Pennsylvania’s Zombie School Voucher Bill is Back! And It Wants Your Tax Dollars!

All Republicans. All bought and paid for by wealthy oligarchs. All convinced that we need to give School Vouchers yet another try in the Keystone state.

And who voted against letting the monster out once again? These guys:

Senator James Brewster (D-Allegheny)
Senator Andrew Dinniman (D-Chester)
Senator Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery)
Senator Robert Tomlinson (R-Bucks)
Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia)

This time the beast has a new look – something called Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

It’s really just putting another horn on the same old rubber creature.

They say ESAs allow state money to pay for private school tuition of elementary and high school students in struggling public school districts.

Oh great. Another way to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money from the public schools serving 90% of the state’s students.

Just what we need. A boondoggle for private businesses and religious schools.

Will there be any way to make sure the money in these education savings accounts is going to the right place or is being used to help kids learn?

Nope.

These schools will be able to grab your tax money and use it just about however they please with little to no oversight.

Thanks a lot, so-called fiscal conservatives.

And guess who gets to pay the bill? YOU DO!

Watch property taxes increase to make up the shortfall in funding so your local public school can have the privilege of continuing to operate.

I wouldn’t mind more of my taxes going to public schools that are run democratically, are held accountable and teach things in the American mainstream.

But – call me crazy – I don’t want my money going to help indoctrinate the next generation of zealots who deny science, deny history, and deny the moral standards of our society.

When Evangelical Christians pretend the moral high ground by backing a President who pays off porn stars and belittles war heroes and the disabled, you can see why they need to demand government assistance to keep their pews filled.

Will not on my dime, Buster.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Remember that?

It’s the establishment clause from the First Amendment. And if you need to wipe your ass with something, it certainly won’t be the U.S. Constitution!

Separation of church and state. Keep them separate.

This law would allow many of the rich kids who already attend private and religious schools to be subsidized by taxpayers.

It would rob us of hundreds of millions of dollars ($500 million at last estimate) that we need just to keep our public schools where they’re at!

Moreover, school vouchers are nothing new.

We’ve been trying this crap for years and they haven’t done a thing to help students learn.

Three out of the four most recent studies on voucher programs, which examined the nation’s largest and oldest voucher strategies in Washington DC, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana, all show student performance getting worse or not improving at all with vouchers.

A 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute concluded that extensive research on vouchers over the past quarter century demonstrates that gains in student achievement – if present at all – are at best small. Students show no significant improvement in reading or math. In addition, the report showed that the risks outweigh any insignificant gains in test scores.

Another report from June 2017 by the US Dept of ED found that students using a voucher had statistically significant lower performance in math compared to students who did not receive a voucher.

And THIS is what a gaggle of ideologues want to increase in the Commonwealth!?

Look. The problem with our public schools is poverty. Pure and simple.

Giving out vouchers to private and parochial schools won’t help. It just hides the problem and makes it worse.

Most of the lowest-performing schools are in high poverty districts that are already struggling financially and cannot afford even less funding.

Poverty has a significant impact in student achievement. The average acute poverty rate (% of children living in families with income less than 100% of federal poverty limits) in school districts with more than one low-achieving school was 33.3% – more than double the state average of 16.3%.

Higher poverty means lower standardized test scores.

On average, the proficiency rate for students in the highest poverty schools is 33% less than students in the wealthiest districts. Struggling schools need MORE resources – not less.

Yet, the highest poverty school districts receive more than $2,000 less per student than their wealthy counterparts. This means they are unable to make the investments necessary to overcome the barriers posed by being poor in America.

Diverting state subsidies from these school districts, to ESA vouchers reduce fair access to educational opportunities for these students.

Despite what voucher proponents think, this does not “Save Money.” It does not force struggling districts to do more with less. It forces them to do less – or get more.

Schools don’t budget or spend money on a per student basis. Fixed costs remain the same regardless of how many students are led away by the pied piper of school vouchers.

Costs such as building operations and maintenance, utilities, technology, food service, staff salaries and benefits, transportation including fuel and bus drivers, remain.

Vouchers result in no savings. They produce a greater financial burden for local taxpayers. With less in state funding to provide the same education, that money would have to be raised from other sources – namely, YOU and your local taxes!

I know this is all very tiresome.

It seems like any positive legislation is impossible to get through Harrisburg, but garbage like Senate Bill 2 is ubiquitous.

How many times have we defeated this voucher nonsense?

How many times have taxpayers made it clear they don’t want to fund this nonsense?

But it doesn’t matter. Like a spoiled child, ideologues keep bringing it up again and again in the hopes that this time they’ll wear us down and we’ll let this terrible legislation pass.

Vouchers can be defeated a hundred times. All it takes is one victory and it becomes law and much more difficult to expunge.

So please call, write and visit your state senator and representative.

Tell them you’re against the latest horror show voucher monstrosity.

And maybe when you’re at the polls remember the names of the tools who keep making you repeat yourself.

Give them an unequivocal answer by voting them out of office.

Only then do we stand a chance of nailing a stake through vouchers’ undead heart – for good.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

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Dear Kanye, The Same Impulse That Enslaved Black Minds on the Plantation Stokes Your Admiration for Trump

May 2, 2018 stevenmsinger Civil Rights, Donald Trump, Media, Obama, Politics, Prejudice, President, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, Social Justice, White Allies Donald Trump, hip hop, Kanye West, MAGA, rap, slavery

Kanye West is a brilliant musician.

I start with that reminder because he’s also a jackass.

The same iconoclastic impulses that make him so fascinating to listen to on the mic make him almost impossible to take seriously anywhere else.

About a week ago, he took to Twitter to say the most controversial thing he could think of – that he still likes Donald Trump:

“You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.”

Say what you will, he got the mileage he wanted out of it. People’s heads exploded all over the place.

How can a black man (other than Ben Carson) support perhaps the most racist Chief Executive in the history of this country?

Trump was endorsed by David Duke (a former KKK Grand Dragon), his supporters include white nationalists (Read: Nazis) whom he refuses to criticize, he was a notorious birther refusing to accept any of the overwhelming evidence that Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen, and his real estate company avoided renting to African Americans and gave preferential treatment to white people. And that’s only the most cursory list! I could go on and on and on!

But Kanye loves him. Okay. How do you feel about James Earl Ray? When he shot and killed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., did he, too, have Dragon Energy?

Perhaps Duke does – literally. Yet Yeezy ain’t tweeting him any support!

However, Kanye wasn’t done. Today on TMZ, he doubled down on his contrarianism:

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.“

And:

“You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.“

Okay, Kanye.

Hold up.

Yes, slavery works by imprisoning minds as well as bodies. The same with our contemporary racial and economic cast system.

But to call slavery a choice – while true in a sense – minimizes how constrained that choice was.

Before the Emancipation Proclamation, most slaves had a choice between life in bondage or torture and death. They could try to run, try to organize and revolt or just try to survive.

What kind of choice is that?

Run and you might get caught – risk the little you have and risk the safety of anyone you care about for a dim chance at freedom.

And that was if there was anywhere to go. Without connections on the Underground Railroad or other sympathetic forces, the very idea of trying to free one’s self must have seemed next to impossible.

Sure, you could try to organize and overthrow your taskmasters – but that’s generally not how human psychology works. You convince yourself that going along is better, that if you just listen to authority, you’ll survive. It’s the same thought 6 million Jewish people had as they were being marched to the gas chambers.

I guess that’s your point. Human psychology is wrong. It’s better to fight than go along.

Then how do you explain your support for Trump?

You’re exercising your right to free thought by voicing an unpopular opinion – BECAUSE IT’S UNPOPULAR. But that’s not freedom – that’s merely thesis and antithesis. Everyone says THIS, so I say THAT.

I imagine plenty house slaves did the same thing back on the plantation. “The Master is kind and caring and he looks out for me.”

That’s really what you’re saying when you praise Trump.

One of the criticisms often leveled at rap music is how much it idolizes wealth and conspicuous consumption.

As a famous hip hop artist once said:

“ …And this rich n– racism
That’s that “Come in, please buy more
What you want, a Bentley? Fur coat? A diamond chain?
All you blacks want all the same things”
Used to only be n–s now everybody playing
Spending everything on Alexander Wang…”

That was you, Kanye, on “New Slaves” back in 2013.

The Yeezus who spouted those rhymes was criticizing exactly the kind of BS you’re spewing today.

Yeah, Trump is a symbol of having made it in America. But if he’s who you emulate, you’ve betrayed everything you used to stand for.

Fight the power – don’t befriend it!

Overthrow our classist, racist society – don’t defend it!

But who am I to criticize you? You’re a black man and I’m just a white observer. If you want to throw shade on your own people, go for it. If you want to trade in rebellion for a MAGA hat, you do it. That’s your right. Just don’t be surprised if no one thanks you for it.

In Trump’s America, You No Longer Need to Pretend to be Against School Segregation

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Media, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, White Privilege Brown v. Board, education, Judge, Politics, school segregation, Trump, values, Wendy Vitter

School segregation is kind of like war.

When asked point blank, no one wants to admit to liking it.

To paraphrase Motown singer songwriter Edwin Starr:

“Segregation. Huh, Good God.

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.”

However, when it comes to supporting actual integration programs or even just education policies that don’t make segregation worse, no one in politics really gives a crap.

Both Republicans and Democrats are heavily invested in ways to divide up school students along racial and economic lines – whether they be charter and voucher schools or strategic disinvestment in the public schools that serve the poor and minorities and hording resources for wealthy whites.

That’s why it’s somewhat shocking to hear the outrage over Trump judicial nominee Wendy Vitter.

Trump nominated the extremely partisan justice for a federal judgeship in Louisiana. Yet during a Senate hearing Wednesday, Vitter refused to answer a question from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) about whether or not she believed the Supreme Court was right in its landmark 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education.

The decision overturned the excuse that we could educate white and black people in different facilities so long as they were “separate but equal.” In effect, it said that when we educate the races separately, their schools will never be equal.

And Vitter couldn’t bring herself to affirm this ruling.

“If I start commenting on ‘I agree with this case’ or don’t agree with this case,’ I think we get into a slippery slope,” she said.

“I don’t mean to be coy, but I think I get into a difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme Court decisions which are correctly decided and which I may disagree with,” Vitter said.

She added that the ruling was “binding” and that she would uphold it if confirmed as a judge.

And there we have it, people.

That’s where the bar is set during the Trump administration.

You no longer need to pretend to be against school segregation.

On the one hand, it’s more honest than most people in the political arena.

On the other, how far have we sunk when you don’t even need to feign decency in order to expect having a chance of Congress confirming you?

Let me be clear. Vitter’s nomination should not be approved.

Congress should draw a line in the sand and say that it cannot accept people who do not share bedrock American values on the bench.

If you aren’t in favor of integration, you have no place making decisions about race, class and education.

And that is the barest minimum.

That is merely decorum.

It’s like having the decency to condemn Nazis – something else Trump can’t bring himself to do.

What actually happens to Vitter will probably be determined by the degree of backlash against her.

As of Thursday afternoon, the video clip of Vitter’s comments about Brown V. Board had more than 1.7 million views, and was retweeted over 13,000 times.

A few months ago, another Trump judicial nominee, Matthew Petersen, withdrew from consideration after a video in which he couldn’t answer basic legal questions went viral.

But even if this reprehensible person who has no right sitting in judgement over anything more taxing than a checkbook gets turned away from the bench, we’ll still be far from where we need to be on school segregation.

Despite Brown vs. Board, many of our schools today are more segregated – not less – than they were in the 1960s.

And instead of putting on our big boy pants and tackling the issue, we’ve gone in the opposite direction.

On both sides of the aisle, lawmakers support charter schools. Republicans and a few Democrats support school vouchers. And just about everyone is fine with the fact that our public schools serve vastly disproportionate racial and economic populations yet rely on local tax revenues for funding and thus are inequitably resourced.

In every case, these policies make segregation worse. Yet hardly anyone in the halls of power or in the media even admits it is happening.

At most, you get a news story every anniversary of Brown v. Board about the increased segregation and a journalistic shrug. Well, we don’t know how to solve that one…

Yes, we do!

We need to integrate – not segregate.

We need to end school privatization.

We need to redraw district boundaries.

We need to audit school policies that keep the races apart within districts by building or by class.

And we need robust, equitable funding that can’t be manipulated to favor wealthy white kids.

That will take a lot more moral courage than partisan outrage against Vitter.

Oh, she deserves outrage, but because of her lack of morality, not her political party.

This can no longer be about if your political football team is in power or not.

It has to be about what’s right and wrong.

Caring about integration should be part of what it means to be an American – like freedom, justice and apple pie.

If it isn’t, we have a lot worse problems than one reprehensible would-be judge.

Rick Saccone Hopes to Become Trump’s New Bobble Head in Western Pennsylvania

January 29, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Campaign Donations, capitalism, church and state, Compassion, Congress, Corbett, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Gerrymandering, Pennsylvania, Politics, President, protest, Republican, Saccone, School Funding, Schools, Students, Teachers, Tom Wolf, voting bobble head, Congress, Conor Lamb, Corbett, Donald Trump, Hypocrisy, Pennsylvania, Politics, puppet, Rick Saccone, sycophant, Trump

Rick Saccone hard at work for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

Rick Saccone’s signature achievement in the Pennsylvania House was to get “In God We Trust” posted in every public school.

Actually, he didn’t even get that.

He wrote a successful bill that merely allowed public schools to post that – if they wanted.

To my knowledge not a single school in the Commonwealth has taken him up on it.

His second greatest hit was to authorize a state day of fasting.

I’m not kidding. And it’s all down hill from there.

Now he’s running for U.S. Senate!

Oh. Wait. His fundraising was terrible.

Excuse me. He’s running for U.S. House – because that’s an easier win!

Whatever. So long as he can get to Washington, DC. He’s had enough of this small potatoes Pennsylvania politics – even though he’s one of the smallest potatoes in the patch.

If you know what I mean.

He’s running against Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election to be held March 13 to fill Republican Tim Murphy’s seat.

You may recall Murphy. He made his name voting for anti-abortion legislation until his alleged mistress got pregnant and then he allegedly pushed for her to abort their love child.

You know. Family values stuff.

Is Saccone up to that level of hypocrisy?

Donald Trump thinks he is.

The least popular President in U.S. history with only a year under his bulging golf shorts thinks Saccone is his kind of guy.

Trump even came to western Pennsylvania to support Saccone tweeting:

“Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!”

Of course, Trump immediately had to walk back this comment because his trip to the keystone state was being paid for with public tax dollars. He had to say that it was an official White House event and not (as he indicated in the tweet) that it was a campaign event.

You know, for once I agree with Trump.

Rick Saccone IS Trump’s kind of guy.

He has lots of experience as a Yes Man. That’s really all he’s done in Harrisburg.

We used to have our own version of Trump – a Republican Governor who had no idea how to do his job – Tom Corbett.

Of course, Corbett’s reign was short lived. Like the President, his popularity plummeted and he was voted out of office like yesterday’s garbage.

But he had his loyal bobble head Saccone backing him every step of the way.

In fact, he voted for Corbett’s initiatives 95% of the time giving him the nickname of Corbett’s “Mini-me.”

Even when Corbett proposed something deeply unpopular, like cutting almost $1 billion from the state’s poorest public schools, Saccone went out there to explain why our children, our future, just weren’t worth the investment.

The Swamp recognizes Saccone as one of their own.

That’s why big moneyed interests are pouring cash on the sycophantic lawmaker. That and the fact that the district in question went for Trump in the last election by 20 points.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent at least $1 million on ads for broadcast and cable TV stations to boost Saccone’s candidacy.

And that’s not all.

Congressional Leadership Fund has put aside at least $1.6 million for ads, not to mention funding from outsiders like the 45Committee and Ending Spending – a group founded by the mega-donor Ricketts family.

All this money just to serve out the remainder of Murphy’s term!

Whoever wins would be up for re-election in November to secure a full two-year term.

Moreover, now that the state Supreme Court has overturned the Commonwealth’s gerrymandered districts that unfairly favor Republicans, that November race is likely to include newly drawn legislative lines.

So this GOP wonderland that boosted Trump and Mitt Romney in 2012 will likely become more competitive.

In fact, it may already be.

SacconeFlagShirt — Saccone disrespecting the flag by wearing it as a shirt.

Some polls have Saccone up over Lamb by only a 3 point lead. This may be in part because of Trump’s steadily deflating support – even among Republicans. The President’s approval rating in the district has dropped to 49 percent – not far from the national picture where 47 percent disapprove of his job performance.

This is not good news for Saccone.

The SuperPACS supporting him are trying to paint Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, as a Nancy Pelosi puppet.

But Lamb has repeatedly criticized Pelosi, telling The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he would not support Pelosi as the Democratic leader. There is a “need [for] new leadership on both sides,” Lamb said.

Yet Saccone has done everything in his power to suck up to Trump.

Taking his cue from the Commander in Chief, Saccone took to twitter to express his feelings:

“I’m humbled that @realDonaldTrump for President, Inc, has officially endorsed my campaign for Congress!”

I’m not sure why he wrote “President, Inc.”

Perhaps Saccone thinks the office belongs to a private company.

Perhaps he doesn’t understand that a politician’s job is to serve the needs of his or her constituents.

Judging by his less than stellar performance in state government, this would seem to be the case.

He’s come a long way from earnestly trying to legislate past the establishment clause of the first amendment to fighting to starve our schools to running for a position as Trump’s favorite puppet.

Or not.

That depends on voters this March.

Full Disclosure: I am not a Saccone fan. Along with teachers, parents and students from across western Pennsylvania, I’ve picketed outside of his offices demanding he do his job and provide for students. He was deaf to our cries. Do you hear me now, Rick?

Public Schools Best Fulfill Dr. King’s “Purpose of Education”

January 13, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, immigration, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Racism, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, White Privilege charter schools, Donald Trump, Dr. Martin Luther King, education, home school, Martin Luther King Day, Politics, prejudice, President, private schools, public schools, Purpose of Education, racism, school vouchers, schools

What is the purpose of education?

Is it to train the next generation of workers?

Or is it to empower the next generation of citizens?

Is it to give children the skills necessary to meet the needs of business and industry?

Or is it to provide them the tools to self-actualize and become the best people they can be?

In today’s world, our leaders continue to insist that the answer to the question is the former corporate training model. Knowledge is only valuable if it translates to a job and thus a salary.

But we didn’t always think that way.

As another Martin Luther King Day is about to dawn this week, I’m reminded of the man behind the myth, a person who clearly would deny this materialistic view of learning.

When we think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we usually think of the towering figure of the Civil Rights Movement who gave the “I have a dream” speech during the March on Washington in 1963.

However, as a teacher, I find myself turning to something he wrote in 1947 when he was just an 18-year-old student at Morehouse College.

While finishing his undergraduate studies in sociology, he published an essay in the student paper called “The Purpose of Education.”

Two sections immediately jump off the page. The first is this:

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.”

So for King it wasn’t enough for schools to teach facts. It wasn’t enough to teach skills, math, writing, reading, history and science. The schools are also responsible for teaching children character – how to be good people, how to get along with each other.

It’s a worthy goal.

But 2018 contains a far different educational landscape than 1947.

When King wrote, there were basically two kinds of school – public and private. Today there is a whole spectrum of public and private each with its own degree of self-governance, fiscal accountability and academic freedom.

On the one side we have traditional public schools. On the other we have fully private schools. And in the middle we have charter, voucher and home schools.

So which schools today are best equipped to meet King’s ideal?

Private schools are by their very nature exclusionary. They attract and accept only certain students. These may be those with the highest academics, parental legacies, religious beliefs, or – most often – families that can afford the high tuition. As such, their student bodies are mostly white and affluent.

That is not King’s ideal. That is not the best environment to form character, the best environment in which to learn about people who are different than you and to develop mutual understanding.

Voucher schools are the same. They are, in fact, nothing but private schools that are subsidized in part by public tax dollars.

Charter schools model themselves on private schools so they are likewise discriminatory. The businesses who run these institutions – often for a profit – don’t have to enroll whoever applies. Even though they are fully funded by public tax dollars, they can choose who to let in and who to turn away. Often this is done behind the cloak of a lottery, but with no transparency and no one checking to ensure it is done fairly, there is no reason to believe operators are doing anything but selecting the easiest (read: cheapest) students to educate.

Charter schools have been shown to increase segregation having student bodies that are more monochrome than those districts from which they cherry pick students. This is clearly not King’s ideal.

Homeschooling is hard to generalize. There is such a wide variety of experiences that can be described under this moniker. However, they often include this feature – children are taught at home by their parent or parents. They may or may not interact with their academic peers and the degree to which they meet and understand different cultures is variable to say the least. They may meet King’s ideal, but frankly the majority of them probably do not.

So we’re left with traditional public schools. Do they instill “intelligence plus character”?

Answer: it depends.

There are many public schools where children of different races, nationalities, religions, and creeds meet, interact and learn together side-by-side.

Students wearing hajibs learn next to those wearing yarmulkes. Students with black skin and white skin partner with each other to complete class projects. Students with parents who emigrated to this country as refugees become friends with those whose parents can trace their ancestors back to the Revolutionary War.

These schools are true melting pots where children learn to become adults who value each other because of their differences not fear each other due to them. These are children who not only learn their academics as well – if not often better – than those at competing kinds of schools, but they also learn the true face of America and they learn to cherish it.

This is the true purpose of education. This is the realization of King’s academic ideal and his civil rights dream.

However, this is not the case at every public school.

While there are many like this, there are too many that are increasingly segregated. In fact, in some areas our schools today are more segregated than they were at the time of Dr. King’s assassination.

These are schools that get the lion’s share of resources, that have the newest facilities, the widest curriculum, the most affluent clientele.

So, no, not even all public schools meet this ideal. But those that don’t at least contain the possibility of change.

We could integrate all public schools. We could never integrate our charter, voucher and private schools. That goes against their essential mission. They are schools made to discriminate. Public schools are meant to be all inclusive. Every one could meet King’s ideal, if we only cared enough to do it.

Which brings me to the second section of King’s early essay that pops off the page:

“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

Seventy one years ago, King was warning us about the situation we suffer today.

When we allow academics to be distinct from character and understanding, we put ourselves at the mercy of leaders with “reason, but with no morals.”

We put ourselves and our posterity in the hands of those like President Donald Trump, the fruit of a fully private education.

Racism and privilege become the defining characteristics of a class without character, in King’s sense.

If we want to reclaim what it means to be an American, if we want to redefine ourselves as those who celebrate difference and defend civil rights, that begins with understanding the purpose of education.

It demands we defend public schools against privatization. And it demands that we transform our public schools into the integrated, equitable institutions we dreamed they could all be.

Dear Donald Trump, Please Try to Block Publication of My Book, Too

January 7, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, capitalism, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Journalism, Media, Obama, Politics, President, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, satire, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Sexism, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers books, Censorship, Donald Trump, Fire and Fury, Gadfly on the Wall, Garn Press, Michael Wolff, Politics, publishers, satire

Dear Donald Trump,

May I just say, Wow, Sir? You are really very impressive.

I know some people say you’re a stupid overgrown man child, but you really had an amazing comeback when you tweeted you were actually a “very stable genius.”

I mean “very stable genius”!

Well done, sir.

How could anyone ever come back from that devastating response?

Oh, and your answer to Michael Wolff was likewise inspiring.

He is such an ingrate.

You invited this guy, this reporter, into the White House – the Summer Mar-a-Lago – so he could conduct candid interviews and observe you and your staff for the express purpose of writing a book. Now that the book, “Fire and Fury,” is coming out, you see that it paints an unflattering picture of you. So you have your lawyers send Wolff a cease and desist letter attempting to stop its publication.

That is ballsy, sir.

Obama wouldn’t have done that. Neither would either of the Bushes, or Reagan or even your hero Andrew Jackson. They had too much respect for the First Amendment – whatever that is.

I hear it won’t work though. Wolff’s book was released early and it’s already a best seller, but I’ve got to take my hat off to you, sir, for your sheer bigly courage.

Wolff’s book’s already sold more than 250,000 copies and the author attributes much of that to your attempts to block publication.

But what does he know? He’s not President. You are, sir. And as you once said, “I’m like a smart person.”

That you are, sir. Not actually smart, but very much LIKE a smart person.

You know you’re so smart that I think you might want to consider blocking the publication of some other books, too.

Why should someone as YUGE and important as you focus all your energy on people like Wolff… and Kim Jong-un?

You know the other day I was walking by my local book store – yes, they still exist. Believe me! – and I saw another book you should really think about coming down on.

It’s called “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.”

It’s by this total nerd Steven Singer. He’s one of those liberal elites, an educator spending his whole day with little children most of whom are poor, black and brown.

Disgusting, right?

And his book’s all about how racism drives the movement to destroy public education through high stakes standardized testing, charter and voucher schools.

Wait. Did I just lose you there? I haven’t mentioned you in a few paragraphs.

Hold on.

Trump! Trump! TRUMP!

Is that better?

Good.

Anyway, you might not think his book has anything to do with you, sir, but if you take a look inside, you’ll see he slams you and your administration again and again.

The introduction, alone, contains these disrespectful zingers:

“…behold the glass menagerie of fools Trump has assembled to populate his administration…”

“…the tired rhetoric of Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South coming out of his [Trump’s] mouth…”

“…Trump is a monster and he’s assembled 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 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!”

“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.”

Ah! Such a nasty man!

It probably makes you want to grab this guy by his pussy!

Could you imagine the look on this dude’s face if you were to send him a cease and desist letter? If you offered a criticism of his failing school at a press conference? Even if you just sent out a withering tweet about this sad loser?

Can you imagine how something like that might affect the sale of his book?

It’s selling pretty well for a book about education, but a comment from you would have a huge effect.

It would sell like hotcakes – by which I mean sell badly because who eats hotcakes, anymore, just McDonalds and KFC and well done steak with ketchup, Am-I-Right?

When you say something, people listen.

When you said, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed,” you boosted sales of his 1845 “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” through the roof. It’s almost like people wanted to check to see if you really mentioned someone who died in 1895 like he was a contemporary figure walking around, going on TV and giving interviews.

Since you took office, you got the cash registers ringing with increased sales of “1984” by George Orwell, “March: Book One” by John Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood.

Everything you touch just turns to gold!

Or perhaps it already was gold, since you take your morning constitutional on a gold throne.

Take out your smart phone, sir, and give this Steven Singer and his book a good spanking.

Call your lawyers into the bathroom and have them draft a letter.

The book is called “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.”

You want to make sure to include that in the tweet or letter.

It’s available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Books-A-Million and as an E-book on Amazon.

Make sure everyone can see that is the book you’re criticizing.

You’ll have an incredible impact on the author.

After a smack from you, his life – and pocketbook – will never be the same.

So get out your tweeter, sir. And let’s sell some books!

I mean teach this guy a lesson. Then enjoy a steaming cup of covfefe.

Please.

What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

December 26, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Badass Teachers Association, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Campbell Brown, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Common Core, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Data Mining, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Facebook, Journalism, Media, Pennsylvania, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Technology, Toxic Testing, White Privilege education, end of the year, Gadfly on the Wall, schools, teachers, teaching

We made it, Readers.

Somehow we survived 2017 – the first year of the Trump Presidency.

What a monstrosity that has been so far!

Republicans have stolen more than $1 trillion from our pockets to give to their mega-wealthy donors in the form of tax cuts. A 3-2 GOP majority on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed Net Neutrality. And the party of Lincoln endorsed and funded a child molester for US Senate – though he thankfully lost.

We’re in new territory. Politics has always appealed to the best and worst of our natures: Good people who really want to make a difference and sniveling cowards willing to do whatever their sugar daddies tell them. But unfortunately our world has increasingly rewarded the latter and almost extinguished the former.

However, don’t lose heart. The cockroaches are all out in the open. They’ve become so emboldened by the words “President” and “Trump” voiced together that they no longer feel the need to hug a wall.

All it would take is a good boot and a series of stomps to crush them forever.

Someone get me my shoes.

In the meantime, I sit here at my kitchen table recovering from a turkey coma preparing for a nostalgic look back at everything that’s happened here at Gadfly on the Wall in the past year.

It was quite a 365 days! Most amazing was the publication of my book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform” from Garn Press. It’s a thorough reworking and “Best Of” this blog over the last three years.

Sales have been strong and reviews are starting to come in. I am absolutely floored when I get messages from people I admire telling me they got the book and appreciate this or that. It’s been my lifelong dream to publish a book, and now I’ve done it. The New Year will involve lots of promotion – hopefully I can get decision makers to read it!

Other than that, it’s been a busy year blogging. I wrote 118 articles! That’s about one every three days!

And people have been reading them.

I’ve had more than 364,000 hits – about the same as in 2016. This puts the total views over the 1 million mark at more than 1,216,000! That’s quite a landmark for a blog that’s only been around since July, 2014. And it doesn’t count all the readers I get from articles reposted on the Badass Teachers Association Blog, Huffington Post, Commondreams.org, the LA Progressive, Alternet, BillMoyers.com or other sites.

I’ve also gotten 1,510 more people to follow me for a total of 12,845.

I’m so honored that readers still like coming to this site for news and commentary. As long as you care to enter those virtual doors, I’ll be here, hunched over my computer, pounding away at the keys.

So without further ado, let’s take a look back at the top 10 articles from this blog that got the Inter-webs humming:

10) Teacher Appreciation Week is a Pathetic Joke!

Published: May 10, 2017

Views: 4,320

Description: At the end of every school year we get Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s nice. Educators get free donuts and cookies, a pat on the head and then the rest of the year we get all the blame for society’s problems without any additional funding, repealing terrible policies or even acknowledgement of what the real issues are in our schools. It’s a sham. Someone had to say it, so I did. Thanks for the snack, but it takes a village, folks! Get off your butts and take some responsibility!

Fun Fact: Some people, even teachers, were really upset by this article. They thought it was ungrateful. Don’t get me wrong, I am truly appreciative for any crumb the public wants to give us, teachers, but I’m not going to let it pass as if that counts as true support. Salving your conscience isn’t enough. We need true allies to get down in the mud and fight with us. Otherwise, it’s just an empty gesture.

9) White Privilege, Public Schools and Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Published: Dec 22

Views: 4,324

Description: This one’s hot off the press! It describes a situation at one of the schools were I’ve taught over the years and how dress code policies can support white privilege. They’re the broken windows policing of academia, and we need to put much more thought into them before laying down blanket restrictions.

Fun Fact: Some readers took exception to this piece because they thought I didn’t do enough to stop a wayward administrator despite the fact that I never said what I did or didn’t do. Some even complained that it was dumb to simply acknowledge racism and racist policies and actions. I don’t know what world they’re living in. White folks voted for Donald J. Trump to be President. We’ve got a long way to go, and acknowledging everyday prejudice seems a worthy goal to me.

8) America’s Founding Fathers Were Against School Choice

Published: Feb 16

Views: 4,483

Description: The entire premise of school privatization goes against the founding principles of our nation. We were born out of the Enlightenment, not the profit motive. Our founders would look on in horror at charter and voucher schools. Though they aren’t perfect, only truly public schools embody the ideals of the Revolution. True conservatives and true patriots would support that system, not strive to blow it up for personal financial gain.

Fun Fact: Some people took issue with an appeal to the founders who were not exactly perfect. It’s true. In practice many of them did not live up to their own high ideals. However, who does? It is the ideal that matters, not the clay feet of our forebears.

7) Middle School Suicides Double As Common Core Testing Intensifies

Published: July 24

Views: 5,800

Description: Teen suicides are up – especially among middle school age children. At the same time, we’ve been testing these kids into the ground. More standardized assessments – and these are unnecessarily more difficult to pass Common Core assessments. This is exactly what happens in countries that put such emphasis on testing – they have a higher suicide rate. It’s no wonder that this is happening here, too. Policymakers want us to be more like Asian countries? Be careful what you wish for!

Fun Fact: This article infuriated the good folks at the Education Post. Peter Cunningham had his flunkies attack me on Twitter complaining that I was an angry white dude making undue correlations. Yet every other explanation for the fact of increased middle school suicides was merely a correlation, too. Proving causation is almost impossible. It is just as reasonable – even more so – to conclude that testing is having an impact on the suicide rate as to intuit the cause being increased reliance on social media. The big money folks don’t want us making the connection I made here. All the more reason to believe there is truth behind it.

6) School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less.

Published: Oct. 6

Views: 7,880

Description: School choice is a misnomer. It’s school privatization. It has very little to do with providing more options for parents or students. It’s about allowing big corporations to avoid public school regulations and profit off your child swiping your tax dollars. School choice is merely a marketing term.

Fun Fact: I must have really pissed someone off when I wrote this one because it caused Facebook to block me for a week. No matter. Readers liked this one so much they shared it for me all over. Why was I targeted? It could be personal since charter school cheerleader Campbell Brown is literally the arbiter of truth at Facebook. Or it could be the social media site’s attempt to bully me into spending money on advertising. Either way, their attempted censorship didn’t work.

5) Dear Teachers, Don’t Be Good Soldiers for the EdTech Industry

Published: Sept 3

Views: 8,358

Description: As teachers, we’re often expected to use new technology in our classrooms. However, we’re rarely involved in the decision making process. We’re rarely allowed to decide which technology to use and sometimes even how to use it. Software packages are just handed down from administration or school board. However, the EdTech Industry is not our friend. More often than not it is unscrupulous in the ways it is willing to profit off of our students through data mining, competency based learning and a variety of privacy threatening schemes. It’s up to us to be brave enough to say, “No.”

Fun Fact: I was surprised by how much the piece resonated with readers. So many other educators said they felt they were being bullied into using apps or programs that they thought were of low quality or downright harmful. Sure, there were some who called me a luddite, but the fact remains: we shouldn’t be using technology for technology’s sake. We should be doing so only to help students learn. That requires us to use our best judgment, not follow orders like good soldiers.

4) Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data

Published: June 23

Views: 12,459

Description: Administrators love to gift teachers with tons and tons of data. They bury us under reams of standardized test results and expect us to somehow use that nonsense to inform our teaching. It’s crazy. We already collect authentic data on our students for 180 days a year in the classroom in the course of our teaching. Yet they think these mass produced corporate evaluated snap shots are going to somehow change everything? That’s not how you help educators. It’s how you abdicate any responsibility yourself.

Fun Fact: This one really took off especially on the Huffington Post. Many readers seemed to be truly surprised that teachers felt this way. No authentic educator gives in to being data driven. We’re data informed but student driven. And if you want us to do something else, you don’t have the best interests of the kids at heart.

3) PA Legislature Plans Taking Away Teachers’ Sick Days

Published: Feb 2

Views: 17,702

Description: This was another tone deaf proclamation from the Republican majority in Harrisburg. It was pure meat for the regressive base in gerrymandered districts that if passed they knew would never be signed by our Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. It turns out the backlash was such that they didn’t even have the courage to put it to a vote.

Fun Fact: I never expected this one to be nearly as popular as it was. Usually articles about Pennsylvania get a few hundred local readers and that’s it. But this one infuriated everyone. How dare lawmakers propose this! Don’t they know how many bacteria teachers are exposed to!? Do they want us to come to school sick and spread the disease to our students!? I’d like to think that the article had something to do with this terrible piece of legislation disappearing, but I have no evidence to support it. However, I can say that it will probably be back when they think no one is looking, and it will still make me sick.

2) U.S. Public Schools Are NOT Failing. They’re Among the Best in the World

Published: Jan 29

Views: 23,841

Description: Everyone says public schools are failing. I call bullshit. It depends on how you’re evaluating them, and – frankly – we’re not being fair to our American education system. Sure. There are plenty of ways we can improve, but there’s a lot we’re doing right, too. In fact, many of the things we get right, few other systems do around the world. We excel in our ideals. If we just had the courage of our convictions, our system would be beyond the moon! Even as it is, we have much to celebrate. And other nations would do well to emulate us in these ways.

Fun Fact: I’m quite proud of this one. It’s the only article in the Top 10 here that was included in my book. For the definitive version, you’ll have to go there. Some sections received major rewrites and clarifications. I think the published version is much better. But no matter which version you choose, I’m proud to have an answer for all those out there spreading the myth that our education system is an irredeemable mess. They want us to get rid of the good and replace it with more bad. I say we keep the good and build on it.

1) Ignorance and Arrogance – the Defining Characteristics of the Betsy DeVos Hearing

Published: Jan 18

Views: 28,670

Description: Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing was an absolute horror show. It’s even worse when you consider she was confirmed by the Republican majority in a tie vote that was broken by Vice President Mike Pence (that still sends shivers down my spine). Here was someone who knows next to nothing about public education except that she wants to destroy it. She wouldn’t commit to protecting students rights even those under the umbrella of special education. There’s more I could say but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Excuse me.

Fun Fact: I’m honored that so many readers turned to my blog for commentary about this. It was a moment of shared horror that hasn’t weakened much in the subsequent months. We’re all just waiting for sanity to return but at least we can do so together. We’re all in this side-by-side and hand-in-hand. We can defeat the Betsy DeVos’ and the Donald Trump’s of the world if we stay strong. It could happen any day now.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles (like the one you just read from 2017) and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look. Here are all my end of the year articles since I began this crazy journey in 2014:

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

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

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

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

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

There Has Never Been a Better Chance to Defeat Neoliberals and Neofascists: Hopes for 2018

December 18, 2017December 18, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Journalism, Media, Obama, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Teachers, voting 2017, 2018, charter schools, Democracy, Democrat, Democrats, Donald Trump, neofascist, neoliberal, net neutrality, New Year, plutocracy, Politics, Republican, Republicans, school vouchers, tax scam bill

As 2017 chugs and sputters to a well-deserved end, I find myself surprised at the pessimism around me.

Yes, I know. Donald Trump is still President.

The plutocrats have stolen trillions of dollars from the majority in unnecessary tax cuts that threaten our ability to function as a nation.

A slim majority of their sniveling creatures at the FCC have repealed Net Neutrality gifting our free expression to huge corporations.

And big business continues to sack and burn our public schools only to replace them with charter and voucher swindles.

This is all true.

But it does not make me lose heart.

These defeats may be fleeting, momentary as political and legal challenges mount against them. As far as the tide has pulled back, a wave is gathering strength at sea, such a prodigious burst of water as to create a new ocean once it hits land.

Yes, we endured many scars from the year that was. But we have gained something truly amazing – something that we probably could not have grasped without our sexual predator in chief, a reality TV show conman posing as a political leader.

People.

Are.

Awake.

They see the undeniable destruction, the naked power grabs, how our lawmakers are owned by the super-rich and the outright denial of democratic principles.

They see and they understand.

It is no longer debatable that we have lost control of our government.

It is no longer a question whether our lawmakers have our best interests at heart.

It is no longer at all uncertain that business interests and public interests are not the same.

Everyone knows.

Everyone sees.

The question is “What will we do about it?”

I’m reminded of the ending of John Carpenter’s cult classic “They Live.”

In the movie, Earth is conquered by aliens but no one noticed. The aliens took over the media and government using a transmitter to hide their ugly faces so that people couldn’t see what they truly look like. These intergalactic shepherds used the media and advertising to herd us human sheep to focus on naked consumerism and ignore how we’re being consumed by the powers that be.

At the end of the movie, the hero – played by Roddy Piper – sacrifices himself to destroy the transmitter so everyone finally can see the hideous aliens among us.

I remember watching the film the first time back in the ‘80s and wondering what people would do once they could see the truth.

Would they fight? Or would they try to convince themselves that they weren’t seeing the evidence of their own eyes?

(WARNING: The video below is NSFW, contains nudity and sexual situations.)

We’re in a similar situation today.

Trump did not cause all of this. He certainly made it worse, but the groundwork was laid by years of neoliberals from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama.

Reagan and both Bushes started us rolling down into the pit, but it was the Clintons and the Obamas who convinced so many of us that we weren’t headed into oblivion, it was merely a trick of the mind, this was the direction we wanted to go and that if anyone got left behind it was merely their own darn fault.

But now the truth is right there before our faces.

And that’s thanks to the blunt, unrepentant greed of Donald J. Trump.

He steals from us and doesn’t even pretend he’s doing anything else.

He hordes our money. He destroys our laws and disregards our values. He raises racists and bigots to respectability while appointing unqualified sycophants with the expressed purpose to run our government into the ground. And if anyone dares proclaim the emperor has no clothes, all he can say is “Fake News.”

And though I thoroughly despise him for everything he’s done and continues to do bringing our world to the brink of annihilation – I also have to thank him.

There is no longer any denying the truth.

It is merely a question of how we fight.

Opportunities abound for victory, and on a scale we could not previously have dreamed.

It would take such a little push to topple this pathetic toy dictator’s regime.

Merely a whisper out of all our mouths could bring it down.

The slightest flick of the smallest finger on all our hands could send a shock wave causing this pitiful empire to crumble.

If we merely took to the streets at the same time, these dollar store monsters would dissolve in our wake.

And in their place – imagine the world we could create.

All the socialist ideals of Roosevelt’s New Deal could be realized. We could enact a NEW New Deal where everyone truly had a fair shot at flourishing.

As the Rev William Barber says, we could bring about a Third Reconstruction so that our future was firmly built on the foundation of equity and understanding for people of all races, genders, nationalities, religions and creeds.

We could forever banish money from the halls of power and force the plutocrats to pay for all they have stolen from us – with interest.

We could do all this with the merest flexing of our muscles. Because the conquering power is so weak, so disorganized, so pathetic.

And the status quo false flag opposition is just as weak and powerless.

There is but one puissant force left in this country of ours, and it is us. The people.

We were there at the beginning and we are here still at what might be our end.

We, the People.

We can take this country back from the sick and stunted and powerful.

We can take this country back from the frail and the deranged and prejudiced.

We can make America great – if not again then perhaps for the first time. We can make America truly great.

That is the promise of the future.

As our darkest hour dawns, our brightest light may yet shine.

Here’s to igniting that spark.

Here’s to a brighter tomorrow.

Will the U.S. Follow New Zealand’s Lead and Repeal National Academic Standards?

December 14, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, National Academic Standards, New Zealand, Obama, Parents, Politics, Poverty, President, Republican, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, standards, Students, Teachers, Toxic Testing America, common core, Democrats, education, International Reading Literacy Study, international test scores, Labour Party, National Party, national standards, New Zealand, parents, PIRLS, Politics, Republicans, standardized testing, Students, teachers, test-based accountability, United States

Kiwis don’t like corporations telling them what to do.

Especially when it comes to educating their children.

That’s why this week, New Zealand’s Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced that schools in the pacific island nation would no longer need to use the national academic standards mandated by the government for the last decade.

“I don’t think anyone will be surprised that we are ditching a failed experiment,” he said.

“We want teachers focused on less testing and more teaching because that’s the way we’re going to improve students’ progress.”

I pause at this point for American readers to catch their breath.

Yes, a national government just reversed course on standardized, canned, one-size-fits-all academic standards for all students in its public schools.

Yes, they had spent millions of dollars to create, roll out and enforce the standards.

But now they see the results have been less than expected and they’re changing their collective minds.

Shocking, I know.

If only we still did things like that in THIS country.

But wait, there’s more.

Why exactly did New Zealand turn against its national standards?

Did parents hate them?

Yes.

Did kids hate them?

Yes.

Did teachers hate them?

Yes.

All things that could be said of our own Common Core. But was there more to it?

Yes.

In short, New Zealand’s national standards weren’t helping kids learn. In fact, they appeared to have the exact opposite effect.

New Zealand children’s performance on international tests dropped significantly since the standards were introduced in 2010.

And publication of these results showing 10-year-old’s reading achievement taking a nosedive since the standards adoption ignited an already smoldering public outcry.

New Zealand’s average score on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) had been steady for 15 years, but fell dramatically at the end of 2015. In short, New Zealand went from 23rd to 33rd out of 50 countries.

Funny.

The US has had a strikingly similar result on the same test with the same age children since the mandate to use the Common Core.

The PIRLS is an assessment given to fourth-graders in schools around the world every five years. In 2016, the average score for US students dropped from fifth in the world in 2011 to 13^th. And the drop wasn’t merely perfunctory. It was “statistically significant” according to test organizers.

The biggest drop was for the lowest-performing students, what the organizers considered a sign that we’re providing much greater support for economically advantaged children than for underprivileged ones.

Why is this important?

Because Common Core was introduced across the nation in 2010-11. These fourth grade students were the first to be educated using the Core since Kindergarten, and far from creating a boost in achievement, it opened a chasm.

Reading scores went down just as they consistently have done time-and-time-again since we started using the standards.

Scores go down on state tests. National tests. International tests.

Meanwhile the test makers and their proxies keep telling us the problem is that the standards are simply more rigorous and it just will take time for our children to get up to speed. Meanwhile their publishing and software subsidiaries sell us hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new text books, new computer programs, new devices, new apps, new “specialists” and consultants offering professional developments, etc.

Choo! Choo! The gravy train is rolling. We can’t let something like international test scores derail the money train!

Keep in mind, this is the same international test and the same age group of children that caused a revolution in New Zealand.

Will our response be the same?

Probably not.

New Zealand’s authentic reform resulted from a political change. The National Party was replaced by the Labour Party, and repealing national academic standards was part of their platform.

It marked a sharp divide between the philosophies of both groups.

The National Party wanted more testing, more data, more standardization, more holding funding hostage to test scores – just like both Republicans and Democrats in the US.

However, the New Zealand Labour Party ran on significant reductions to standardized education, substantial cuts to standardized testing, repealing national standards and considerable investment in students, schools and teachers.

We in the US simply have no political equivalent.

There is no political party – right, left or centrist – that puts the needs of children, parents, teachers and working people at the center of its platform.

Both the left and right take billions of dollars in campaign contributions from the testing and privatization industries and thus support policies that serve the interest of their donors over their constituents.

There is a tremendous political opportunity here for one party to change course and support a winning strategy.

Republicans tried it in 2016 by lambasting Common Core and then quietly forgetting they could do a thing about it at the state level every day since.

Including today.

Admittedly their education policy is incoherent since they support every standardization and privatization initiative on record so long as a black President didn’t touch it. And even then their opposition melts away when they have the power to do something about it but no one’s looking because the President is too busy playing nuclear chicken with North Korea on Twitter.

Imagine if politicians promised to fix something and then had the courage to actually do it!

It worked in New Zealand.

It’s worked in many places all over the world.

Why can’t it work here?

“We Want Our Money Back!” – The Rallying Cry of the 99% After GOP Tax Scam Passes Senate

December 2, 2017December 3, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Campaign Donations, capitalism, Civil Rights, Compassion, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Politics, Poverty, President, protest, Republican, Schools, Taxation Democrats, Donald Trump, plutocracy, Politics, Republicans, Senate, tax cuts, tax scam bill, Taxation

We want our money back!

Every penny!

With interest!

Do you hear us, Republican Senators?

Early this morning while most of us slept, you passed a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest people in America!

And you did it 51-49 with only one Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, joining all Democrats against it.

This was a 500 page piece of lobbyist-written legislation hastily put together – in some cases scribbled in pen across type written pages – that no one had a chance to read before voting.

I am no fan of the corporate Democrats who have taken over what used to be a progressive party. But we can’t blame them for this one.

This scandal belongs entirely on the shoulders of Republicans.

The Dems even offered a resolution to delay the vote so that legislators had a chance to read it. All 52 Republicans voted against it!

This is what happens when the people lose control of their government.

This is what happens when the rich control lawmakers with their money.

There is no longer any doubt that we no longer live in a Republic. We no longer have any form of representative Democracy. We live in a pure plutocracy.

The rich pay the representatives and the representatives do what the rich want.

The wealthy are their real constituents. We are merely patsies told polite falsehoods to keep us in line.

You have no political power.

None.

Governments get their legitimacy from the consent of the governed.

You did not give your consent to give away more than a trillion dollars to rich douchebags who don’t need it. But Republicans gave it to them anyway.

Therefore, our government has no legitimacy.

We are an occupied people.

We are the victims of a palace coup.

The question remains if there is even a semblance of democratic principles left to allow us to regain what has been stolen.

The present plutocracy is weak. It has not had time enough to consolidate its power.

The old plan of gradually stealing control under cover of neoliberal policies has been abandoned. This is a naked power grab.

Perhaps it will be the jolt we need to snap us all awake.

Perhaps it will be enough to move the 99% to grab what little remains of the system set up by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and the other founders.

We must rise up and demand these crooks pay us back.

“We want our money back!” should be our rallying cry.

If there are any lawmakers left in the halls of power that want to represent us, they should take a page from the GOP handbook.

How many times did Republicans propose overturning Obamacare regardless of whether they had the votes or the power to do so?

We must do the same with this tax scam bill.

At every turn, we should propose repealing the bill and forcing the wealthy to pay back every red cent they stole! With interest!

It doesn’t matter if it won’t pass. Do it.

Clog the wheels of power with our cries. Don’t let them do a single thing more to make the lives of the majority of the population worse.

Democrats, now is your last chance to show us where you really stand.

You and I both know that if the Republicans had offered even the slightest concessions, many Dems would have voted for almost the same tax scam bill. It would have been a terrible piece of legislation that stole banks full of money from you and me. But it wouldn’t have been quite as terrible.

Frankly, that’s not enough, Democrats.

You aren’t to blame for what just happened, but you haven’t proven yourselves to be part of the solution.

If you want our continued support, you need to move to the left. HARD!

The masses have been stoked and stirred by this scandal. The political landscape has never been more primed for a landslide against the ruling class.

Democrats could take advantage of this and earn a blue wave next year.

But this will only happen if you run candidates that are willing to fight on our side in the class war that has already begun.

Bernie Sanders is great, but let’s be honest. He’s kinda elderly, and he’s a moderate.

That’s right. “Crazy” Bernie with his “kooky” socialist ideas is in the middle of any sane political spectrum. He only seems like a radical because of how far to the right the spectrum has shifted in this country.

We need real progressives who aren’t afraid to take on the establishment and fight inequality, police brutality, white supremacy, school privatization and a host of ills that – frankly – Democrats have historically championed almost as much as Republicans.

The pieces are all lined up. The board is ready to play.

We will support anyone who supports us.

We are coming for Republicans.

They will be repealed and replaced.

We will get back every penny they just stole last night. And we will grab every Richy Rich plutocrat by the heels, turn them upside down and shake until we get back every penny they took – with interest.

We will wring every last drop of Democracy we can from this government.

And if we find that there is not enough left…

History has an answer for what comes next.

Americans don’t take kindly to taxation without representation.

And that’s exactly what Republicans gave us this morning.

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