Baghdad embassy siege, a predictable result after 16 years of failed war policy

Bush declares victory in Iraq in 2003.

It was 16 years ago that President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared, "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. It was, as former President Bill Clinton called it, "the latest, grandest example of the eternal struggle of former presidents to rewrite history." And the Clinton's, who supported the 2003 invasion, know a thing or two about that.

New Year's siege on Baghdad embassy.

Now, as night fell on the last day of 2019, U.S. embassy staffers were locked in a "safe" room with Trump calling on the Iraqi police to help protect them as the embassy in Baghdad was under siege by thousands of Iraqis chanting "Death to America", protesting the recent U.S. airstrike against Iranian-backed militia fighters in Iraq and demanding that all U.S. troops, including mercenaries ("contractors"), leave their country.

How the mighty have fallen. A predictable climax to a failed regime-change strategy that has transcended the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, caused the deaths of millions and cost trillions. It's one that still holds sway in the White House and within the leadership of both political parties.

Enough!

18 years of lies on Afghanistan revealed

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Three U.S. presidents, Bush, Obama, and Trump, have bought and sold this big lie to the public and built their failed foreign policies upon it.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. -- Craig Whitlock, Washington Post

LOOKING BACK...On Oct. 2, 2002, then IL State Senator Barack Obama said in a major speech at an anti-war rally we organized in Chicago that "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." He referred to the Iraq War as his "dumb war" example in contrast to Afghanistan, which was billed as a winnable and necessary war to topple the Taliban government, drive out al Qaeda terrorists and install a pro-U.S. regime in Kabul.

"We must embrace America's singular role in the course of human events but we must also be as pragmatic as we are passionate, as strategic as we are resolute. 

Then there was...

Hillary Clinton supported the 2009 increase in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. During the administration's Afghanistan War review in 2010, Clinton endorsed General Stanley McChrystal's recommendation for 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal (ultimately accepted by Obama) for 30,000 troops. -- NYT

And regime-changer McCain...

Robert Kagan, a former adviser to his 2008 opponent John McCain, warned that a quick withdrawal threatens recent gains against the Taliban - and popular opinion could swing against the president if an emboldened enemy takes the speech as a cue to step up attacks.

"This is a political decision, not a military decision," he told POLITICO. "Americans are tired of this war, that's true. But they hate losing more, and if there's the perception that we're being run out of there, the public will turn on him fast." 

Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

The government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering -- into the trillions.

Now, Trump says he's ready to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, in preparation for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

News of the talks came just before The Washington Post reported it had obtained more than 2,000 pages of government documents that it says show how U.S. officials have for years misled the public about the war in Afghanistan.

What an irony it would be if Republican Trump, facing impeachment and a difficult 2020 re-election campaign, ended the war that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't end. Shades of Republican, Richard Nixon in March of 1973, withdrawing his defeated army from Vietnam, only to be impeached in October of that same year.

I'm doubtful. Most likely, this is for media consumption.

The media has been complicit... The editorial board of the very same WaPo that this week revealed the pile of lies driving the Afghan war, opposed the war's end just months earlier.

The Washington Post’s editorial board (1/28/19) was similarly apprehensive at the prospect of US withdrawal. Lamenting what it considered a deal brokered “mostly on the enemy’s terms,” it proclaimed that “an end to the Afghan war is desirable, but not at the expense of everything the United States has helped to build there since 2001.” -- FAIR

Tell us, WaPo. What exactly has the U.S. built there? The truth, this time please.  

Juking the stats on graduation rates

Bernard Gassaway is a former New York City public schools teacher, principal, and superintendent of alternative schools and programs of more than two decades. So he knows from where he speaks. In the Aug. 29 issue of EdWeek Gassaway shines a light ("Public School Officials Are Artificially Inflating Graduation Rates. I've Seen It Myself")  on the way school officials have used various tricks to juke the stats on graduation rates.

As a direct result of a public thirst for schools to show progress, boards of education pressure superintendents, superintendents squeeze principals, principals ride teachers, and teachers stress students. The ultimate measure of progress for schools nationwide is high school graduation rates.Public school officials use a variety of schemes to give the appearance of progress.

This is nothing new of course. Some of you will harken back to the so-called Texas Miracle, one of the great school reform frauds of all time, engineered by then Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his school chief Rod Paige. Together, they rode the myth of zero dropouts all the way to the White House.

Here in Chicago, where the mayor runs the schools and his political success depends in large part on showing miraculous gains in standardized test schools and grad rate bumps, there a long history of juking the stats. In 2015, CPS was forced to lower four years of inflated high school graduation rates to account for a "higher-than-advertised" dropout rate, another blow to a district beset by financial and professional turmoil. The accuracy of the district's numbers had been called into question in a report by CPS' inspector general. But CPS officials did not announce the revised graduation rates until months after Mayor Rahm Emanuel won re-election.

Gassaway brings us up to date on the stats-juking process in New York City where incremental bumps in grad rates have been induced through the misuse of credit recovery, virtual learning, or reclassifying students with disabilities to lower the graduation standards bar.

But the real kicker comes next. It's all about getting rid of low-scoring or other problem students as a way to produce statistical gains in measurable student achievement.

Gassaway writes:

...when education officials cannot use any of the aforementioned tactics to get struggling students through high school, they transfer or push out students who are off-track for graduation—dropping the dead weight that is dragging down graduation statistics. Pushing students out is the most efficient way to increase a school's graduation rate. Principals transfer overage and under-credited students to alternative schools.

He could well have included the statistical impact produced by the mass out-migration of poor, African-American and their families from cities like Chicago in recent years. As urban public school populations shrink, and the poorest kids leave, schools in the black community are shuttered and resources are redirected towards selective-enrollment schools and charters, average test scores and graduation rates tend to rise.

Gassaway's expose may ring truest for those educators in urban districts who have toiled so long and hard, without adequate resources or support, to bring about academic success for students most at risk for dropping out, only to hear politicians like Rahm taking credit for supposed test score and grad rate gains. 

This is not to say that some of those gains aren't real. But the mayor's boasting about rising grad rates at CPS makes no sense unless he can point to some dramatic changes, either in the classroom (beyond the tracking of freshman students) or in the community that would keep kids from dropping out. So far neither he nor CEO Claypool have. Which leads me to believe that it's more about the whitenizing of the city. 

My last point on this, which I've made several times this week is: If the mayor really believed his own claims about dramatic improvements at CPS under his leadership, why would he be supporting school vouchers as an "escape route" from "failing schools"?

Corporate ed reformers throw in with Trump

Ivanka Trump visits Eva Moskowitz' Success Academy Charter School. 

It looks like they've dropped their phony rhetoric about charter schools being "the civil rights issue of our time." Following the Democrat's devastating loss to Trump, one by one, the corporate reformers and champions of privately-run charters are jumping the Dems' ship and throwing in behind the racist, anti-immigrant Trump education movement.

For some, the move is nothing new. Former D.C. chancellor, Arne Duncan fave, and Waiting for Superman star Michelle Rhee for example, turned to selling her talents to the far right as soon as voters ran her and Mayor Fenty out of town. She went to work advising FL Gov. Rick Scott on school privatization and union-busting matters.

Now that she's stepped down from leadership of her anti-union ed group, Students First,  she's considering leaving her new position with a national fertilizer company if Trump offers her the job as his secretary of education. Her problem is that she's a proponent of Common Core. Trump isn't. But either of them can easily accommodate the other's position since Rhee sees Common Core's value mainly in its testing provisions, enabling teachers to be evaluated, hired and fired on the basis of student test scores. There should be a basis for unity with Trump there somewhere.

And her scandal-ridden past, including her connection with D.C. test-cheating scandal shouldn't bother the Trump transition team too much considering the rest of his recent scandalized appointees and advisers. Not to mention, Trump's own $25M pay-off to make the Trump Univ. suit go away.

But Trump also has to placate his base. Upon hearing about his possible choice of Rhee, the right-wing group, Parents Against the Common Core, wrote Trump and open letter calling on him to cut federal funding of public schools, dismantle the D.O.E. and appoint someone like former Bush aide Williamson Evers to the top post.

BTW, Trump also met with Rhee's husband KJ, the disgraced mayor of Sacramento. They have some legal problems in common. Something about teenage girls. But let's not even go there right now. I just ate.

Then there's New York's own charter-hustler supreme, Eva Moskowitz who is now pulling down nearly a half-million a year for managing the city's Success Academy Charters. EM met with Trump last week, but reportedly turned down the Ed Sec job. Some NY friends told me she couldn't afford the pay cut. The Secretary of Education's salary is a measly $186,600. Others say, she has her eyes on the NY mayor's office. But she left the meeting on good terms, promising Trump that she would get behind his school reform plan.

So far, Arne Duncan has carefully avoided any mention of Trump. His successor, John King has  mainly followed suit, advising the nation's teachers simply to keep their heads down and "focused on the students." Duncan's former assistant Peter Cunningham, who now runs Eli Broad's Education Post blog, says he "skeptical" about Trump, but seems to be keeping his option open.

Can Joel Klein be far behind?

Asked to name women or people of color considered for Trump cabinet, Jason Miller on MSNBC gives 2: Michelle Rhee and Eva Moskowitz for Ed.

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 16, 2016

Teach the children well...

Students protest in Austin.

Election Day headline at Huffington: "What do we tell the children?'
Ali Michael, Ph.D. answers:

Tell them bigotry is not a democratic value, and that it will not be tolerated at your school.

 Say that silence is dangerous, and teach them how to speak up when something is wrong.

 Finally, remind them ― to ease their minds ― that not everyone who voted for Donald Trump did so because they believe the bigoted things that he has said this year. Many of them voted for him because they feel frustrated with the economy, they feel socially left behind, and they are exercising the one power they have. We need to challenge Trump and his supporters to differentiate between their fears and the bigotry catalyzed by those fears.

NY Daily news reports: "Educators across the country faced classrooms full of students on Wednesday morning who feared for the future."

They're referring, of course, to the nation's millions of students (and teachers) of color, disabled, l LGBT and especially the children of immigrants now recoiling in fear from the racist, misogynist, and xenophobic threats of the newly-elected Trump regime.

“My mom said we might have to leave and go back to Ecuador,” a P.S. 110Q second-grader told his teacher.

 A Long Island art teacher told The News that her high schoolers began discussing Trump’s victory “the second they came in the door.

Educators had to become comforters. Safiyya Kathimi, who teaches in a Southern state, said she reassured her middle schoolers that she was there for them, even if it seemed like their new President might not be.

“I want you to know that if you’re feeling scared or worried, I am here for you if want to talk, or just need to be heard,” she told them, adding, “I had to hug quite a few.”

There were some glimpses of light and hope in an otherwise dark election day. While handing Trump and the Republicans a defeat, MA voters overwhelmingly voted NO on Question 2, which would have eliminated the cap on the state's privately-run charter schools.

Right-wing think-tankers at the Fordham Institute, who were wringing their hands over their party's nomination of Donald Trump, appear to have reconciled with the neo-fascist, racist regime now unconstrained by Democratic congressional opposition.

Institute Pres. Michael Petrilli writes: "The emergence of a 'unified' government means a possible end to gridlock and futility.

Of the white majority who bought into Trump's demagogic celebrity "take back our country" appeal, Petrilli continues with the big lie:

Their neighbors are dying young, with broken lives and broken spirits. And yet, until Trump, almost nobody in or near power was speaking about their concerns, their hopes and dreams, the contributions they still have to make to our great country.

Petrilli goes on to praise Trump for picking up "some education advisors we think well of."

I assume he's referring to anti-"government schools" creationist, Ben Carson. or like-minded conservatives at AEI. I'm sure Petrilli is hoping the Trumpies and Breitbardists will find a spot for him somewhere in their new Mis-education Dept. as G. W. Bush did.

This from my niece Jessica who teaches newly-arrived immigrant high schoolers in NYC:

Things that are giving me life right now: private messages from friends and family near and far, teachers at my school watching Democracy Now together at lunch, students telling me, "Don't be sad Miss, it will be okay" when I am the one who should be consoling them, an email chain on the MORE chapter leader listserv of lessons, responses and report backs from schools across the city, hearing that at some schools students walked out of classes, my own angry and optimistic children and their friends, and that people were out in the streets today.

In a classroom in Chicago pic.twitter.com/Oy9tEmmPdv

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 9, 2016

Trump wants to abolish 'government schools'

Trump delivered his big ed policy speech at scandal-ridden for-profit Cleveland charter school.

“There is no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly.” -- Donald Trump

In last Thursday's big policy speech, Trump promised to do away with "government-run" public schools. That's what he and his basket of deplorable followers call public schools.

WaPo's Valerie Strauss points out that Trump is stealing former Florida governor Jeb Bush's rhetoric here. Bush often called public schools, “government-run monopolies run by unions.”

She adds: "Let’s ignore the irony of Trump using the same language as Bush, whom Trump mocked during the GOP primaries."

Here I can't resist mentioning  the especially close relationship Arne Duncan had with Jeb and other anti-govt, anti-union schoolers, like former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Glad he's gone. Or is he?

It's been a week and we're still waiting for a direct response to the Trump speech from Team Hillary. She needs to draw a clearer line, especially on charter expansion and teacher unions if she wants to rally her base and put Trump away.

See New York Times: Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton: Where They Stand on Education
and Mother Jones , "Will Hillary Clinton's Education Policy Break From Obama's in a Huge Way?" for more on this.

Hillary throws Randi a bone on Common Core "roll-out". Is this all we get for her endorsement?

Hillary at Newsday

"Well, I have always supported national standards. I've always believed that we need to have some basis on which to determine whether we're making progress, vis-à-vis other countries..." -- Hillary Clinton tells Newsday

 “I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” -- Arne Duncan, June 25, 2013

Looks like Hillary Clinton threw a bone to Randi Weingarten Monday night, when she called the roll out of the Common Core education standards “disastrous”. 

They didn't even have, as I'm told, they didn't even have the instructional materials ready. They didn't have any kind of training programs. Remember a lot of states had developed their own standards and they'd been teaching to those standards. And they had a full industry that was training teachers to understand what was going to be tested. And then along comes Common Core and you're expected to turn on a dime. It was very upsetting to everybody.

Was this payback for Randi's premature (before Hillary even announced her candidacy) endorsement? If so, is this all we get in exchange for her toadyism? Or was HC simply re-positioning herself (triangulating) vis-a-vis her likely opponent in November, Donald Trump,  who attacks Common Core from the right?

Hillary, and the Democrats have been long-time supporters of Common Core, but she been trying to avoid the subject during the primary because of CC's unpopularity with parents and educators from left to right on the political spectrum. For that matter, so has Bernie Sanders.

But why criticize just the roll-out?

This focus on the "roll out", with little mention of the dis-empowerment of classroom teachers, or the mandated testing regimen which now drives curriculum and teacher evaluation, echoes the rhetoric of the AFT and NEA leadership. Along with the Democratic Party leadership, they were originally all-in on this "bi-partisan" (Jeb Bush's baby) legislation. Just like they were on No Child Left Behind and its latest incarnation NESA. But resistance from parents as well as from their own rank-and-file has forced them into a more critical stance.

After the Chicago Teachers Union passed its anti-CC resolution in 2014, Randi came to Chicago and sounded a little more like CTU Pres. Karen Lewis. She even called the standards, "developmentally inappropriate". A big leap Hillary hasn't yet made.

Hillary did tell Newsday that she opposes evaluating teachers based on student test results "as long as the tests are flawed" and thinks the question of whether they’d ever be good enough to rate teachers on is "too hypothetical to answer right now". That's about as good as it's going to get from Hillary and the Democrats.

But she added, that she wouldn’t opt out granddaughter Charlotte from New York’s standardized tests (even if they are flawed?).

Poor Charlotte.

Warning: Be careful who you embed with

em·bed

əmˈbed/ verb 1. fix (an object) firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass.

No, my warning isn't directed at Charlie Sheen's "goddesses". Probably too late for them. It's also too late for GOP current poll leader Ben Carson whose ignorance on foreign policy just got exposed (as if we hadn't noticed) by his "close adviser" and professional embedded "journalist", Armstrong Williams.

So just consider this a warning to everyone who feels they may need it -- AFT, NEA leaders?

Armstrong Williams

For those too young (or too old) to remember, William's approach to journalism was to embed himself with the Bush administration and in particular with Bush's ed secretary, Rod Paige. In January 2005, USA Today reported that documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Williams had been paid $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind. USA Today found that Williams was hired "to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same".

Now Armstrong has betrayed Carson. I guess Dr. C must not have left enough money on the nightstand.

Not to say that politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, or shouldn't. Just a reminder to use protection.

Case Studies... Billionaire Rauner is now the most hated governor in IL history. His budget terrorism and banning of Syrian refugees have been met with hostility and resistance across the state. But who will step up in this fight to save public education and salvage what's left of social support networks in the state? And what kind of deal will Sen. Cullerton and House Speaker Madigan try and cut?

I know CTU is watching to make sure we don't get sold out again on Cullerton's "compromise" SB318 like we did on the unconstitutional pension-theft bill.

Brother Fred says that the Supremes' latest oral arguments indicate that their next ruling will help insure us against another pension grab.

When the Court rules again in favor of our pension rights, as it is expected to do, it will now include what it did not have the opportunity to rule in SB1. They will not only protect us from the elected pension thieves in Springfield and City Hall. They will protect us from sell-out union leaders as well.

Ald. "Slow Eddie" Burke is still quick enough to know which way the wind is blowing on this one. He knows Rauner will take a beating on the refugee question, especially here in Chicago. For one thing, the governor doesn't have the authority to stop refugees from settling in Illinois. But he can push the legislature to cut funding for refugee aid.

So Burke is introducing a city council resolution reaffirming "Chicago’s historic role as a place of sanctuary and refuge". Co-sponsors are Marty Quinn (13th) and Progressive Caucus member, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th). Should pass easily.

Ald. Waguespack

From Natasha Korecki at Politico -- 9:30 a.m. Progressive Caucus presser at City Hall. From a release:

"Members of the Progressive Reform Caucus will join Access Living Chicago in support of a resolution calling for hearings regarding the impact of financial cuts to special education programs in Chicago Public Schools. To date, Chicago Public Schools has cut approximately $32 million dollars in special education programs, and the budget cut announcements are not over."

-- Expect Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) to introduce a resolution calling for public hearings on special education funding cuts. "This resolution asking for hearings by the Education Committee will provide CPS an opportunity to clear the air and tell the public exactly what the state of funding and support for special needs students is at this point in time and throughout the year," Waguespack said in a statement. "The system supporting special needs students needs to be fully funded and CPS has an obligation to fulfill that duty today."

In case you missed the interview with Kim Foxx, candidate for Cook County State's Attorney on Chicago Tonight. Watch it here.

Speaking Finn-ish: 'High quality learners' code name for...

You can mock these right-wing loonies and American Taliban all you want after tonight's debate (and I will). But remember, they still control both houses of Congress, lots of state houses and legislatures,  and dominate the Supreme Court. And we have a Democratic administration, including the Dept. of Education and some big-city mayors, that have abetted, enabled and imitated them for the past 7 years and longer.

Finn

Speaking of... Former Asst. Ed Sec. under Reagan, Chester Finn is targeting Finland's education system (progressives' favorite) for not spending more on "high quality learners." You don't have to speak Finn-ish to understand Finn's coded references or to see that he's not just talking about Finland, which already has lots of high schools devoted to the "gifted".

Finn, a senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institute, must love Dem Mayor Rahm Emanuel who is pushing selective-enrollment schools on every other block on the north side of Chicago. The north side obviously has more high-quality children.

Finn and his think-tank protege, Michael Petrilli at the Fordham Institute, are all about reproducing the educational system's inequalities.

Amanda Klonsky, who taught students in Chicago's juvenile detention center for several years, wonders what Finn would call her students?

@amandaklonsky1 He'd call them "low-quality learners". @pasi_sahlberg https://t.co/RxWD5MXUVd

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) November 10, 2015

Come see us talk about prisons and justice at Penn State. #rapsessions https://t.co/yxB9CiijcY

— Amanda Klonsky (@amandaklonsky1) November 9, 2015

Rahm's school administrators cooked the books on dropouts

“The annual OIG report is a testament of our cooperation and demonstrates we do not tolerate any wrongdoing, and CPS has either addressed or is addressing all the issues in the report.” -- CPS spokesman Bill McCaffrey

CPS I.G. Nicholas Schuler

Ooooh that smell...While Rahm and BBB scrambled for media coverage about supposed record grad rates, CPS School administrators were busy "misclassifying" dropouts to make their schools look better. This according to the annual report from Rahm's own appointed schools I.G. Nicholas Schuler.

At one school alone, nearly 300 dropouts were wiped off the books since 2009. At another high school officials did the same thing for 18 students.

I don't necessarily blame U of C's Consortium on Chicago School Research for running with the numbers they get from CPS. I just think they should be cautious in how they spin those numbers. I guess I'm still pissed at the Consortium's lead author of it's report on grad rates, calling for a "celebration" of the reported 4% bump.

I also don't know if Rahm/BBB are actively pushing administrators to cook reported dropout rates (remember Bush's Texas "Miracle") or if they acted on their own. But bureaucrats know full well what numbers they're expected to produce if they are going to survive in a high-stakes "data-driven" system where the mayor runs the schools autocratically.

I doubt that Schuler's report, which may be giving up a little to hide a lot, will go anywhere except Rahm's circular file. The CPS I.G. can only make recommendations and has no power to force system-wide changes. Also, I'm pretty sure Schuler got the nod from Rahm's people before releasing the report, which mentions among other things,

• Nearly $900,000 stolen from two Chicago high schools.

• Lying CPS employees who skirted the system to get their own kids into the best schools.

• And a CPS administrator who “engaged in questionable conduct” when a nearly $100 million contract was in the process of being awarded.

With the election only weeks away, it's always better to get the dirt out yourself before your opponents do it. Then you can prime your troops with prepared media hokum, like the statement above from CPS spokesman Bill McCaffrey.

Not on Duncan's VIP list?...One thing you can probably count on is punishment of those teacher/parents who allegedly "skirted the system" to get their own kids into elite selective enrollment schools. I mean, who do they think they are, Gov. Rauner?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

President Robert Kelly of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 announces the organization's endorsement of Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for mayor of Chicago. | Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times

ATU Local 308 Pres. Robert Kelly 

“I’m a citizen of the city of Chicago. I’m tired of reading the papers and hearing about murders and school closings and transit issues,” said Robert Kelly, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents CTA train operators. “It just makes me sick to my stomach. I’m tired of it, and so is everybody else. 

Kelly’s remarks came as the local he presides over endorsed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, one of Emanuel’s most prominent challengers in the upcoming February election. -- Early & Often

George Will

Bush’s support of Common Core is much less nuanced and persuasive, and there seems to be condescension in his impatience with the burden he bears of taking seriously the most important reason for rejecting Common Core. It is not about the content of the standards, which would be objectionable even if written by Aristotle and refined by Shakespeare. Rather, the point is that, unless stopped now, the federal government will not stop short of finding in Common Core a pretext for becoming a national school board.

Bush says “standards are different than curriculum” and: “I would be concerned if we had a national curriculum influenced by the federal government. My God, I’d break out in a rash.”  -- Washington Post

"Public school bashers"

David Sirota

Taken together with the new Department of Education numbers, we see that for all the elite media’s slobbering profiles of public school bashers like Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg, for all of the media’s hagiographic worship of scandal-plagued activist-profiteers like Michelle Rhee, and for all the “reform” movement’s claims that the traditional public school system and teachers unions are to blame for America’s education problems, poverty and economic inequality are the root of the problem.  -- Salon

 Palm Beach Cty. Board member Debra Robinson

"We're not going to approve these charters that just fill out the paperwork properly and don't have anything special to offer our children. This is an act of civil disobedience, because some of this stuff we're told to do is crazy." -- Sun-Sentinel

Author Anne Farrow

Slavery in America was not a footnote, not "the sad chapter" of our history but the cornerstone of our making. -- Philly.Com, Shrouded History of Slavery

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Charles Blow

There seems to be a new age of activism rising. From Occupy Wall Street, to the “Stop Watching Us” march against government surveillance, to the Moral Monday protests, to the People’s Climate March, to the recent nationwide protests over the killings of men and boys of color by police, there is obviously a discontent in this country that is pouring into the streets. -- New York Times

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia

“I’m hoping we’ll be successful. And if we weren’t, I would go to federal court to change that because I think the right to elect a school board is a constitutional right that comes from the right to elect those who govern an institution so vital to our city. Schools systems are, perhaps, the main government body that affects the lives of a majority of our citizens, especially minorities in Chicago.” -- E & O

S.W.A.T. teams in schools

Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social work and education at USC

 “There’s an illusion that having all these video cameras, metal detectors, sensors, SWAT kinds of people on campus makes the place safer. The problem is from an educational perspective: It doesn’t feel safer. It feels like a prison.” -- New York Times

General Michael V. Hayden

 “We’re not here to defend torture. We’re here to defend history.” -- New York Times

From Twitter

Drones are a popular Christmas present among American kids this year. It's a sign that they want to grow up to be president.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) December 7, 2014

Duncan a know-nothing when it comes to teaching kids with disabilities

Arne Duncan seems bent on pushing standardized-testing madness and privatization into the area of special ed and the teaching of kids with disabilities. That's the only way I can interpret his announced "major shift" in an area about which he appears immensely ignorant.

Duncan claims, without offering any evidence, that the vast majority of the 6.5 million students with disabilities in U.S. schools today are "not receiving a quality education", and that he "will hold states accountable for demonstrating that those students are making progress". The basis for this radical shift in special ed policy comes from his belief that it's not students' disabilities that are holding them back, but rather the low expectations of educators.

Duncan has announced new standards for judging states on special education which greatly reduce compliance enforcement for IDEA. Instead, they're using NAEP test results to judge educational outcomes for students in special ed.

 But "NAEP was never designed or tested for any such purpose", writes Beverley Johns, a national authority on special education (on Diane Ravitch's blog). NAEP is a test taken by a sample of school districts from each state, every 2 years.

Duncan dragged out his pet teacher-bashing school boss, Tennessee's appointed ed commissioner, Kevin Huffman (a lawyer and  former Teach for America executive) to back up his unsubstantiated claim. Huffman believes that most kids with disabilities lag behind because teachers don't expect them to achieve but they will succeed if they're given more demanding schoolwork and are tested more.

I should mention that Huffman, (Michelle Rhee's ex) who's part of Jeb Bush's corporate reform group Chiefs for Change, is hanging onto his own job by his finger tips after the governor received a letter from 63 superintendents criticizing Huffman's leadership.

Under the new guidelines, Duncan says "he'll require proof" that these kids aren't just being served but are actually making academic progress.  "We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel," Duncan said.

Teacher/blogger Peter Greene at Huffington responds:

Do they imagine that disabled students are just all faking, or that the specialists who diagnose these various problems are just making stuff up for giggles? Either way, Duncan and Huffman have set an entirely new high bar for ignorance, insensitivity, and just plain flat out stupidity. 

Brother Fred, a retired art teacher, looks back on his own years of teaching and his run-in with his Duncanesque former principal who believed she could tell if students with autism were engaged or not during a one-time classroom visit.

“You cannot tell whether Jimmy is engaged or not engaged simply by a one-time observation,” I wrote. “You clearly have very little knowledge of autism, although you were a special education administrator for many years.” I also pointed out that whether a child has autism or is a typical student, engagement is not binary. A student is not in or out. There are degrees of engagement with a project. This is no less true for Special Needs students.

Fred concludes:

A major shift in Special Needs accountability. It must be demonstrated that the students are making progress.One can only shudder at what Arne has in mind.

The war on teachers: Test 'em all, let God sort 'em out

Arne Duncan demands Value-Added teacher evaluation asking, “What’s there to hide?”

BUSH MENTALITY...Remember when Bush and Cheney decided to invade Iraq even though they knew Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and that there were no WMDs? Now that same mentality is being used by the current administration, only in this case, it's applied to teacher evaluation. A stretch, you say? Take a look. 

Well we already know how crazy it is to rate teachers' performance on the basis of their students' standardized test scores, using this insane Value-Added metric.

y = Xβ + Zv + ε where β is a p-by-1 vector of fixed effects; X is an n-by-p matrix; v is a q-by-1 vector of random effects; Z is an n-by-q matrix; E(v) = 0, Var(v) = G; E(ε) = 0, Var(ε) = R; Cov(v,ε) = 0. V = Var(y) = Var(y - Xβ) = Var(Zv + ε) = ZGZ^T + R.

But here's where that kill-'em-all-let-God-sort-'em out mentality comes in to play. In Florida, where Bush Brother Jeb ruled the roost for years, about 70% of the Florida teachers are being evaluated, and often merit-paid, promoted or fired using scores based on test results from students they never taught and/or in subjects they don’t teach. 

According to Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss: 

There are numerous problems with using VAM scores for high-stakes decisions, but in this particular release of data, the most obvious and perhaps the most egregious one is this: Some 70 percent of the Florida teachers received VAM scores based on test results from students they didn’t teach and/or in subjects they don’t teach. 

Yes, you read that right: Teachers are being evaluated on students they didn’t teach and/or subjects they don’t teach. How can that be?

Yes, how can that be? For an answer, one might turn to former Defense Sec. Rumsfeld, who after 9/11 gave the order, "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

Different administration, I know. Same mentality, only now there's a war directed at teachers.

Evaluate teachers -- things related and not. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Jeb Bush:"Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families." -- NPR 

CTU president Karen Lewis

“Recently they announced a plan for a ‘quality, 21st century education’. Their 21st century plan looks more like a 19th century plan.” -- WBEZ

Tom Hayden

We are edging closer to the neo-conservative dream of total conflagration in the Muslim Middle East. Despite only 11 percent public support for US military intervention in Syria, a reluctant President Barack Obama is being pushed into escalation.  -- Tom Hayden Blog

Joe Nocera

 Instead, this has become one of the trademarks of the Obama administration: decry human rights abuses abroad, but hold men in prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who have never been accused of a crime. Say all the right things about freedom of the press — even as you’re subpoenaing reporters’ phone records. And express outrage over Chinese hacking while carrying on a sophisticated spying operation of your own citizens. -- New York Times

Deb Meier

Irony of ironies, the richer we are, the more likely we are to select schools that resemble my earlier post rather than a "no excuses" school. (Friends' schools, Daltons, Lab School in Chicago, etc.) Why do those with a real choice elect for very small class sizes, highly credentialed and experienced staff, attention to the aesthetics of the environment, plenty of outdoor space, no dearth of arts of all sorts, plus sports, physical education, well-staffed support services, and even nice dining areas, well-furnished teachers' lounges, and usually paid non-instructional time for teachers to meet together? And actually a shorter school year! -- Why Don't We Fix Poverty, While We're At It?

Testing madness leading to massive retention of 3rd graders

“The children all knew if you didn’t pass, you weren’t going on. A lot of them gave up. They weren’t trying to do any work. The attitude was, ‘What’s the difference? I failed.’”  -- Paula Peterson, principal at Charles Fairbanks Elementary in Indianapolis

The testing madness, unleashed under No Child Left Behind and  still running amok under Race To The Top, is having devastating effects on hundreds of thousands of children and their families.  WaPo's Lindsey Layton reports that many states are now requiring children to pass a reading test in third grade or be held back from fourth grade. 

But in an accountability era ushered in by the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, the new retention policies offer little wiggle room. Decisions are based on test scores, not the subjective judgment of teachers and administrators. Parents have little recourse. And individual students bear the impact, as opposed to an entire school being sanctioned for failing to perform.

The new approach began in earnest in 2002 in Florida under then-Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who promoted an education strategy that also featured private-school vouchers, data-based assessments for schools and teachers, charter schools and online learning.

Research done over the past 30 years, shows that retention, especially when based on a single test score rather than on the decision of the child's teachers, increases the chances of that child dropping out, exponentially. Fair Test offers a solid critique of retention along with good alternatives to both retention and so-called social-promotion.

What Layton's article fails to mention is that test-based retention's most devastating effects fall heaviest on black and Latino children and their families, since test scores more strongly correlate with poverty than any other factor. 

If you are in Chicago, be sure and turn out on March 19th to hear Seattle test-boycott leader Jesse Hagopian and CTU Pres. Karen Lewis, make the case against high-stakes testing. The event starts at 7 p.m. at the Mt Carmel M B Church,  2976 S Wabash Ave.

Duncan's spinning wheel stuck

Cunningham's gone.  Hamilton's gone. Who's left at the DOE to hold Arne Duncan's hand? Daren Briscoe?

Duncan buys in to the Bush model

Somebody needs to step in and help Arne move beyond his rat-a-tat-tat speed rapping and engage in some serious media discussion. After keynoting Jeb Bush's D.C. ed summit, along with a gaggle of other T-Party'ers, privatizers, "parent-trigger" pullers, and charter and voucher pushers like Mitch Daniels,  Condi Rice and Rupert Murdoch flack, Joel Klein, Duncan refused to answer any questions from the media. VaPo's Valerie Strauss offers some possible reasons why, straight out of the Onion.

Maybe without Cunningham or Hamilton to feed Duncan his lines, Obama's folks are afraid of being embarrassed when the obvious question is asked: Why have current administration ed policies found such a comfortable home among the Bush neo-cons when they can't get the time of day from teachers, labor and civil rights groups, parents and community-based organizations?

Or how about: Do you agree with Jeb Bush that public-sector unions should be banned?

Diane Ravitch says:

"Just think of it as a testament to bipartisan comity around a shared agenda."

Better yet is Charles Pierce at Esquire who writes:

"But the conference itself is worth noting because I think that it is the issue of education "reform," and not immigration, where the moderation mummery among Republicans is going to be more obvious. It's a better issue for them because they can bash unions, and there's nothing inherent in it to inflame The Base, which is why they can only go so far out of the Phantom Zone on immigration. Not only that, but a substantial portion of Democrats — most notably the Secretary of Education and the current Mayor of Chicago — have proven themselves quite willing to fall for the blandishments of long-con specialists like Michelle Rhee, so, glory be to god, bipartisanship!!!"

Peter, Justin, help!

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

North Shore Dist. 112 picketers

Wave of teacher strikes

"Obviously, CPS set a precedent," said Sandy Randles, a parent in Crystal Lake-based Prairie Grove Consolidated School District 46. -- Chicago Tribune, "Why sudden crop of teacher strikes?"

 Amy Wilkins, Gates-defunded group leader 

"Gates was such a big part of the funding. That made some of the partners and other funders nervous. How do you look like an independent actor? You have to show broad public support so you're not seen as a phony-baloney front for Gates. People criticized the organization for that and they didn't move closer to shaking that label." -- L.A. Times, "Gates Foundation-funded education-reform group to close"

Mark LaMont Hill

"Since 2001 2,000 troops have died in Afghanistan while 5,000 have died in Chicago." -- Huffpost Live

Rahm Emanuel

"Chicago's  crime strategy is working."  -- Huffington Post

Ben Joravsky

“I don’t like using standardized tests as a benchmark. But since the charter school advocates are using them as benchmarks and feel no compulsion to be accurate in the use of these scores, I had to weigh in. And the reality is that unionized schools in Chicago by and large are outperforming charter schools. You have to go through forty unionized schools before you reach a charter school in the ranking of these test scores. So I feel the public has been misled into believing that charter schools have a magical formula because they fire teachers.” -- Chicago Newsroom

Jeb Bush attacks SOS, League of Women Voters, over "Parent Trigger"

Former Florida governor and Bush family scion Jeb, has for some reason found it necessary to launch an  attack on Save Our Schools (SOS) as part of his campaign to import the Parent Trigger into his state.

Patricia Levesque, executive director of Bush’s Foundation, sent out a blast e-mail to supporters this week, asking them to contact their senators to urge them to vote for the so-called Parent Empowerment Act which comes up for a vote today. The proposed legislation would allow any group of parents at any public school to have their school closed and turned over to private charter school operators. It is a divisive act designed to pit parent against parent and open the way for total privatization of Florida schools.

Blogging at the Palm Beach Post, Dana Karn writes:

The controversial “Parent Empowerment” proposal isn’t just causing a bipartisan kerfuffle in the Senate where critics say the measure is a cash cow for for-profit charter schools and private management companies.

But the “parent trigger” measure could also make hay for Gov. Jeb Bush’s non-profit Foundation for Florida’s Future. Bush is backing the bill, pushed by Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution and education reformer Michelle Rhee and fiercely opposed by a teachers’ unions and a Florida coalition of parent-led groups, including the PTA.

Levesque's memo fires a shot at SOS and other groups opposing the Parent Trigger bill, calling them "vitriolic" agents of the "status quo."

You will not find the vitriol... surprising. Despite incredible successes over the past 10 years, those who seek to protect the status quo are as passionate as ever. This includes the League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO, Florida Education Association and local affiliates such as Fund Education Now and Save our Schools.”

I'm not sure what "success" Levesque is talking about. Florida's school system under the Bush regime, was a nightmare and the Parent Trigger has failed to do anything positive for California's schools since its conception two years ago.

How ironic then for Bush to label parent groups and grass-roots school activists as "status quo." His 8-year rule over the state's education system became notable for widening the so-called achievement gap. Bush gave his schools A or B grades, even while they were getting F's by his own brother's standards under No Child Left Behind. The state has become a prime example of testing madness, teacher bashing, and privatization of public school under current Gov. Rick Scott whose chief education adviser is Michelle Rhee.

The Parent Trigger is seen by Bush, Scott and Rhee as an essential tool in privatizing the state's public schools and breaking the back of the teachers union. Back in March, Scott, signed into law one of the first and most damaging of the current wave of anti-teacher, anti-union bills passed by any state legislature. Among other things, the new law took away teachers' collective bargaining rights and has them working for "merit pay" based on their student's FCAT scores. The bill was crafted with Rhee's help.

Bush may also be firing at SOS, the League of Women Voters, the unions, and parent groups in order to appeal to his conservative base and to gain T-Party backing for his own presidential run.

Surprisingly, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also has presidential ambitions, has found it convenient to jump into the middle of the Florida "kerfulle." Rahm's pushing of the Parent Trigger in Chicago has long been met with vocal opposition from local national parent and community groups.

*See "Jeb's Florida 'miracle' coming to a state near you?" by Teacher Q in the June 30, 2011 Daily Kos. .

"Results for money..." Bush defends NCLB

Desperately seeking a politician who, in this election year, will still openly defend NCLB on it's 10th anniversary? Look no further than Andrew Rotherham's (who else?) Time Magazine interview with Pres. G.W. Bush --the man who turned the Ownership Society into a  catch phrase. Bush responds to Rotherham's softball question this way:

First of all, I am extremely proud of the effects of No Child Left Behind. For the first time, the federal government basically demanded results in return for money. It started by saying, We expect you to measure [student performance]. As a result, there has been a noticeable change in achievement, particularly among minority groups. And I’m proud of that accomplishment and proud of the fact we were able to work with people from both parties to get it done.

Bush saves his greatest praise for, "people like [former school superintendents] Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, people who are willing to challenge the status quo, tell you that one thing that made it effective was the accountability."