

We simply don’t have the time for the Democrats to get their act together.

It is becoming even more clear that we need a completely new political party organized from the grassroots up and dedicated to progressivism. Whether this can be accomplished in the two years we have before the midterm elections seems doubtful. Whether it can be done in time to stop Trump’s re-election is unknown.

But waiting for the Democrats to get their collective heads out of their asses is an exercise in futility.

The cavalry is not coming. We must all learn to ride.

I’m a Public School teacher. Hands Off My Trans Students!

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I’m a public school teacher.

I have a lot of different girls and boys in my classes.

In fact, some of them are neither girls nor boys.

Does that mean they should be discriminated against? Does it mean we should judge them, tell them they’re somehow less valuable than the other kids? Tell them who they are by telling them where to pee?

Heck, No!

Some kids don’t feel comfortable with a traditional gender identity. And it’s more common than you’d think.

It’s certainly more widespread than I ever would have thought until a little girl taught me a lesson… well, not a little girl, really.

A few months ago, I would have said she’s the cutest little girl in the lunch line.

Bright, vivacious, always a friendly smile and a kind word.

But she’s not a little girl.

And I didn’t know until she told me.

As a teacher given the unenviable role of line monitor, I have to find the bright spots where I can.

Letting only two hungry 5th graders in to get their lunch at a time and making the rest wait does not make you popular.

“Aaaargh! Why you always stopping me!?” They often say.

“Because you were third,” I reply.

“But why?” They often insist.

“It’s not personal. It’s numerical.”

And I let them through to continue the game tomorrow.

It goes on like that for about a half hour with little variation – until she gets to the front of the line.

“Hey, Mr. Singer!” Big smile and a wave.

And we’d be off on a conversation. She’d ask me how my day was, what I was teaching my students, how my daughter was. I’d ask how her day was so far, about pets, homework.

She’s actually not in my class. I only see her at lunch, but she always brightens my day.

For months, it went like clockwork. Until a few weeks ago when she appeared at the front of the line with her long hair chopped off into a bob.

“Nice haircut,” I said encouragingly.

“Thanks,” she replied. “You want to know why I got it?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I’m agender.”

“Oh,” I responded cluelessly. “What’s that?”

And she proceeded to explain that she didn’t feel comfortable identifying as male or female.

I nodded and then it was time to let her get her lunch.

I’ll admit it was unsettling. Here was this cute little thing and I didn’t even know what to call her now.

But the next day things progressed as usual. Ze came through the line with the same big smile. We had the same innocuous conversation and ze went to eat.

It made me think.

I’ve been teaching for more than a decade. Ze was probably not the first transgender student I’ve met. And when I thought back to all the children who’ve come through my classes over the years, faces started to pop up and hit me.

Gender is not black and white. (Come to think of it, neither is race.) No one is 100% male or female. I mean, sure people have a fixed range of sexual parts, but gender identity is more than that.

We each feel comfortable acting and identifying certain ways, and if you think about it, some of those ways don’t always line up with our cultural gender designation.

For instance, I cry my eyes out at certain movies. My daughter – who’s 8 – heard the song “Boys Don’t Cry,” the other day and said, “Well that isn’t true. Daddy cries all the time.”

Moreover, my wife loves football, basketball and hockey. Me? I could take them or leave them. If she wants me to watch the game with her, she’s got to beg or promise or put out the right snacks.

Wouldn’t it just make sense that some people are much further to one side or other of the gender spectrum than others? Wouldn’t it just make sense that sometimes your identity and your physical parts don’t match? Or maybe you’re so in the middle that it makes no sense to take a side?

I say again, I teach in a public school. We don’t push any kids away. We take everyone. And that means taking those kids who aren’t so easy to label.

I teach middle school. Transgenderism doesn’t come up too often.

Last year when bathroom bills were all the rage, some of my 8th graders brought it up during our Socratic Seminar discussion groups. And I let them talk about it.

We talked about why some people might think this is a good idea, why some might oppose it, etc. There were some boys who were hysterically against trans students using the bathroom with them, but most of my kids had zero problem with it. In fact, they knew that it had already happened.

Trans students are everywhere. You just rarely hear about them.

I don’t know which bathroom my lunchline buddy uses. I wouldn’t presume to ask. But it hurts me that there are people out there who want to limit hir.

These children have rights. They are little sweethearts. They’re full of life and joy. We should respect their humanity.

And to those who say letting them use a bathroom that corresponds with their identity will lead to kids being molested, let me ask – has that ever really happened?

The way I see it, the problem is people – any people – molesting others, no matter what room they do it in, no matter if they’re transgender or not.

Frankly, it doesn’t happen a lot at school, nor is it more pronounced with trans kids.

This has nothing to do with children. It has to do with old men and women who refuse to broaden their views about the world. It’s about the ancient making the young do as they say regardless of how doing so may trample on their right to be themselves.

Well, I won’t be a part of it.

You want to attack my trans students? You’ll have to do it through me.

I’m a guardian of kid’s rights. I’m a defender of children from whoever wants to do them harm.

I’m a public school teacher. That’s just what we do.

PA Senate Regulates Union Political Spending But Not Corporate Political Spending

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In a display of blatant hypocrisy, the Pennsylvania state Senate voted yesterday to further regulate labor unions political spending but not that of corporations.

 

By a vote of 28-22, the Senate passed a bill blocking government agencies from deducting union dues used for political activity from employees’ paychecks.

 

Even though six Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing SB 166, it now goes to the state House for consideration.

 

Typically only about 10 percent of union dues are used in politics. These are voluntary contributions employees ask to be deducted from their pay for lobbying in their own interests. Like contributions to the United Way or other charities, it’s an issue of convenience for employees but poses no significant burden on employers.

 

However, businesses such as insurance companies, big banks and financial companies also are involved in politics. Shouldn’t their spending be subject to similar controls?

 

Apparently not, according to Senate Republicans.

 

Leading Democrat Sen. Jay Costa (D-Forest Hills) proposed an amendment to the bill that would have put similar regulations on corporations in the state. It was defeated by a party line vote of 16-34.

 

Costa’s amendment would have required corporations that are organized in the Commonwealth to get shareholders consent before spending any more than $10,000 a year on politics.

 

It was a common sense measure meant to ensure that CEOs and board of directors are acting in the interests of their shareholders. However, Senate Republicans turned it down while ramping up restrictions on working people.

 

State Republicans have made it clear that the problem is not political spending. It is political spending by labor unions. It is political spending that more typically goes to the opposition party.

 

They don’t care how corporations participate in the political process. They only care about unions, which historically vote against Republicans.

 

It is impossible to conceive that political considerations played no part in their decision. After all, corporations are much more likely to donate to members of the GOP than they are to Democrats. Republicans can talk about liberty all they want, but voters know this is all about protecting contributions to the GOP while weakening such revenue streams to Democrats. Otherwise, why not level equal regulations for both parties?

 

Getting money out of politics is a noble goal. But that’s not what this is. It is about getting the opposition party’s money out while keeping bags of gold doubloons for you and yours.

 

The measure could just as easily sail through the House, which also has a hefty Republican majority. Pennsylvania is one of the most extreme examples of gerrymandering in the country, with many more Democratic votes being cast yet having a GOP majority in the legislature. However, it is doubtful Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf would sign this bill even if Republicans ram it through. So it’s prospects of being enacted are dim.

 

The measure would force unions to collect any dues or contributions on their own to fund get-out-the-vote efforts, lobbying or voter registration drives. Fortunately, it would still permit union deductions for non-political activities such as collective bargaining and grievances.

 

The bill is sponsored by Sen. John Eichelberger, (R-Duncansville) one of the most virulent anti-education lawmakers in the state. Eichelberger hasn’t seen a measure that harms school children, teachers or unions that he hasn’t written, himself, or at least supported. He is the architect behind Senate Bill 229, a measure that would strip teachers of sick days, bereavement leave and sabbaticals. The bill would make teachers bargain with their individual districts for any kind of leave.

 

Eichelberger is infamous for getting into verbal and digital confrontations with teachers at Altoona Area High School.

 

In one particular battle, a teacher allegedly yelled at the fiscally conservative state Senator for jogging during working hours, between 9 am and 5 pm. He also berated Eichleberger – a vocal critic of teachers’ pay scale – for the lawmaker’s own large salary.

 

A salary database on Open Pagov.org states the Altoona teacher makes just over $43,000. Eichelberger’s salary is $85,339, according to a state website.

 

For his part, Eichelberger wrote a letter to the district superintendent complaining that teachers were sending him derogatory emails during school hours.

 

The state Senator has turned this spat into public policy positions. Both he and Senate Republicans got a pat on the back from their corporate masters at the far right Commonwealth Foundation for the passage of the union regulation bill.

 

Once again, Republicans have targeted teachers, nurses and public safety workers, while championing corporations. No wonder union members rarely vote for the GOP.

PA Legislature Plans Taking Away Teachers’ Sick Days

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Dear Pennsylvania legislators:

So now you want to take away teachers’ sick days.

Sabbatical, sick days, bereavement leaves – the Senate Education Committee voted 7-5 to strip them from the law and make teachers bargain for them with their districts.

So the next time I get sick, you don’t want to guarantee I can take the day off. If my mother dies, you don’t want to protect my right to attend her funeral.

The full legislature still has to vote on it, but that’s pretty cold.

Which brings me to my first question: Why do you hate public school teachers so much?

Seriously. What did teachers ever do to you? Did we give you a bad grade when you were kids? Did we give you detention? What did we ever do to earn such animosity?

You obviously must have something personal against teachers.

It’s understandable. Even though the majority of Pennsylvanians voted for Democrats, most of you are Republicans. You have gerrymandered the state so that you artificially have the majority, and as such you must espouse the most radical positions possible. Otherwise, you’ll be primaried by someone even farther right – a Tea Partier, a plutocrat, an anarcho-capitalist, a fascist.

We see the same thing playing out nationally. Hello, Donald Trump!

So it’s no surprise that after stripping public schools of almost $1 billion every year for the past five years, after tens of thousands of teachers have been laid off, after you’ve given away millions of dollars to private corporations to run fly-by-night charter schools or through tax credits to religious schools – well, it’s no surprise that you feel the need to continue the war on teachers.

It’s paying off for you big time.

Not so much for our school children. They have had to deal with increases in class size, narrowing of the curriculum, reductions in extra-curriculars, cuts in tutoring – just about every deprivation imaginable.

I wonder – do you realize that every attack against teachers is also an attack against students? Making sick teachers come to school won’t improve kids’ educations. Forcing educators to choose between work or seeing their loved ones off to their final resting places won’t boost test scores. Do you understand that or do you just not care?

Follow-up, if I may: do you realize that most public school teachers are women? Does that factor in at all? Which do you hate more, the gender of most teachers or the fact that we are unionized?

Oh, and Pennsylvania School Boards Association, don’t think we’ve forgotten you. We know you requested this mess, Senate Bill 229. Instead of standing with your teachers to fight for fair, equitable, sustainable funding, you’ve decided to ask the legislature if you can stiff teachers to make ends meet. We’re there for your kids everyday, and this is how you thank us. That’s gratitude.

It’s what we get for being one of the last workforces to be unionized. We have the temerity to demand fair treatment. You can’t just do whatever you like with us, you have to actually sit down with us at the bargaining table and talk.

Legislators, we know it’s something that infuriates your base. No, I don’t mean the people who vote for you. I mean your real base – the corporations, millionaires and billionaires who pay your real salaries – the unlimited and shadowy campaign contributions that, let’s be honest, are really nothing less than legal bribes.

We shouldn’t be surprised that you have prioritized taking away legal protections for teachers’ sick days. It is quite in line with what you want to do to the profession. You no longer want highly qualified teachers making a middle class income who then can stay in our schools for their entire careers. You want lightly trained temps who use teaching as a stepping stone to a job that pays enough to live.

After all, if we afford teachers the status of professionals, they might actually be able to jump all the other hurdles we’ve put in front of them and educate the poor.

That would be terrible.

Despite all the standardized testing, Common Core, value-added measures, budget cuts, and constant propaganda about “failing schools,” they might actually teach these kids to think. That’s the last thing you want.

A thinking public might see how much you’re screwing them over. They might actually rise up and fight. They might refuse to accept the status quo that you are so desperately trying to protect.

That’s your real endgame. And though it makes me sick, I suppose I will no longer be able to take off.

I’ll just spend the day, coughing and wheezing with the children.

Yours,

Steven Singer

The Gadfly on the Wall

Civil Rights Aren’t Just for Minorities – They’re For Everyone

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

It’s still shocking to me that so many white people seem to think civil rights are just a black issue.

 

As if they’re something that only concerns people of color.

 

White people can’t be the victims of discrimination? We can’t be mistreated on the basis of gender, religion, sexuality, or age?

 

Of course we can! And many of us are. But we are rarely discriminated against on the basis of our race. And somehow accepting that fact seems to turn us against the very idea of civil rights.

 

We act as if talking about civil rights is code for black issues. Many of us refuse to even admit that black people have legitimate grievances in this area, that they’re just needlessly complaining and looking for sympathy, that they’re trying to get something for free or get one over on us.

 

It’s pure bullshit. Black people are authentically aggrieved. They are the victims of a systemic racism that rarely even becomes visible to white eyes. And that same system either ignores whiteness or even privileges it.

 

The criminal justice system, alone, is rife with examples including racial profiling, stop-and-frisk policies, police brutality and the failed War on Drugs. Add to that voter ID laws, redlining, and credit scores. Add to that the use of bigoted and prejudiced textbooks, punishing non-white students more harshly than white students, underfunding public schools, and closing them down if they’re attended mostly by students of color.

 

Yet that doesn’t mean white people are impervious to civil rights violations. It just means that people of color are targeted much more often and are in much greater need of help than we are.

 

Yet many of us refuse to admit it. We refuse even though doing so actually puts ourselves at greater risk.

 

Think about it. If we ignore the civil rights concerns of those most victimized, who will be there for us when we’re targeted?

 

Take police brutality.

According to the Guardian’s The Counted, 1,092 Americans were killed by police in 2016. If we look at it proportionately, a much higher percentage of minorities were killed than white people. Specifically, Native Americans were killed at 10.13 per million, black people at 6.66 per million, while Hispanics and Latinos were killed at 3.23 per million. By comparison, white people were only killed at 2.9 per million.

 

So minorities were killed at much higher rates than whites given their smaller percentages of the population. However, if we look at the raw numbers, more white people were killed than any other group. Specifically, the police killed 574 whites, 266 blacks, 183 Hispanics/Latinos and 24 Native Americans.

 

So, yes, the African American community is right to be angry that they’re being disproportionately targeted by police. However, more than 500 white people were killed by law enforcement, too. That’s a troubling figure all by itself. Why are American police killing so many of us? Why is law enforcement so trigger happy in the USA?

 

It’s a problem for everyone. Police should not be killing such high numbers of civilians. In fact, in other countries, they don’t. Police kill more people in the U.S. in days than they do in other countries in years. Yet very few police officers actually serve jail time. Several officers went to trial in 2016, but only a handful were convicted.

 

This is a real problem, yet many white people dismiss it as a black issue – and an illegitimate one at that. As a country, we have a real concern with the way police are trained, protocol for when deadly force is allowed and how officers are held accountable. But we’re letting this issue fall through the cracks because it’s being delegitimized as a “mere” civil rights complaint.

 

Things have really changed in this country.

 

In 1963, when the all black 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by four members of the Ku Klux Klan, the entire society took notice. Even whites who had been unsympathetic to the civil rights struggles of African Americans up to this point were disturbed at the murder of four children and the injury of 22 others. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called it “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,” and it marked a turning point in our history. The fight for civil rights became a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, American struggle to secure equality for our brother and sister African Americans.

 

However, just two years ago when Dylann Roof was inspired by white supremacist Websites to kill nine people at all black Charleston Church in South Carolina, the response was… meh. Though it has been categorized as a hate crime, it has done nothing to wake up the society at large to the realities of modern day American racism. At most, it’s dismissed as an isolated event.

 

However, it’s not. White supremacists have long targeted African American churches as objects of their hatred. In 1991 it took a series of 154 suspicious church burnings for Congress five year later to pass the Church Arson Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to damage religious property because of its “racial or ethnic character.” More recently, a black church in Massachusetts was burned down the day after President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.

 

For some reason, these continuing hate crimes fail to rouse the public at large. Perhaps the Internet culture and the perpetuation of so-called news sources that only support partisan confirmation bias has something to do with it. But it’s harmful to all of us.

 

When white people ignore the legitimate claims of black people, they make it easier for everyone to be mistreated. Often white people have acted as if prejudice could never be perpetrated against them, and when it’s cropped up, we’ve defined it narrowly to fit only the immediate group targeted. That’s an LGBT issue. That’s a Jewish issue. That’s an issue for people with disabilities. We rarely see them as they are – human issues.

 

In the age of Trump, violations of individual rights are popping up every day: journalists receiving felony charges for covering unrest at the inauguration, a Louisiana bill that makes resisting arrest a hate crime punishable by 10 years in prison, proposed laws in 10 states to criminalize peaceful protects – and on and on.

 

Nor is it partisan. Here are a list of human rights violations under Obama: drone strikes outside active war zones, ongoing use of massive civilian surveillance programs, failure to close Guantanamo Bay, harsh penalties for whistle blowers and no accountability for those they expose.

 

We live in an age where our rights are being eroded by ignorance, indifference, and the uncritical acceptance of prepacked political narratives. The powers that be use racism and prejudice to keep us divided so we’ll never mount an effective opposition.

 

Today as ever we need each other. We need to be there for our brothers and sisters in humanity. That starts with white people waking up to the harsh realities of black life in America.

Trump says our schools are “Flush with Cash!?” They’re Falling Apart!

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Donald Trump lies.

If you haven’t learned that yet, America, you’ve got four more cringe-inducing years to do so.

Even in his inaugural address, he couldn’t help but let loose a whooper about US public schools.

“Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves,” he said. “But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists. … An education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”

To which nearly every poor, nonwhite public school parent, student and teacher in the country replied, “What’s that heck did he just say now!?”

Los Angeles Unified School district routinely has broken desks and chairs, missing ceiling tiles, damaged flooring, broken sprinklers, damaged lunch tables and broken toilet paper dispensers.

They’re flush with cash!?

New York City public schools removed more than 160 toxic light fixtures containing polychlorinated biphenyls, a cancer causing agent that also hinders cognitive and neurological development. Yet many schools are still waiting on a fix, especially those serving minority students.

They’re flush with cash!?

At Charles L. Spain school in Detroit, the air vents are so warped and moldy, turning on the heat brings a rancid stench. Water drips from a leaky roof into the gym, warping the floor tiles. Cockroaches literally scurry around some children’s classrooms until they are squashed by student volunteers.

They’re flush with freakin cash!?

Are you serious, Donald Trump!?

And this same picture is repeated at thousands of public schools across the nation especially in impoverished neighborhoods. Especially in communities serving a disproportionate number of black, Latino or other minority students.

In predominantly white, upper class neighborhoods, the schools often ARE “flush with cash.” Olympic size swimming pools, pristine bathrooms – heck – air conditioning! But in another America across the tracks, schools are defunded, ignored and left to rot.

A full 35 states provide less overall state funding for education today than they did in 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which focuses on reducing poverty and inequality. Most states still haven’t recovered from George W. Bush’s Great Recession and the subsequent state and local budget cuts it caused. In fact, over the same period, per pupil funding fell in 27 states and still hasn’t recovered.

And the federal government has done little to help alleviate the situation. Since 2011, spending on major K-12 programs – including Title I grants for underprivileged students and special education – has been basically flat.

The problem is further exacerbated by the incredibly backward way we allocate funding at the local level which bears the majority of the cost of education.

While most advanced countries divide their school dollars evenly between students, the United States does not. Some students get more, some get less. It all depends on local wealth.

The average per pupil expenditure for U.S. secondary students is $12,731. But that figure is deceiving. It is an average. Some kids get much more. Many get much less. It all depends on where you live. If your home is in a rich neighborhood, more money is spent on your education than if you live in a poor neighborhood.

The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world – if not probably the ONLY country – that funds schools based largely on local taxes. Other developed nations either equalize funding or provide extra money for kids in need. In the Netherlands, for example, national funding is provided to all schools based on the number of pupils enrolled. But for every guilder allocated to a middle-class Dutch child, 1.25 guilders are allocated for a lower-class child and 1.9 guilders for a minority child – exactly the opposite of the situation in the U.S.

So, no. Our schools are not “flush with cash.” Just the opposite in many cases.
But what about Trump’s other claim – the much touted narrative of failing schools?

Trump says our schools “leave… our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”

Not true.

Graduation rates are at an all-time high of 83.2 percent. Moreover, for the first time minority students are catching up with their white counterparts.

It’s only international comparisons of standardized test scores that support this popular myth of academic failure. And, frankly, even that is based on a warped and unfair reading of those results.

It depends on how you interpret the data.

Raw data shows US children far from the top of the scale. It puts us somewhere in the middle – where we’ve always been for all the decades since they’ve been making these comparisons. Our schools have not gotten worse. They have stayed the same.

However, this ignores a critical factor – poverty. We’ve known for decades that standardized tests are poor measures of academic success. Bubble tests can assess simple things but nothing complex. After all, they’re scored based on answers to multiple choice questions. In fact, the only thing they seem to measure with any degree of accuracy is the parental income of the test-taker. Kids from rich families score well, and poor kids score badly.

Virtually all of the top scoring countries taking these exams have much less child poverty than the U.S. If they had the same percentage of poor students that we do, their scores would be lower than ours. Likewise, if we had the same percentage of poor students that they do, our scores would go through the roof! We would have the best scores in the world!

Moreover, the U.S. education system does something that many international systems do not. We educate everyone! Foreign systems often weed children out by high school. They don’t let every child get 13 years of grade school (counting kindergarten). They only school their highest achievers.

So when we compare ourselves to these countries, we’re comparing ALL of our students to only SOME of theirs – their best academic pupils, to be exact. Yet we still hold our own given these handicaps!

This suggests that the majority of problems with our public schools aren’t bad teachers, or a lack of charter schools and school choice. It’s money, pure and simple.

We invest the majority of our education funding in rich white kids. The poor and minorities are left to fend for themselves.

This won’t be solved by Trump’s pick for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos and her school choice schemes. In fact, that’s exactly what’s weakened public schools across the country by leaching away what meager funding these districts have left. Nor will it be solved by a demagogue telling fairy tales to Washington’s credulous and ignorant.

We need to make a real investment in our public schools. We need to make a commitment to funding poor black kids as fairly as we do rich white kids.

Otherwise, the only thing flushed will be children’s future.

Self-Serving Public Servants – Trump, DeVos and the Rise of the Plutocrats

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This election cycle we have witnessed a subtle change to our political landscape – and it’s probably not the one you’re thinking about.

 

It’s not that Republicans have gained control of a large chunk of our government. It’s not that racists, anti-feminists and xenophobes have been emboldened by their Presidential pick winning the highest office in the land. It’s not even that the Democrats have been exposed as weak, blind and cheaply bought.

 

Well, it’s not just those things.

 

There’s something deeper and even more unprecedented going on here.

 

It used to be that the wealthy bribed politicians to do their bidding. Now the wealthy are becoming the politicians.

 

I don’t mean just millionaires. They’ve always been willing to fill an elected office. I mean the mega-rich. I mean billionaires. The Crassuses, The Midases, the Astors, The Rockefellers.

 

Sure, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have always used their offices to enrich themselves. They enter the houses of government as moderately middle class but leave with pockets bursting and the opportunity to snag even more riches in the future as corporate lobbyists for the industries they were supposed to be regulating.

 

But now people aren’t making their fortunes in Washington. They’re entering the ring already in possession of obscene wealth. And they’re using it out in the open to tell the rest of us what to do.

 

 

This is a profound change in the Trump administration. It’s a change signaled by the President-elect, himself, and those he’s picked to serve on his cabinet of billionaires.

 

Until recently, Trump was no politician. He was a conman and reality TV star. He was the rich child of a rich man who spent his inheritance buying stuff, went bankrupt, and then called himself a businessman.

 

To help aide him in his deceptions, he used his fortune to purchase politicians. He famously donated to Hillary Clinton in 2008. Why? Because she represented his interests.

 

Now Trump has forgone the middlewoman. He’s taken the stage, himself. He isn’t pushing his interests forward by giving money to some accepted establishment figure. He is pretending to be that establishment figure, himself. More accurately, he’s pretending to be a maverick. After all, he was the guy who was going to Washington to drain the swamp – yet all he’s done is import more alligators, vines and toxic swamp water.

 

And he’s not alone. He’s championed other wealthy puppet masters to do the same.

 

Look at his pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

 

Her entire career consists of bribing lawmakers so they’ll enact market-driven education policies that benefit herself and other members of her exclusive country club. Huge corporations, hedge fund managers, corporate raiders preying on public schools – everyone gets a piece. Her and her family of privileged religious fanatics and warmongers have pushed for unregulated charter schools, vouchers for tax funding of religious and private schools, and the spread of Common Core for all. None of it affects her or her children who never attended public school. It’s all a matter of ideology and profit so entwined that even she probably doesn’t know which is which anymore.

 

To be Secretary of Education used to require a knowledge of… things, not a sizable bankbook. It used to require some years of experience in the area of education or government. You had to be a teacher or run a school or a district. You had to have at least served in some major capacity as a public servant, as a governor or senator.

 

DeVos has done none of these things. Neither has Trump, in fact. But both have given money to so-called establishment political figures to do what they want. And the same could be said for most of his cabinet picks.

 

In effect, the Trumpsters have pulled down the curtain between Oz the Great and Powerful and the man pulling the strings. They aren’t hiding behind the anonymity of their donations anymore. The rats have crawled out of the woodwork and are doing the job, themselves.

 

It’s somewhat unprecedented.

 

One wonders what will happen if the trend continues. Will we see other wealthy figures take center stage? Will the philanthrocapitalists like Bill Gates run for office? Will the Koch Brothers take matching Senate seats? Will George Soros be appointed Supreme Court Justice? Is Mark Zuckerberg running for Governor?

 

It is very possible. This may be the age of the plutocrat. And the fascist.

 

It certainly shows a lack of fear on their part and a disdain for the voting public.

 

They used to think that we wouldn’t put up with this crap. They used to think that they had to preserve at least the facade of a democracy. Our public servants, we were told, are just little people like us, people of conscience who volunteer to serve the public good. It wasn’t true. Most of them were bought and sold – but now the wealthy aren’t even bothering with the act.

 

They have become so overconfident that they think they can stand out in the open and make the rules themselves – in person.

 

And we won’t do a damn thing.

 

Certainly there is no opposition party. The Democrats are almost as corrupt as the Republicans, and what’s more, they’re much weaker. After 8 years of President Obama, they’ve only lost more state houses, more governors’ mansions, more political offices and prestige. Whenever they’ve been in a position to actually oppose the plutocracy, they’ve mostly limited themselves to empty, symbolic gestures or even tried to mimic the worst behaviors of the GOP.

 

To be fair, there is a mounting insurgency within the Democrats lead by people like Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison and (to some degree) Elizabeth Warren. But it is a nascent movement at present with an uncertain future. It certainly isn’t worrying the plutocrats unchained.

 

The real wild card here is you.

 

Yes, you.

 

What will you do now that those ruling the world have come out of the shadows? Will you submit to their dominion or will you rise up and fight?

 

That is the question to which no one yet knows the answer. And it is the only opposition that can take back our government, our freedoms, and our democracy.

 

You and me. We make up the numerical majority. When do we get a say? When will we have had enough of being ruled? When will we reject the lottery of birth? When will we rise up and take back what’s rightfully ours?