Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The likes of Klein will perish in the blaze

From Paul Moore

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd9-2008dec09,0,3900995.story

Edit Admiral David Brewer out of the essay below and out of the Los
Angeles Unified Public Schools. It didn't take them long to realize
Brewer didn't know a classroom from a hole in the wall and that
military men like him and Colin Powell have no special insight into
public education. Now we await the triumph of rationality and reason
signaled by the departure of other fish out of water--former CEOs who
view schools as businesses to be run like, oh, AIG or General Motors
or Lehman Brothers and former inner-city school missionaries who
become Teacher For America cult leaders.

"Joel Klein is a simple servant of the global economy. Globalization
is at the very foundation of business model for schools, charters,
vouchers, data driven instruction, merit pay, standardized testing,
and most perversely of all, paying students to consume the corporate
version of education. Klein's job is to pump toxic wastes, like
incessant testing and mindless data collection and merit pay plans,
into the public school environment to sicken both teachers and
students. And bye-and-bye the corporations would have a brave new
education system to serve their profit seeking.

And they were so close when the roof fell in recently. They had their
blueprint for legally closing public schools, the No Child Left
Behind Act, in place. Billionaire Bloomberg and his CEO sidekick Joel
Klein were steadily weakening the public schools in New York City.
Mayor Daley and Arne Duncan had nearly strangled the Chicago Public
Schools. Mayor Villariagosa and Admiral Brewer were trying to get
their hands around the throats of the Los Angeles Unified Public
Schools. Jeb Bush, in and out of office, was calling the shots in
Florida. Bill Gates had succeeded in winning Washington D.C. for
Mayor Fenty and he in turn introduced the nation to a new level of
ruthlessness and brutality in the person and policies of Michelle
Rhee. Eli Broad's superintendents dotted the landscape from Vallas in
New Orleans to Crew in Miami, chirping over the achievement gap and
with grave voices declaring "the children of Singapore are eating our
kids lunch." Many of those pesky democratically elected school boards
had been eliminated.

Then just as the campaign appeared ready to bear fruit, their
rationale for being, their precious global economy, crashed! Their
pride and joy is on fire now. The likes of Klein will perish in the
blaze."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Race you all the Washington Monument for a Public Educational rally ! One fire truck and a marching band !Creative solutions in ambiguous circumstances? End the mandates of NCLB and it's not working.Take that rat 10% caught in the trap with ya ! Get those financial improprieties hands out of our American Public School apple pie connecting to eductational tax credits and philanthropy taxes.Go open your own autonomus schools and come back with public transparancy and school audits published.Our American children are not for sale.From public investment to a private good,answerable not to the demands of a democratic society but to the imperatives of the market place. David Labaree argues,public schools have been under attack in the last decade.A privatization scheme for creating a market ? Stand down reformers,to many millions and the buzzer blew and NCLB is over. Grab what worked and let it sink.Closing Public School buildings and selling them off to sub-contractors and developers.No deal ! "Paid Paradise Put Up A Parking Lot." Hoist the lines and cut off their wind as the Defending Champions of Public Education sails in !TAC to John F. Kennedy executive order 10925. Affrimitive action,equal opportunity and justice for the disadvantaged and advantaged.

Anonymous said...

TAC ! FORE ! Race you all to the Washington Monument for a rally to end NCLB and 10%! One fire truck and marching band !Hooray for the 14th Amendment,our Constitution and Public Education !

Anonymous said...

US Court of Appeals for the 6th district ! The federal government can not require a state or a school district,"to incur any costs not paid under this act." Fails to provide clear notice of the states obligation to incur costs not paid under this act. R.Guy Cole Jr. As we watch the NCLB Pl 107-110 sink be sure to grab the above off the ship and get the Paul Coverdale.Lower the ships life boats and teachers with students first. Life jackets on everyone and the reformes hit an iceberg called privitatization.The unsinkable Public Education ship has spoken !"Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice,shame on me." "The question is not who are you for,but who is for you." Hillary Clinton. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. "If this is coffee please bring me some tea;but if this is tea,please bring me some coffee." Rectify anomalies and sink that Pl107-110 under funded less than 10%.Call the exterminator ! Selling Public School buildings to developers and over crowding other neighborhood school buildings for subcontracted for profit companies. Stop dismantling our local school officials and they were democratically elected. It is not the critic who counts;not the man that stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena,whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,who strive valiantly,who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error or short coming;but who knows the great enthusiasms,the great devotions,who spends himself for a worthy cause;who at best knows in the end,the truimph of high achievement,and who at worst,if he fails,at least he fails while daring greatly,so that his place never be with those cold and timid souls." TR. End the mandates on NCLB ! See you at the Washington Monument for Public Education !Get the event strategic planning book !

Anonymous said...

Do you people know how loud a fire truck speaker via a jam box is ? Wilson Picket to ya ! "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love." Hillary Clinton's team has the details with those mean spirited mandates on NCLB. See Voices Across America question #1 !To much talking not enough action ! The reformers got all their research from Public Education. Yeah,we need to give a little to identify with a new generation and have some policy out of touch but we're working it and not selling out. Our students are not for sale !Lead,follow or get out of the way ! Do not allow this to happen to Public Education and team up !