Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

April 8, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Campaign Donations, capitalism, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Politics, privatization, Schools, Standardized Testing, standards, Teachers, Toxic Testing captive markets, common core, Corporate Education Reform, economics, education, Greed, Politics, standardized testing, Students

thumbnail_Screen Shot 2017-04-07 at 10.41.23 AM

It’s easy to do business when the customer is forced to buy.

But is it fair, is it just, or does it create a situation where people are coerced into purchases they wouldn’t make if they had a say in the matter?

For example, school children as young as 8-years-old are forced to take a battery of standardized tests in public schools. Would educators prescribe such assessments if it were up to them? Would parents demand children be treated this way if they were consulted? Or is this just a corporate scam perpetrated by our government for the sole benefit of a particular industry that funnels a portion of the profits to our lawmakers as political donations?

Let’s look at it economically.

Say you sold widgets – you know, those hypothetical doodads we use whenever we want to talk about selling something without importing the emotional baggage of a particular product.

You sell widgets. The best widgets. Grade A, primo, first class widgets.

Your goal in life is to sell the most widgets possible and thus generate the highest profit.

Unfortunately, the demand for widgets is fixed. Whatever they are, people only want so many of them. But if you could increase the demand and thus expand the market, you would likewise boost your profits and better meet your goals.

There are many ways you could do this. You could advertise and try to convince consumers that they need more widgets. You could encourage doctors and world health organizations to prescribe widgets as part of a healthy lifestyle. Or you could convince the government to mandate the market.

That’s right – force people to buy your products.

That doesn’t sound very American does it?

In a Democratic society, we generally don’t want the government telling us what to purchase. Recall the hysteria around the Obamacare individual mandate requiring people who could afford to buy healthcare coverage to do so or else face a financial tax penalty. In this case, one might argue that it was justified because everyone wants healthcare. No one wants to let themselves die from a preventable disease or allow free riders to bump up the cost for everyone else.

However, it’s still a captive market though perhaps an innocuous one. Most are far more pernicious.

According to dictionary.com, a captive market is “a group of consumers who are obliged… to buy a particular product, thus giving the supplier a monopoly” or oligopoly. This could be because of lack of competition, shortages, or other factors.

In the case of government mandating consumers to buy a particular product, it’s perhaps the strongest case of a captive market. Consumers have no choice but to comply and thus have little to no protection from abuse. They are at the mercy of the supplier.

It’s a terrible position to be in for consumers, but a powerful one for businesspeople. And it’s exactly the situation for public schools and the standardized testing industry.

Let’s break it down.

These huge corporations don’t sell widgets, they sell tests. In fact, they sell more than just that, but let’s focus right now on just that – the multiple choice, fill-in-the-bubble assessments.

Why do our public schools give these tests? Because peer-reviewed research shows they fairly and accurately demonstrate student learning? Because they’ve been proven by independent observers to be an invaluable part of the learning process and help students continue to learn new things?

No and no.

The reason public schools give these tests is because the government forces them. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) requires that all students in grades 3-8 and once in high school take certain approved standardized assessments. Parents are allowed to refuse the tests for their children, but otherwise they have to take them.

It wasn’t always this way. When the act was first passed in 1965, it focused almost entirely on providing students with equitable resources. That all changed in 2001, with the passage of No Child Left Behind, a reauthorization of this original bill. And ever since, through every subsequent reauthorization and name change, the federal law governing K-12 schools has required the same standardized testing.

The testing corporations don’t have to prove their products. Those products are required by law.

It’s one of the largest captive markets in existence. That’s some 50.4 million children forced to take standardized assessments. The largest such corporation, Pearson, boasts profits of $9 billion annually. It’s largest competitor, CBT/ McGraw-Hill, makes $2 billion annually. Others include Education Testing Services and Riverside Publishing better known through its parent company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

If many of these companies sound like book publishers, that’s because they are or their parent companies are. And that’s no coincidence. It’s another way they bolster their own market.

Not only do many of these testing corporations make, provide and score standardized assessments, they make and provide the remedial resources used to help students pass.

So if your students are having difficulty passing the state test, often the same company has a series of workbooks or a software package to help remediate them. It’s a good business model. Cash in before kids take the test. Cash in when they take it. And if kids fail, cash in again to remediate them.

Ever wonder why our test scores are so low? Because it’s profitable! The money is all on the side of failure, not success. In fact, from an economic point of view, there is a disincentive to succeed. Not for teachers and students, but for the people who make and grade the tests.

But that’s not all.

Once you have a system in place, things can become static. Once districts already have the books and resources to pass the tests, the testing corporation has less to sell them, the market stagnates and thus their profits go down or at least stop growing.

The solution once again is to create yet another captive market. That’s why Common Core was created.

These are new academic standards written almost exclusively by the testing corporations and forced on districts by federal and state governments. Under President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, $500 million in federal education grants were tied to adopting these new standards. States were coerced to push Common Core on their districts or else lose out on much needed funding.

This resulted in the need for districts to buy all new materials – new text books, new workbooks, new software, etc. It also required the states to order brand new standardized tests. So once again the testing industry cashed in at both ends.

And these tests were more needlessly difficult so more children would fail and need costly remediation.

Was there a pressing academic need for these new standards? Was there any evidence that these standards would increase student learning? Were there even any independent studies conducted to attempt to prove a need?

No. This was a total money grab. It was naked greed from one industry completely enabled by our lawmakers at the federal and state levels.

Republicans made noises against it, and some still do. But consider this – the overwhelming majority of state houses are controlled by the GOP. They have the power to repeal Common Core at any time. Yet almost none of them did or do.

Ask yourself why. It has nothing to do with the Democrats. Republicans are owned by the same masters as the so-called liberals – these same test corporations.

You have to understand that our government is no longer ruled by the principle of one person, one vote. Money has become speech so wealthy corporations get a huge say in what our government does.

If an industry gets big enough and makes enough donations to enough lawmakers, they get the legislation they want. In many cases, the corporations write the legislation and then tell lawmakers to pass it. And this is true for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Standardized testing and Common Core are one pernicious example of our new captive market capitalism collapsing into plutocracy.

Our tax dollars are given away to big business and our voices are silenced.

Forget selling widgets. Our children have BECOME widgets, hostage consumers, and access to them is being bought and sold.

We are all slaves to this new runaway capitalism that has freed itself from the burden of self-rule.

How long will we continue to put up with it?

How long will we continue to be hostages to these captive markets?

Decolonizing Through Dialogue: Authentic Teaching in the Age of Testing and Common Core

April 3, 2017 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Art, Common Core, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, Racism, Schools, Social Justice, Socratic Seminar, Standardized Testing, Teachers authentic teaching, colonialism, common core, decolonizing, dialogue, education, educators, eurocentrism, mulitculturalism, Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Socrates, Socratic Seminar, standardized testing, Students, teachers, Tom Paxton, What Did You Learn in School Today?

If you’re not careful, being a public school teacher can become an act of colonization.

This is especially true if you’re a white teacher like me with classes of mostly black students. But it’s not the only case. As an educator, no matter who you are or whom you teach, you’re a symbol of authority and you get that power from the dominant structures in our society.

Believe it or not, our schools are social institutions, so one of their chief functions is to help recreate the social order. Students enter as malleable lumps of clay and exit mainly in the shapes we decide upon. Therefore, as an educator, it’s hard not to fall into the habit of molding young minds into the shapes society has decided are appropriate.

In some ways this is inevitable. In others, it’s even desirable. But it also runs against the best potential of education.

In short, this isn’t what a teacher should be. My job in front of the classroom isn’t to make my students into anything. It’s to give them the opportunity, to generate the spark that turns them into their best selves. And the people who ultimately should be the most empowered in this process are the students, themselves.

But it’s easier said than done.

The danger is best expressed in that essential book for any teacher, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” where Paulo Freire writes:

“Worse yet, it turns them (the students) into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be filed by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.”

In most cases this means Eurocentrism – a kind of worship of all things white and denigration of all things black, brown and all pigments between.

We take the status quo and find every blind justification for it. In fact, this can become the curriculum, itself. Every counter-narrative, every criticism of the power structure then naturally becomes a danger. Revisionist history becomes history. European philosophy becomes the only accepted definition of rationality. Ideologies of empire become obvious and inescapable. White becomes the norm and racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia all become hidden and internalized.

You’ve heard the criticism of curriculums focusing exclusively on dead white males. This is why.

And not only does it silence minority voices, it reinforces a false view of the world. Folk singer Tom Paxton made that clear in this classic song:

“What Did You Learn In School Today?”

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

I learned that Washington never told a lie,
I learned that soldiers seldom die,
I learned that everybody’s free,
And that’s what the teacher said to me,
And that’s what I learned in school today,
that’s what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

I learned the policemen are my friends,
I learned that justice never ends,
I learned that murderers pay for their crimes,
Even if we make a mistake sometimes,
And that’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

I learned that war is not so bad,
I learned about the great ones we’ve had.
We fought in Germany and in France
And some day I might get my chance.
And that’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

I learned our government must be strong;
It’s always right and never wrong!
Our leaders are the finest men
And we elect them again and again,
And that’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school

We can see why this kind of teaching is valued. It reinforces the status quo. But at its core education is essentially subversive. It supports new ways of thinking. It is by definition revolutionary. When you encourage students to think for themselves, some may come to conclusions that differ from the norm. This is entirely healthy and the only way societies can grow and change. But it’s inimical to the people in power who often are in charge of the educational system. They don’t want new ideas if those ideas will challenge their hold on the reigns of power. Socrates wasn’t forced to drink hemlock, after all, because his lessons supported the Athenian elite.

So we’re left with a real quandary. How do teachers remain free to inspire while being a part of a system that doesn’t value inspiration?

The natural forces of society work against authentic teaching like gravity pulling at a rocket. Unless you’re actively pushing against the ground, the most natural thing in the world is to just go with the flow. The textbook says this is the way. Teacher training programs often agree. Cooperating teachers who have been in the classroom for decades back it up. This is the best method. Just keep it up.

But it’s not. And you shouldn’t. There is another way even though it’s hard to see. And THAT’S often what you need to be doing for your students.

Let me pause at this point to make one thing clear: I don’t have all the answers.

I am no expert in how to do this. I have fallen victim to it, myself, more often than I’d like to admit. It may be next to impossible to avoid the accepted route much of the time. But if we want to be good teachers, we need to try.

If we really want to provide the best service to our students, their parents and the community, we have to break out of the mold. We have to allow our students the chance of seeing the world and not just our version of it.

The best ways I’ve found to do this are through selection of texts, use of Socratic Seminars and allowing as much choice as possible in assignments.

When selecting texts, you want to be as inclusive as possible. Provide students with the widest possible range of authors and opinions. In Language Arts, this means purposeful multiculturalism. It means authors of color being prized equally with the European cannon. It means women and transgender authors. It means authors subscribing to a wide range of beliefs and skepticisms. And it means accepting genres and forms that are often devalued like song lyrics, rap, Manga, graphic novels and anything that can be considered deep, substantial texts.

Finding such sources can be exhausting, but it’s also exhilarating. Unfortunately, not all schools permit teachers to do this to the same degree. Some districts mandate teachers only use certain texts already approved by the school board. Others provide a list of approved texts from which teachers can pick.

Each educator will have to find ways to navigate the system. It’s best if you can find support from administrators and in the community for what you want to do and go from there. But this can be a challenging road especially in our era of high stakes testing and Common Core which values authentic teaching not at all.

Another essential tool is class discussion. You may or may not be able to broaden the texts being discussed, but you can usually provide space for students to discuss those texts in class.

My 8^th graders and I use the Socratic Seminar method of discussion extensively.

With almost every piece of literature, I write guided open-ended questions for the students to consider. The questions come out of the text, but I try to focus on queries that will get students thinking about how the text relates to their lives, gender and economic issues, questions of theme, race and opportunities to make connections of every type. Eventually, I even allow students to begin writing these questions, themselves.

The way I see it, my role is essentially an opportunity maker. It isn’t about finding an answer that will please me, the teacher. It’s about exploring the subject. It’s not about what I think. It’s about what students think. And that makes all the difference.

Finally, I’ve found it beneficial to allow students choice in their assignments.

There are many ways for students to demonstrate knowledge. They can write essays, take a test, create a collage, design a power point presentation, make an iMovie, act out a scene, etc. I try to expose students to multiple formats the first half of the year and then give them increased choice in how they’d like to express themselves in the second half.

Not only does this free students to think, it encourages the deepest kind of learning. It makes the lesson vital, important and intrinsic.

All of these approaches share a common feature: dialogue. They put the student, teacher and the author in a vital relationship. They take steps to equalize that relationship so that one isn’t more important than the others. It’s not just what the author, teacher or student thinks – it’s the interrelationship of the three.

Ultimately, it’s up to the student to decide the relative value of the results. Sure, they get grades. Sure, the system will judge students based on those grades. But the value of those grades isn’t as important as the resultant learning and the value students place on the experience.

To me, that’s the best kind of learning. And it’s the result of authentic teaching and dialogue.

It is the most inimical thing to colonization. Students are not enslaved to a system. They aren’t in servitude to a prepackaged group of ideas and norms.

They are valued and empowered.

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing for them?

NEWSFLASH: Betsy DeVos Opens Mouth. Nonsense Falls Out

March 30, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Betsy DeVos, Campaign Donations, Charter Schools, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Donald Trump, Education, John King, Media, Politics, Poverty, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers Betsy DeVos, Corporate Education Reform, Donald Trump, education, education reform, international test scores, NAEP, PISA

Screen shot 2017-03-29 at 11.04.55 PM

Betsy DeVos opened her mouth-hole today and a load of crap fell out.

And somehow that’s news!

Our federal Education Secretary said Wednesday, “I’m not sure how [U.S. public schools] could get a lot worse on a nationwide basis than they are today.”

Let’s add that to the list of things she’s already admitted she’s not sure of:

-Whether charter and voucher schools should be held to the same standards as traditional public schools.

-Whether guns belong on school campuses in reach of children.

-Whether the Department of Education should protect students with special needs.

-Whether the Individuals With Disabilities Act is a federal law (Spoiler Alert: It IS!).

-Oh! And what the heck’s the difference between proficiency and growth?

This woman is an idiot. Worse – she’s a rich idiot.

She only holds this office because she bought off the entire Republican Party and she still needed a historic tie breaking vote by the vice-president to get confirmed!

Why are we publishing a thing she says as anything other than standup comedy?

She knows nothing about public schools. She never went to them as a student. She never sent her own children to them. In fact, she only started visiting them in her official role as Secretary of Education!

Yet she has spent her entire life bribing policymakers to replace public schools with charter and voucher schools.

She is a saleswoman for privatization and she thinks public schools suck.

Well whoop-de-do!

They say opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got one.

What makes DeVos’ opinion worth anything more than yours or mine?

Nothing.

But since you asked, there is a heck of a lot that makes our opinion better than hers.

Ninety percent of Americans have actually attended public schools. Ninety percent send their own children to public schools. And though popular opinion of public schools nationwide has suffered after an endless barrage of corporate propaganda against them, most people have a very high view of their own neighborhood school.

So if the media wants to publish a valuable opinion about public schools, they should publish what almost anyone ELSE has to say other than Betsy DeVos.

What does a Flat Earther have to say about constructing a globe? WHO CARES?

What does a skeptic about the moon landing have to say about NASA? WHO GIVES A CRAP?

What does Betsy DeVos have to say about public schools?

NO ONE CARES.

But fine. I’ll bite. Why does the billionaire heiress think our public schools stink?

She trots out the usual nonsense about international test scores:

“I mean, the fact that our PISA scores have continued to deteriorate as compared to the rest of the world and that we’ve seen stagnant at best results with the NAEP scores over the years. I’m not sure we can deteriorate a whole lot.”

First of all, she’s wrong about the facts.

PISA scores did not deteriorate. Like NAEP scores, they’ve remained pretty much the same for all the decades we’ve been making these comparisons.

Internationally, our test scores have always been in the middle of the pack. And that shouldn’t be surprising.

We provide every child with an education. Many of the countries we’re compared with internationally don’t. That means we’re going to have lower test scores. You’re comparing ALL of our kids with only the best academic achievers in Asia, Scandinavia and other countries.

Add to that the overwhelming child poverty rate in the United States – something completely absent in most of these other nations we’re being measured against. Obviously our poorer kids who get fewer resources than your richer kids won’t do as well on standardized tests. You’re not comparing apples-to-apples. And whenever you make the adjustment for poverty, our students score at the top of the scale!

I’m not saying we can’t improve. There’s plenty we could be doing such as providing more resources for our poor and minority students. But opportunists like DeVos have always tried to use this test score myth to justify destroying the public school system and giving it away to private interests.

Betsy, please just stop. The blatant ignorance coming out of your mouth hurts. It’s embarrassing.

But perhaps there is a silver lining here. We’re used to hearing these lies from more credible sources. Before becoming Education Secretary, Arne Duncan and John King had advanced degrees. They ran major metropolitan school systems. DeVos is just rich.

And having such an obvious fool repeat these same lies pulls back the curtain.

There is no longer any question about their veracity.

Good luck trying to fool people with this same snake oil anymore. Just by opening her mouth, DeVos has poisoned the entire corporate school reform narrative.

Thanks, Betsy!

The Corporate Coup Destroying Our Schools Has Finally Come For Our Government

March 28, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Local Control, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, school segregation, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers, Unions, Whiteness Democrats, Donald Trump, education, educators, Jared Kushner, Local Control, neofascist, neoliberal, Republicans, schools

First they came for people of color and I said nothing.

Because I am not a person of color.

Then they came for the poor and I said nothing.

For I am not poor.

Then they came for our public schools and I said nothing.

Because I do not send my children to public schools.

Now they’ve come for our government and who is left to speak for me?

This is a paraphrase of Martin Niemöller’s famous lines about the cowardice of German intellectuals during Hitler’s rise to power.

The fascists purged group after group while those who could have stood against them did nothing – until it was too late.

That’s very nearly the position we find ourselves in today in relation to the Trump administration.

The neoliberal and neofascist façade has fallen away. And the naked greed of our runaway capitalist system has been exposed for what it is.

Just this week, Trump unveiled a new government office with sweeping authority to overhaul federal bureaucracy on the business model.

Led by the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, The White House Office of American Innovation will be an autonomous entity enforcing the president’s will. Described as an internal “SWAT team” of strategic consultants, and staffed with former business executives, the office will cut down democratic rule in favor of top-down authoritarianism.

And the excuse is the same one used to deny equity for minorities, the same one used to dismantle protections for the poor and the same one used to unfairly label and close our public schools – we need to run government like a business.

But government is not a business.

The goal of a business is profit for the few. The goal of government is service to the many.

In a private business only the owner or the board of directors reaps the benefits. But our government is not supposed to be set up that way. It’s not supposed to benefit merely all the president’s men. It’s supposed to benefit all of us – the citizens, the taxpayers, the voters.

This is exactly the model that has been used against our public schools.

We have shifted our concern away from students and parents to investors and corporations. For almost two decades, our education policies have increasingly been to reduce local control – especially at schools serving the poor and minorities – and give that control to private charter school operators. We have removed the duly-elected school boards and replaced them with appointed boards of directors. We have removed or diminished democratic rule and replaced it with an autocracy. And all the while the middle class has cheered.

It was a coup in plain site, and no one but parents, students, teachers and intellectuals spoke up.

Our voices were undercut or ignored. When we demanded equal treatment for our children, we were labeled welfare queens wanting something for nothing. When we demanded fair treatment, a safe work environment and resources for our students, we were labeled union thugs standing in the way of progress. At every turn we were tone policed into silence and passed over for the voices of self-proclaimed experts who knew nothing but what they were paid to espouse.

We were told that the only measure of academic success was a standardized test score. But no mention of the white, middle class standard our non-white, impoverished students were being held to.

When our schools were increasingly segregated by race, class and income, we were told that it was only fair. After all, it was based on choice – the choice of the invisible hand of the free market. When our schools were starved of resources, we were told to do more with less. And when our students struggled to survive malnutrition, increased violence and the indentured servitude of their parents to an economic system that barely allowed them to sustain themselves, we blamed them. And their teachers, because how dare anyone actually try to help these untouchables!

We allowed this – all of it – perpetrated by Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, because they’re all really just different dogs to the same masters.

We justified it all in the name of the market, in the name of economics, in the name of business. Why should we care? It rarely affected us directly.

White, middle class folks could get by. It wasn’t OUR schools being given away to private equity firms. It wasn’t OUR children being educated by temporary employees on the model of the peace corps with little training and no experience.

Those were just someone else’s children. We weren’t even sure they were human. They certainly didn’t share the same portion of humanity as we did. They were unwashed and unfed. Even if you washed them, many of them would still have brown skin. We were happy to have them as an underclass, as a cushion to stop us from falling further down the social ladder.

Our kids went to either well resourced public schools with fully elected school boards and shiny new facilities or else we sent our children to pristine private schools that offered the best of everything for a price.

But now the chickens have come home to roost.

Because this same model is being applied to our government.

Now it is us who will lose our voices. It will be our services that are stripped away as an unnecessary cost savings. We will lose our healthcare. We will lose our environment. It will be our democracy suspended to make way for the more efficient means of government – fascism and autocracy.

Who has time to listen to the people? Much easier to just decide what should be done. And we can justify it with our business model. No more voters and representatives. Now we will be businessmen and consumers. Nothing will stand in the way of the corporate class enriching themselves at public expense. They will be merely providing the rest of us with the goods and services of government, the bits that trickle down on our heads like rain or urine.

That is what Trump is attempting. He is turning the United States into a banana republic – even installing his relatives and children in top leadership positions. Our government now resembles the corridors of power in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein with henchmen Uday and Qusay in tow.

The question is this: will we allow it?

Will we continue to allow it?

Will we stand for it as the administration installs Trump loyalty officers in every federal office?

Will we say nothing as nepotism and greed become the most prized attributes of governance?

Will we remain silent as our public schools continue to be raided, sacked and burned?

Because the answer to those questions is the answer to so much more.

Are we on the cusp of revolution or is history merely repeating itself?

Trump Budgets More Money to Kill Kids in Yemen Than Educate Kids in USA

March 17, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Compassion, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, Guns, Parents, Politics, Poverty, President, privatization, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, School Lunches, school vouchers, Social Justice, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Violence Against Children Budget, Donald Trump, education, free school lunches, military, Trump budget

Donald Trump apparently would rather kill children in other countries than educate them in ours.

When you make a budget, you betray your priorities.

As Paul Begala said, “The budget is a profoundly moral document. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be.”

So where exactly are Donald Trump’s priorities?

While boosting the military by $54 billion in his 2018 budget, he slashes spending at the U.S. Department of Education by $9.2 billion – the largest cut in the department’s history.

This sad excuse for a man actually proposes that guns and tanks are more important than school children. Perhaps his motto should be “Save the guns! Fuck the children!”

No wonder he obsesses about the size of his hands and literally brags about the size of his genitals on the campaign trial. Can you imagine the infinitesimal pecker you would have to possess to need to brandish phallic pistols instead of taking care of the children in your fucking care!?

What a disgrace!

And moreover, he doesn’t even know how to effectively use the armed forces at his disposal.

Against advice from the military, this pustule with a fake weave authorized a disastrous raid in Yemen in early February that left a US Navy SEAL and 14 civilians dead including an 8-year-old American girl, Nawar al-Awlaki.

At least we know where all this military money will be going. It’s cash for his toy chest so Trump can play army with our sons and daughters. Sure, there will be no more public schools, but if your kids survive to adulthood, they can be Trump’s toys soldiers!

Moreover, look at where this overgrown Cheeto is making the cuts. In order to pay for a $1.4 billion increase in charter and voucher schools, the majority of these cuts come at the expense of the nation’s public schools – institutions serving 90% of our students.

He proposes downsizing the entire department by 13.5% reducing or eliminating grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to low-income and first-generation college students.

So we’re throwing out proven programs that help kids learn for fly-by-night scams that have ignited scandals across the country. Charter and voucher schools can pick and choose their students. Public schools can’t. And we’re siding with the freakin’ choice schools!?

Traditional public schools have elected school boards. They have open meetings. You actually get a say in how your kid is educated and how your tax money is spent. But the choice schools do all this behind closed doors with appointed boards accountable only to the moneymen. And we’re siding with the option that gives us LESS choice – in the name of “Choice”!

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise. We’re talking about the founder of Trump University – a fake business school that forced this professional liar to settle out of court for millions. Of course he sides with charter and voucher schools! They’re the kind of institutions he knows – scams!

The priority isn’t school children. It’s wealthy investors that can cash in with our tax dollars burdened by little-to-no oversight.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Trump wants to block funding to feed impoverished children! He actually wants to cut the already struggling Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, by $200 million.

The program serves more than 7.8 million people about three-quarters of which are children and infants.

So this human-sized hemorrhoid has money for guns and businessmen but pinches pennies on infant’s baby formula. Make no mistake – children will die because of this. And those who do survive will grow up malnourished. Their brains will not be as fully developed as middle class and wealthy kids. They will not do as well in school, they’ll struggle to even graduate and boost the numbers of our special education population.

And when called on it, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget office director, told the press that feeding hungry children doesn’t work!

He actually said this:

“Let’s talk about after-school programs generally: they’re supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that. There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.”

Not only is this untrue based on multiple studies, it’s morally bankrupt.

The Trump administration is actually suggesting we shouldn’t help feed hungry kids because they don’t score high enough on their standardized tests!

Do you base your humanity solely on graduation rates? Should I not help a needy person if it doesn’t somehow boost the GDP?

Fuck you, Mulvaney, and fuck you, Trump!

I’m sorry. I know I’ve dropped more F- bombs in this piece than Trump’s grabbed unsolicited pussies. But what other response is appropriate than seething, inchoate rage!?

That our country has sunk to this level of selfishness and shortsightedness! The hypocrisy and greed!

I’m a public school teacher. I don’t use these words during the school day. But I will get a front row seat to how this budget will affect children.

I’ll be there when the rubber hits the road. And I’ll do what I can to help. I’ll stay extra hours to tutor. I’ll bring in food so my kids can eat. I’ll listen to their problems and offer solutions.

I’ll keep doing all the things I’m doing now. But I’m only one person. Our public school teachers are only one group. We can’t save every child in America ourselves!

And the parents can’t do it, either. Neither can our school board members, volunteers and concerned citizens.

We need a strong, moral government to step in and help.

I know that’s not a popular sentiment. Government has become bad by definition because of a generation of politicians who don’t believe in it running for office to prove themselves right.

But we all pay taxes. (Well, the middle class and poor do.) And we deserve a return on that investment.

America deserves better than this Trump budget. Our children deserve a better future than this.

Because if Trump gets his way, there may be no future at all.

Always Be Testing – The Sales Pitch for Corporate Education Reform

March 15, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, bloggers, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, Opt Out, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, protest, satire, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers, union busting, Unions, Value Added Measures, VAM Alec Baldwin, Always Be Closing, common core, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education Reform, David Mamet, education, educators, Glengarry Glen Ross, merit pay, parody, Teach for America, Teacher Evaluation, teachers, teaching, teaching to the test, Test Prep, Value Added Measures

(After the “Brass Balls” speech in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” by David Mamet.)

(Rated PG-13 for language)

(Interior: a public school classroom during an after school staff meeting. Teachers are seated at student desks including Singer, Moss and Aaronow. Williamson, a middle school principal, stands in front of the room flanked by Blake, a motivational speaker brought in by the state. Singer is furiously grading papers. The other teachers are pleasantly chatting about trifles before Blake calls the gathering to attention.)

[Blake]
Let me have your attention for a moment! So you’re talking about what? You’re talking about that kid you failed, some son of a bitch who doesn’t want to pass, some snot-nosed brat you’re trying to remediate and so forth. Let’s talk about something important. Are they all here?

[Williamson]
All but one.

[Blake]
Well, I’m going anyway. Let’s talk about something important! (to Singer) Put that colored marker down!

[Singer]

But I’m grading papers…

(Blake)

I said Put that marker down! Markers are for testers only.

(Singer scoffs)

[Blake]

Do you think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I’m here from downtown. I’m here from the Governor and the Legislature. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Singer?

[Singer]
Yeah. Mister Singer, actually.

[Blake]
You call yourself a teacher, you son of a bitch?

[Moss]

I don’t have to listen to this.

[Blake]
You certainly don’t, Madam. Cause the good news is – you’re fired. The bad news is you’ve got, all you got, just one week to regain your jobs, starting today. Starting with today’s meeting.

[Moss]

What!? The union contract doesn’t allow you to just fire us all without cause.

[Blake]

Union!? There ain’t no more union! This is a Right to Work state now, Bitch. And that means you have the right to work – for less – until I fire your sorry ass.

(Assorted grumbling)

[Blake]

Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. Cause we’re adding a little something to this month’s merit pay. As you all know, the teacher whose students get the highest test scores gets a bonus. First prize is a thousand bucks. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize is a box of pencils. Third prize is you’re fired. You get the picture? You’re laughing now?

[Singer]

That’s ridiculous. Mrs. Moss teaches the advanced kids. All her students get high test scores.

[Blake]

What? And your kids are in the general track? They don’t get high test scores? Then step it up, Singer! You want to get a paycheck in this district, you’ve got to earn a paycheck. You got test prep manuals. The school board paid good money for them. Get those workbooks so your kids can pass the test!

[Singer]

Workbooks!? That’s not learning?

[Blake]

That’s where you’re wrong. Workbooks are the only learning that counts! Kids take the tests that show whether you’re doing your fucking jobs! You want to keep working here? You want to keep sucking at the public tit? You get those kids to pass the motherfucking tests. And those workbooks do that. They teach kids how to pass the motherfucking tests!

[Singer]

But my kids are all from poor homes. They’re malnourished. They don’t get the same medical care. There are no books in their homes. Many of them suffer from PTSD from abuse or exposure to violence….

[Blake]

And you think they deserve some kind of entitlement? A medal? Fuck them and fuck you! Let me make one thing perfectly clear – If you can’t get your students to pass shit, you ARE shit, hit the bricks, Pal, and beat it cause you are going out!

[Singer]

Are you kidding me right now? You want my students to pass these tests. The tests are unfair. They’re economically and culturally biased. The connection between the tests and learning is weak.

[Blake]
The fucking tests are weak? You’re weak. I’ve been in this business for fifteen weeks.

[Moss]
Fifteen weeks? Try thirty years.

[Blake]

Anyone who’s still a teacher after thirty years should be put to sleep. All you need is a year or two. That’s what I’m doing. Teach for America. Five weeks training, two year commitment, then move on to Washington where you can advise lawmakers on what schools need.

[Moss]

What’s your name?

[Blake]

Fuck you, that’s my name! You know why, Missy? Cause you drove a Hyundai to get to work. I drove an eighty thousand BMW. That’s my name.

[Singer]

I took the bus.

[Blake]

(To Singer) And your name is “you’re wanting.” You can’t play in a man’s game. You can’t teach them. (at a near whisper) And you go home and tell your wife your troubles.

(to everyone again) Because only one thing counts in this life! Get them to score above basic. Get them to demonstrate the minimum skills necessary!

[Singer]

What about what they think and feel?

[Blake]

No one gives a shit about what they think and feel. You hear me, you fucking faggots?

(Blake flips over a blackboard which has two sets of letters on it: ABT, and AITP.)

[Blake]

A-B-T. A- Always, B-be, T-testing. Always be testing! Always be testing!! A-I-T-P. Attention, interest, testing, passing. Attention — do I have your attention? Interest — are you interested? I know you are because it’s fuck or walk. Your kids pass or you hit the bricks! Testing – you will test those students by Christ!! And passing. A-I-T-P; get out there!! You got the students comin’ in; you think they came in to get out of the rain?

[Singer]

Actually, many of my students live in public housing down there by the railroad tracks. You know those slums? Roofs leak in half those units…

[Moss]

And for a lot of kids school is the only structure they get all day. Their parents are out working two to three jobs. They have to take care of themselves and often younger siblings.

[Singer]

And food. Don’t forget food. If it wasn’t for the free breakfast and lunch program, many of my kids wouldn’t eat…

[Blake]

Bullshit. A kid doesn’t walk into this school unless he wants to pass. That’s why they’re here! They want to learn! They’re sitting out there waiting to be told what to do. Are you gonna’ tell ‘em? Are you man enough to tell them?

[Moss]

I’m a woman. Most of us are women.

[Blake]

(to Moss) What’s the problem, Pal?

[Moss]

You think you’re such a hero, you’re so rich. Why are you coming down here and wasting your time on a bunch of bums?

(Blake sits and takes off his gold watch)

[Blake]
You see this watch? You see this watch?

[Moss]
Yeah.

[Blake]

That watch cost more than your SMART Board. (Takes off his shoe) You see this shoe? Italian. It costs more than your entire salary. (slicks back his hair) You see this haircut?

[Moss]

I get it.

[Blake]

Do you? Because I do. I made 26 million dollars last year. How much do you make? You see, Pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing. Nice person? I don’t give a shit. Good mother? Fuck you – go home and play with your kids!! (to everyone) You wanna work here? Test!! (to Aaronow) You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this — how can you take the abuse you get in a classroom?! You don’t like it — leave. I can go out there tomorrow with the materials you got, make myself a thousand dollars in merit pay! Tomorrow! In one class! Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise! A-I-T-P!! Get mad! You sons of bitches! Get mad!!

[Singer]

Oh, I’m mad. I’m mad that a shallow schmuck like you thinks he can come in here and tell us how to do our jobs. School is about so much more than test scores. You can’t reduce it all to a multiple choice assessment. These kids need a broad curriculum, not just reading and math. They need science, art, social studies, foreign language, recess – all the stuff the rich kids get at the $50,000 a year private schools. And all you want to give them are standardized tests!

[Blake]

You know what it takes to teach public school?

(He pulls something out of his briefcase. He’s holding up a hammer and a plastic model of a one-room schoolhouse. He puts the model down on Aaronow’s desk and then smashes it to pieces with the hammer.)

[Blake]
It takes school choice to teach in a public school. It takes charter and voucher schools, schools run like a business – not this mamby, pamby, commie, socialist shit!

[Moss]

Choice? Is that what you call letting private interests suck up public tax dollars without the same transparency and regulations as public schools? You mean schools not run by an elected school board, who meet in private and do almost whatever they please with our tax dollars? You mean schools that can turn away the hardest to teach children – unlike public schools that take everyone?

[Blake]
I’m talking about schools with balls!
(He puts the hammer over his crotch,– he puts it away after a pause)

[Blake]
You want a paycheck? Do like the choice schools do — Go and do likewise, folks. The money’s out there, you pick it up, it’s yours. You don’t–I have no sympathy for you. You wanna go into your classes tomorrow and test and get your kids to pass, it’s yours. If not you’re going to be shining my shoes. Bunch of losers sitting around in a bar. (in a mocking weak voice) “Oh yeah, I used to be a teacher, it’s a tough racket.” (he takes out a software package from his briefcase) This is the new Common Core aligned diagnostic system. It’s like the MAP, Study Island, iReady and iStation – only better.

[Singer]

Those programs suck.

[Blake]

This is better. With it, your students will sit behind a computer screen for several hours every day taking stealth assessments.

[Singer]

You mean mini-tests?

[Blake]

No. Not mini-tests. They’ll run through the program and get instruction on every Common Core standard and their answers will show how much they’ve learned.

[Singer]

They’re tests. Standardized tests. Every day.

[Blake]

This is the Pearson leads. And to you, it’s gold. And you don’t get it. Why? Because to give it to you is just throwing it away. (he hands the software to Williamson) It’s for testers. (sneeringly) Not teachers.

I’d wish you good luck but you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you got it. (to Moss as he puts on his watch again) And to answer your question, Pal: why am I here? I came here because the Governor and Legislature are paying me to be here. They’re paying me a lot more than you. But I don’t have to take their money. I can make that tying my shoes. They asked me for a favor. I said, the real favor, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass because a loser is a loser.

(He stares at Moss for a sec, and then picking up his briefcase, he leaves the room with Williamson)

[Singer]

What an asshole.

[Moss]

He may be an asshole but he’s got the state on his side.

[Aaronow]

This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t why I became a teacher.

[Moss]

What did you sign up for?

[Aaronow]

TO TEACH! Not to be some… some… glorified real estate agent!

[Singer]

It’s funny. We know how crazy all this testing, Common Core, and charter school crap is, but no one wants to hear us.

[Moss]

And now without collective bargaining, we can’t even speak up without fear of being fired.

[Aaronow]

Fear!? If we don’t push all this teaching to the test nonsense, they’re going to fire us. And if we do, they can replace us with computer programs. We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

[Singer]

Not if people wake up. (Moss and Aaronow scoff) Not if the public takes a stand, if parents and teachers opt their kids out of the tests…

[Aaronow]

Didn’t you hear the man!? They’re putting the kids on computer programs to test them every day!

[Singer]

Then we fight every day. We protest every day. We get parents together and other concerned citizens and we go to the capital and we fight. Call your representative. Go to your Senator’s office. Stage a sit in. Hold a mock trial. Write a blog parodying a scene from a famous movie. Get public attention. Make some noise.

[Aaronow]

And you think people will care? You think people will know?

[Singer]

We’ll teach them. We’ll show them. That’s what we do.

[Moss]

We have no other choice.

[Aaronow]

Always be testing?

[Singer]

Always be teaching.

(Curtain)

The Original Scene from GlenGarry Glen Ross:

Congress Frees Public Schools From Federal Test & Punish – Where’s the Catch?

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Every Student Succeeds Act, Gerrymandering, John King, Local Control, Obama, Parents, Politics, President, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school closings, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers, VAM Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, education, ESSA, Lamar Alexander, Politics, Senate, Students, transparency

Trump+Selection+Education+Secretary+Betsy+kBaA0SDAd_tx

Let’s say you were kidnapped and kept in a small basement room where you were routinely beaten and starved.

Then after years of this treatment, your captors brought in a massage table and offered you a filet mignon after your spa treatment.

You’d be more than a little bit confused.

That’s the position of parents, students and teachers today.

After almost two decades of punishing public schools and their students for low test scores, Congress suddenly decides to step back and leave it to the states!?

Until now the federal government had mandated increasing high stakes standardized tests and forcing schools that don’t meet a certain threshold to be stripped of their school boards, turned into charters or simply closed. Until now, the federal government coerced states to enact every fly-by-night corporate education reform from Common Core to Teach for America to evaluating teachers based on student test scores.

But now the feds are just walking away!?

First, in 2015 lawmakers passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a reauthorization of federal K-12 education policy that (depending on how you interpret it) limited federal power over public schools. However, the Obama administration offered guidelines that put much of that federal power back in place.

Now both the House and Senate have voted to repeal those Obama administration guidelines in favor of… well… some other interpretation.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee and one of the architects of the ESSA, says states can just follow what’s written in the law. But this is a 1,061 page document full of legalese, meandering bipartisan compromises and – frankly – contradictory language. Even the most simple legislation needs interpretation, and in this case it needs extensive interpretation.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is expected to offer her take on what all this means by Monday. So buckle up for that one. I’m sure the nation’s Grizzlies are so upset they can barely finish their picnic baskets.

As for the rest of us, it’s hard to know what this all will mean.

Alexander offered a detailed explanation that anyone interested in this issue should read.

I’m no fan of the Senator’s. I think he’s a blatant opportunist, an unapologetic partisan and out to protect only one person – numero uno.

But he makes some excellent points about federal overreach in the Department of Education under the previous two administrations.

Moreover, unlike DeVos, the supremely unqualified Education Secretary he helped ram through Congress over bipartisan objections, he knows something about schools. He was Secretary of Education, himself, from 1991-93 under President George H. W. Bush.

First, the ESSA still mandates annual testing. Even without the Obama guidelines, students will still be tested in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

Second, Alexander says the law still requires each state to hold its public schools accountable. Each state must submit a plan detailing how it intends to do that by September of 2017. There is plenty of latitude on exactly how states will do this, but whatever they decide, this new accountability system must be implemented by next school year (2017-2018).

Moreover, he says, states have to identify and provide support to at least the lowest performing 5% of their schools. This must be done by the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.

They also must use academic and English language proficiency indicators in their accountability systems. Which indicators? Standardized testing? Maybe – maybe not.

Many accountability provisions, such as the requirement that educators measure reading scores, math scores, and graduation rates, are specifically mentioned in the ESSA.

Still, many questions remain.

For instance: if the Department of Education isn’t allowed to tell states what to do, how is it supposed to help them comply with the law?

Alexander cites “Non-regulatory guidance; Dear Colleague letters; Frequently-Asked-Questions documents; Webinars, phone calls, and in-person conferences.”

Alexander stresses that repealing the Obama regulations does not open to door for the Department of Education to mandate a nationwide school voucher plan – unfortunately.

He writes, “A school choice program cannot be unilaterally created by the Department of Education. Only Congress could create a voucher program, and, unfortunately, Congress has rejected doing that.”

However, the Trump administration and DeVos have already made their intentions known about school vouchers. They intend to use Title I dollars – money usually earmarked for the most impoverished students – as federal bribes to enact vouchers. It’s basically the same thing Obama did with Race to the Top – promising federal money to states if their schools do what the feds want them to do.

For all his talk about states rights, Alexander appears to have no problems with this same kind of Obama-style coercion.

But he does appear to be correct about the transfer of power.

Apparently, the states really will regain control over their public schools.

This could be a very positive thing. And it’s not the only one.

In addition to repealing Obama’s accountability regulations, Congress scrapped Obama’s teacher preparation rules.

This change was less controversial. Eight Democrats joined Republicans in voting to repeal the teacher preparation regulations. By comparison, no Democrats voted to dismantle the accountability rules and one Republican joined them in opposition.

The teacher preparation rules were released in October after years of delay.

The main point of contention was the requirement that states develop a rating system aimed at evaluating the success of their teacher preparation programs. This would have included how programs’ teachers perform based on a measure of student academic achievement. Though the final version gained some flexibility with how to determine student academic success beyond just test scores, it remained a hot mess.

Any programs that didn’t perform well on the state’s rating system would have lost access to federal grants aimed at supporting teachers who work in high-need certification areas and in low-income schools (or TEACH grants). In effect, it would have pushed for a new generation of teachers dedicated to test prep and Common Core.

And these repeals of Obama regulations – these seeming improvements just waiting for Donald Trump’s signature – are brought to us by the same people who support removing protections for trans students. These are the same legislators who gave us an unexperienced mega-donor as Education Secretary.

Frankly, I’m having trouble believing it.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Perhaps the standardized testing industry has consolidated so much support at the various Republican controlled state legislatures that it no longer needs support in Washington. Perhaps our ridiculously gerrymandered state legislative districts will make any resistance even more difficult. Perhaps a completely toothless Department of Education will embolden the most racist state legislators to dramatically increase segregation and civil rights abuses for the poor and minorities.

Or perhaps Republicans actually got one right?

The Blinders of Partisanship: How Republicans and Democrats Miss the Point – We’re All Being Screwed

March 11, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bill Gates, Charter Schools, Common Core, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Dr. Jill Stein, Education, Election, Obama, Politics, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, voting bipartisan, blinders, education, Keith Ellison, partisan, Politics, Students, Tom Perez

impact-blinders-300x199

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of this election cycle wasn’t Donald Trump’s victory.

It’s how quickly many of our allies on the right gave up their beliefs to fall in line.

Under President Barack Obama, those on the left and right were united against Common Core.

We both realized it was a terrible policy – though sometimes for different reasons. Never-the-less, we put aside politics to fight Bill Gates, David Coleman, Eli Broad and other privileged left-leaning elites.

And through this common struggle we came closer ideologically. I’m a New Deal FDR Democrat, but even I could see how the Obama administration overstepped its federal authority pushing charter schools, standardized testing and the Core down our throats.

But as soon as Trump ascended to the Oval Office, many conservatives gave up their objections to this same kind of federal overreach.

Apparently Obama was wrong to push charters, but Trump is just fine pushing school vouchers. Obama was wrong to require high stakes testing, but Trump is just fine requiring the same thing. Obama was wrong to push Common Core, but all these Republican-controlled state houses that could eliminate Common Core tomorrow are right to leave it in place unchallenged.

This is incredibly hypocritical. Yet it’s not just with this one issue.

We see the same thing with healthcare. What we now call Obamacare was invented by a far right think tank, the Heritage Foundation. It was first implemented by Mitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts. But as soon as Obama took up essentially the same policy, conservatives put forward hysterical opposition. And now the Trump administration is Hell-bent on repealing Obamacare – a far right solution to healthcare – simply because a black Democrat touched it.

The same thing happens on the left.

Corporate Democrats advocate hard for public tax dollars to be used to fund essentially private schools. That’s what charter schools are – schools run by private interests but labeled public only because that’s where the money comes from. Yet when Republicans advocate giving tax dollars to private schools without the “charter” label, corporate Democrats pretend like it’s the largest ideological divide since the Cold War. It’s not. There is very little difference between charter schools and school vouchers – both are terrible policies that fund essentially private schools with public money, but Democrats pretend like one is the silver bullet to all our education problems and the other is death personified.

It’s disgusting, but it works.

This kind of sophistry fools a lot of voters.

People still think politics is a football game. There are two teams. You pick one and stick with it no matter what.

However, it’s just a con. Both sides are out to screw you over. If there is a difference at all, it’s that Democrats are out to destroy the world at a slower rate. Republicans want to burn it all down right now.

Both parties are out only for the richest of the rich. They both support policies that back up the wealth class and degrade any protections for the middle class or poor. It’s Rome all over again – support a bloated military and the patricians while offering the plebs nothing but propaganda and false promises.

Yet we fall for it. Still.

And it’s not like there isn’t a sizable resistance to the plutocracy of both parties.

The Women’s March, the Fight for 15, the struggle against the TPP and the Dakota Access Pipeline – Millions of people have taken to the streets to protest the regressive policies of the Trump and Obama administrations. It’s just that when it comes to voting, we suddenly become either very timid or very apathetic.

Left-leaning pundits blame the tiny fraction of third party voters for Trump’s victory, but that’s not just wrong. It’s gas lighting. It’s not that too many people voted for Jill Stein. It’s that not enough did.

Millions of people are already out there doing the hard work of resistance. We need to have the courage of our convictions and unify under a single political banner.

Some hope that this could be a rejuvenated, renewed Democratic party. And it could, but the party elites have done everything they can to stop this from happening. Time and again, they take steps to keep the party powerless yet in their power.

Just look at the back room deals and last minute maneuvering that installed Tom Perez as party chair. He wasn’t even in the running until it looked like progressive Keith Ellison would win. So Obama, leader of the corporatists, pushed for Perez. Sure they gave Ellison a title with no power, but that’s not progress. It’s pretend.

The time will come very soon when the resistance has to wrench control away from the corporatist and fake progressives who silence any criticism with fake cries for unity behind their impotent banner. Or we will have to rise up as one with the courage to create a new party, a people’s party that truly represents our movement.

We have to get beyond these silly labels – Republicans and Democrats. We need to base our politics on ideas and what’s really best for everyone. We need to shut out any pundit getting rich off telling us what to think. And we need to find a way to listen to each other again, to see each other as people first and not representations of the other team.

In short, we need to see clearly our common cause and unify.

It’s easier said than done, but the first step is removing our partisan blinders and looking at each other with fresh eyes.

Most of us don’t live at Trump Tower or vacation at Mar-a-Lago. Most of us don’t play golf with the Obamas and Richard Branson. Most of us have the same wants and needs. It’s time we go about satisfying them and to Hell with all the corporate elites!

It’s time to be Americans first.

It’s time to rise up.

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

March 8, 2017 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 charter schools, children, education, Huffington Post, Koch Brothers, Politics, School Choice, school vouchers, Students, The Federalist

who-me2

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.

Allowing Guns in Schools is a Bad Idea

March 3, 2017 stevenmsinger Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Child Safety, Congress, Donald Trump, Education, Gun Control, Guns, Labor, Mass Shooting, Parents, Police, Politics, President, Republican, Schools, Shooting, Teachers, Unions, Violence Against Children children, Donald Trump, education, Gun Control, Guns, NRA, Politics, Students, teachers

Guns were not allowed at Donald Trump’s inauguration.

They were not allowed at his speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Nor were they allowed at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) or at most of his hotels, golf courses and other properties.

But he wants them to be allowed at our public schools.

He promised to eliminate gun free zones at schools around the country on day one of his presidency.

With all the tweeting about crowd size, he didn’t get around to it. But he may – soon.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer promised in February that the President has an executive order in the works to address the issue.

Before running for Chief Executive, Trump had been much more moderate on guns. But since then he has echoed the NRA’s official position several times, saying that there are fewer shootings in areas where guns are permitted and that killers target areas prohibiting them.

However, it’s not true. From 2000 to 2013, only one shooting was stopped by an armed civilian. However, during that time, 21 shootings were stopped by unarmed bystanders. Moreover, from January 2009 to July 2015, only 13 percent of mass shootings took place in gun-free zones.

The law prohibiting guns in schools (with the exception of mostly law enforcement officers) was signed by Republican President George H. W. Bush in 1990. The law was upheld in 1995 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So for now, it is illegal for unauthorized people to posses firearms inside or around a school.

Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos may have given everyone a good laugh suggesting schools need guns to protect from bear attacks, but Republicans are working to make this a reality – with or without the President. In January, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a bill to repeal this legislation.

The question remains, are guns in school a good or bad idea? In a country of 350 million people and more than 310 million guns, would our schools really be safer if those firearms ended up in our classrooms?

F- NO!

Here are five reasons why:

1) Kids Will Get Ahold of Them

Kids get their hands on everything. As a parent, it’s exceedingly difficult to put anything down without your children ending up with it. And that’s only with one or two kids! Imagine it with a classroom of 20-30!

Look at how many times teachers’ cell phones unintentionally end up in student hands. It’s human nature. If kids know a teacher is packing, some of her students may go through her desk, her bag or otherwise find it.

Moreover, teachers often have to break up fights between students. Having a gun within reach of angry adolescents bent on doing each other harm is a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, children are not strangers to gun violence. According to FBI homicide data, of the 1,448 children who died as a result of gun violence in 2010, 165 of those deaths were at the hands of other children.

In most cases, trained teachers will keep firearms out of reach, but having them present in the classroom increases the chances of tragedy.

This is backed up by social science. The Journal of Pediatrics conducted a study in 2001 where twenty-nine groups of two to three boys, most of whom were around ten-years-old, had to wait for fifteen minutes in a room with a one-way mirror. Two water pistols and a real handgun were partially hidden in various locations throughout the room. If students found the handgun and pulled the trigger, it was rigged to make a firing sound and kickback realistically.

The result: 48 out the 64 boys found the handgun. Of those, 30 handled the gun and 16 pulled the trigger. Approximately half of the boys who found the gun said they thought it was a toy or were unsure if it was real. A full 90% of the boys who handled the gun or pulled the trigger had received some sort of gun safety education previously.

Make no mistake. Having guns within reach of children is an invitation for them to use them.

2) Schools Don’t Want Them

Most schools don’t want this responsibility.

Back in 2012, Michigan Republicans floated a bill to allow guns in schools. Superintendents throughout the state sent letters to Gov. Rick Snyder asking him to veto it (which he did). The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest labor unions in the country with more than 1.5 million members, also wrote to Snyder, saying, “We should be doing everything we can to reduce the possibility of any gunfire in schools and concentrate on ways to keep all guns off school property.”

They know that guns in school will increase problems – not decrease them. Survivors of school shootings certainly aren’t coming forward demanding more guns. We should listen to them.

3) Teachers Will Misuse Them

Teachers are highly trained and have years of experience helping kids learn. They aren’t necessarily knowledgeable with how to safely use, store and operate firearms. Nor would some of them be suited to such training.

Everyone’s known those teachers who are lovably absentminded. Do you want them leaving their gun in an unlocked classroom? Just because you can help a student read and write, doesn’t mean you’re good in a gunfight.

I love teachers. I admire most of the educators in my building. I would not feel safe if they were all armed.

4) Kids Will Be Scared

Having a gun in class does not put people at ease. It does just the opposite. A gun is a threat of future violence. If students completely trust their teacher, they may be comforted, but students rarely feel that level of comfort with every teacher in the building.

Imagine the chilling effect a firearm can have on class discussion, on any sort of disagreement. Some students are victims of abuse at home and don’t fully trust adults. At present, the worst a teacher can do is just fail them. How would these children feel living with the threat of imminent death? In most states, teachers aren’t even allowed to paddle students anymore. Now we’re going to give them the power of life and death!?

How would parents feel? I love my daughter’s teachers, but I must admit I don’t want them strapped.

5) They Won’t Stop School Shootings

Most school shooters don’t pay much attention to whether they will survive their attack. In fact, they plan for just the opposite. The presence of guns will not deter them. It may even attract them.

Sometimes violence is a cry for help. Children act out not to achieve their aim but to be stopped by an adult. Having guns in school may make students feel safer about initiating a shooting because they think they’ll be apprehended.

Moreover, it makes the job of police responding to a shooting that much more difficult. How can they tell the difference between an armed perpetrator and an armed victim? Plus there’s the issue of friendly fire. When you have two people shooting at each other, bystanders get caught in the crossfire. This is not a good environment for children.

Critics will say it’s better than just the perpetrator being armed, but that’s the point. It’s better that NO ONE be armed at school.

Instead of increasing firearms around children, we should decrease and control them. But that’s a policy driven by rationality and not the profits of gun manufacturers.

This entire debate has been driven by what’s economically beneficial for one industry over everything else. Money has trumped science, reason and empathy.

If Republicans think guns are so vital, maybe they should pass laws to allow them at their own gatherings before forcing them on our public schools.

Children deserve a safe environment in which to learn. Adding guns to our already overburdened public schools is throwing a match at an already explosive situation.

gadflyonthewallblog

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

education

Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

NEWSFLASH: Betsy DeVos Opens Mouth. Nonsense Falls Out

Congress Frees Public Schools From Federal Test & Punish – Where’s the Catch?

The Blinders of Partisanship: How Republicans and Democrats Miss the Point – We’re All Being Screwed

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

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

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

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

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

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

Claim 6: Charters and vouchers increase segregation.

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

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

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

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

Allowing Guns in Schools is a Bad Idea

1) Kids Will Get Ahold of Them

2) Schools Don’t Want Them

3) Teachers Will Misuse Them

4) Kids Will Be Scared

5) They Won’t Stop School Shootings