WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Anthony Cody

"President Obama last week proved his point. Education is not a partisan issue. Both Democrats and Republicans are pushing terrible ideas." --Washington Post

Obama on Bush

Jeb Bush “is someone who championed reform when he was in office, someone who is now championing reform as a private citizen.”-- Politico

Florida teacher Jennie Smith

"I told him [Pres. Obama] directly that I and so many other teachers were very disappointed to see him on stage with Jeb Bush, considering the assault on public education he has led in this state and how his foundation has continuously tried to eliminate our contracts and our collective bargaining" -- Miami Examiner.com

New definition of reform = who to fire first?

“It is really cynical for the political vultures to make this about a victory against the unions,” said Michelle Fine, a professor at the City University of New York who testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness in the case. “This is really just about how we distribute the pain. The remedy itself is very sad.”--New York Times

Book shed new light on Lincoln's racial views

“For the sake of your race, you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people,” Lincoln said, promoting his idea of colonization: resettling blacks in foreign countries on the belief that whites and blacks could not coexist in the same nation. -- Sun-Times

Ravitch hits it out of the park

The Daily Show - Diane Ravitch
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Duncan's Croissants

I'm really pissed at my friend Arne Duncan. He never even thought to invite me to his Breakfast With Bloggers over at the DOE. He knows how much I love those croissants and coffee, ordered up fresh from the department commissary. I guess he's not quite ready to reach across the other aisle. That's OK, Arne. I'm patient.

Or maybe the breakfast was one of those Race-To-The-Top-type deals where you have to submit your blog posts in advance. Then Arne could look you right in the eyes, like he did with Arizona's Sen. McCain and Gov. Brewer, and determine who was most deserving of this meal on the taxpayer's dime. (Oops, put your guns away, T-baggers. I may be wrong about that. He probably paid for the croissants with private foundation dollars.)

Anyway, I'm not really grousing or complaining (I got my own coffee & muffins Letizia's in Logan Square). I also got a full report on the eat-in this morning from Edweek's Michelle McNeil and from my favorite teacher/union-bashing blogger, Rick Hess, who probably had only a short cab ride over from his AEI think-tank office. You can read both of their accounts for yourself, but here are my highlights.

From McNeil:

First off, the department released two guides for states: one on "smart ideas to increase productivity and student achievement" and another on flexibility states have in using existing federal dollars. [But, adds Michelle] there's a footnote the Education Department has inserted saying it doesn't guarantee the "accuracy, timeliness or, completeness" of the ideas in this document, nor does the department pass judgment on their "importance or success." So, I'm wondering how useful these "smart ideas" really are?

ME: You know, Michelle, I've been wondering the same thing.

From Hess:

Duncan firmly pushed back against reflexive small-class mania. He suggested that it doesn't make sense to insist that a great teacher can only teach 22 kids--even if she feels like she can handle 29 and would gladly carry the larger load if she'd be compensated accordingly. He said, "Class size has been a sacred cow and I think we need to take it on. Give me and my wife a choice of putting our kids with a great teacher of 28 or a mediocre teacher of 23, and I know what I'd choose every time."

ME: Isn't it great that Arne is sticking it to all those maniacs who listen to those lazy teachers and who believe all that class-size  research and stuff. They are making such a big deal over a measly 60 of the nation's poorest kids being packed into Detroit classrooms. Surely there are great teachers over there in Michigan (who haven't already been riffed) who will gladly race to the few remaining inner-city Detroit schools to shoulder such a burden.

As for Arne himself, I feel badly for him and his wife, sitting there hoping against hope for a chance for their kids to have a great teacher and a 28-student classroom. The Duncan's don't send their kids to inner-city schools where many class sizes have swelled to 40 or more as a result of the economic crisis and mass teacher firings. To avoid D.C. schools (even when Michelle Rhee was  running them), the Duncans moved across the river to suburban Arlington, where schools and class sizes remain relatively small.

PLEASE SOMEONE. ANYONE. Help the Duncan's find a school with 28 per class and a great teacher for their poor kids.

Congressman Obey Denied Access to Wisconsin Capitol

IN MY MAILBOX -- Cutting WIC

Dear Mike ,

In case you missed it: The budget legislation passed by the House of Representatives would slash $747 million -- about 10 percent -- from the 2011 budget for the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and Children. It's commonly known as "WIC."

WIC was created in 1974 to provide a very modest but crucial measure of food assistance to low-income moms and little kids who are at "nutrition risk." To qualify for this modest assistance, recipients must be poor -- very poor. Some 68 percent of WIC beneficiaries live at, or below, the poverty line. That's about $22,000 for a family of four.

Congress was quick to slash a food program for poor kids during the worst economy in 80 years, but it cut not one penny from the country's farm subsidy programs -- at a time when the farmers who receive the subsidies are enjoying record-high crop prices and incomes.

By cutting just a fraction of what we spend on farm subsidies, the House could have held WIC harmless and continued to give a little help to deserving poor little kids at serious "nutrition risk."

I wrote a Huffington Post column on the cut to WIC and how it symbolizes an unacceptably lopsided and wrong-headed approach to food and agriculture policy. Please read the column (it's below) and then stand with EWG Action Fund and let your representative know that you want a fair, equitable food system that begins to help the country heal its dietary and environmental woes.
Sincerely,

Ken Cook
President, EWG Action Fund

Robt. Gates' epiphany

'In the ensuing decades, a large, permanent military establishment emerged as a result of the Cold War — an establishment that forged deep ties to the Congress and industry.' -- Robt. Gates in 2008

Sec. Gates, the successor to Donald Rumsfeld, has led our ever-expanding military-industrial complex through both Bush and Obama regimes, the "surge" in Iraq and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Prior to that, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence.

Neither of these two regimes have much to show show for all that except mounting body counts, loss of American prestige and credibility around the world, and deepening financial crisis here at home. The U.S. has become a superpower in decline, largely because of its growing militarization replacing real productive growth and wealth within our national economic structure. It's this economic collapse which has precipitated the crisis in public education--not the other way around as claimed by the corporate reformers and power philanthropists.

As he nears retirement and makes his farewell tour of the military academies, Gates tells his followers what he has learned from all that experience:

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined' as Gen. [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it."

Amen! But too little, too late.

More "reform" Rhode Island style

"It's for the kids," say Providence officials

About 1,500 people jammed the street in front of City Hall in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday to protest last week's dismissal of the city's entire teaching force. "I thought the only insanity was in Wisconsin, not in Rhode Island," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the crowd, which raised signs and banged drums... Providence officials say their goal is to cut the budget while doing the best they can for city schoolchildren.--NPR

It was a year ago that mass teacher firings began in this state, lauded by President Obama and Sec. Duncan. 

Assault on teachers continues in Idaho

State schools superintendent Tom Luna said Wednesday that his bill to eliminate 770 teaching positions to pay for expanded technology in the classroom — and fill a public education funding hole — still has life. “The reports of the death of that bill have been greatly exaggerated,” Luna told a group of reporters at a lunchtime press conference in Boise.-- Press Tribune

Reform?

Whenever you see the words, OBAMA, JEB BUSH, and SCHOOL REFORM together in one headline, DUCK KIDS!

“Because of high expectations for students, hard-edge policies that focus schools on learning and an array of choices for families, the Sunshine State is leading the nation in rising student achievement,” Bush said. “I look forward to sharing Florida’s model for student success with President Obama and Secretary Duncan.” -- Political Wires

Matt Damon calls out Pres.Obama on ed policies

Damon in "Good Will Hunting"

"He's doubled down on a lot of things, going back to education... the idea that we're testing kids and we're tying teachers salaries to how kids are performing on tests, that kind of mechanized thinking has nothing to do with higher order. We're training them, not teaching them." -- Huffington


For the full interview, tune into Damon and the rest of the cast of the new film, "The Adjustment Bureau" on "Piers Morgan Tonight" at 9 PM EST on Thursday.

Last night's forum in Chicago

If last night's forum at UIC is any indication, mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel won't have much of a honeymoon, especially when it comes to his role as boss of the public schools. Emanuel's school plan, which sounds a lot like Mayor Daley's and the Civic Committee's Renaissance 2010, was under assault by last night's panelists  before an appreciative, standing-room-only crowd.

The panel was organized in response to a statement on Myths & Realities of Chicago School Reform, written by a group of Chicago researchers called CReaTE (I was one of the signers to the statement). Last night's panel   included some of the city's top ed researchers and academics as well as community and union union activists, parent and student and community organizers.

The main message was, talk is cheap. Let's get organized.

Stewart warns teachers...

The Answer?  "Outsource our Children's Education"
How?  "Disassemble our Children, Ship Them, and Re-Assemble Them Over There"

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers
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Obama defends public employee unions

Responds to pressure from below

It shows what happens when the base starts holding politicians accountable. A half-million union workers and supporters marched around the country last weekend to defend their rights to organize and bargain collectively. Their main targets were Republican and T-Party governors and billionaire backers like the Koch brothers who thought the time was right to pull a Reagan/PATCO-style union-busting move. But the protests, along with polls showing increasing support for the protesters, also pushed an embarrassingly quiet Obama to finally come out strongly in support for union rights yesterday at the National Governors' Assoc. conference.

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it. We're not going to attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make. We're not going to convince the bravest Americans to put their lives on the line as police officers or firefighters if we don't properly reward that bravery."

That followed weekend remarks by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who fired up the crowd at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee by shouting that the “fight is on” for "our brothers and sisters in public employee unions."

Lots of lessons here. 

In case you need more evidence...

Only five states do not allow collective bargaining for educators, effectively banning teachers unions. Those states and their SAT/ACT rankings are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

Meanwhile ground zero of the union battle, Wisconsin, is ranked 2nd in the country.-- Business Insider

Mendoza's firing was an outrage

Former CPS art teacher Francisco Mendoza (wearing hat), talks with friends and well-wishers during an auction of donated art items for his benefit held at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago on February 27, 2011 . Mendoza has cancer and was fired last summer by CPS. l Keith Hale~Sun-Times

I went to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Pilsen last night to help fired CPS teacher Francisco Mendoza. The place was packed with hundreds of Mendoza supporters who raised thousands of dollars to  support the renowned artist/teacher in his battle with cancer and CPS.

Mendoza, a painter, muralist and pillar of Pilsen’s art community, tried not to cry Sunday night as hundreds of friends showed up to support him at an art auction fund-raiser — yards from Orozco Elementary, where he once worked. “I’ve got to stay strong,” said Mendoza, smiling beneath a black cowboy hat, seated in a wheelchair. “I feel like if I cry — everyone here will start crying.” -- Sun-Times

The firing of Mendoza while he was on sick leave, was a disgrace and a big blow to his students and the entire school community. He was diagnosed last April with multiple myeloma, a form of bone marrow cancer. He spent five months at Rush University Medical Center undergoing chemotherapy, and survived a close call with a lung infection, before returning home to find a termination letter. 

Corporate reformers, including mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, want to eliminate tenure and other collective-bargaining rights so they can easily fire teachers like Mendoza, leaving them with no health care or any means of support and replace them with younger (certainly not better) teachers who are paid less and are less likely to get sick.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

I was just asking, whatever happened to Solis?

"...we've seen our brothers and sisters in the public employees unions willing to give their share, and to negotiate in good faith to help their states get through tough times. But the governors in Wisconsin and Ohio aren't just asking workers to tighten their belts, they're demanding that they give up their uniquely American rights as workers." -- Labor Sec. Hilda Solis

Walker can thank Rhee

"But Walker's argument - that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public - resonates in part because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well. Exhibit A is former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee." -- Richard Kahlenberg, Washington Post

At Moscowitz' Upper West Side charter school meeting

"The guests sipped wine and nibbled sushi, guacamole and Gruyere..." -- New York Times

Here's how I spent my day

Where are you, President Obama?

Obama 2007 campaign speech from Spartanburg, S.C.

See my latest post on Huffington: "President Obama, Where Are You on Teachers Union Rights?"

It's not just about unions...

When the prankster called Gov. Walker and mentioned "special interests" the governor didn't flinch. He didn't have to be told in whose interests he was working. David Koch had bankrolled his campaign and contributed over $1 million to the Wisconsin Governor's Assoc. The Koch-funded Wisconsis T-Party were his campaign workers.

Walker's pay-back: The gov's bill gives him power to sell off state-owned power plants to Koch Bros. in no-bid contract at any price.
Shock troops: Faced with no-let-up protests against the union-busting bill by teachers and public workers, the Koch Bros. are mobilizing their T-Party shock troops for a confrontation Saturday in Madison.

Media "Research" : In a near hilarious piece in today's Wall Street Journal by L. Brent Bozell's  far-right loony Media Research Center, Rupert Murdoch's crew complains of teacher and union worker media manipulation in coverage of the protests. Seriously!

Deb Meier reflects on her accidental trip to the protest in Madison in today's Bridging Differences.

Which side are you on?

After his friend and former colleague, Diane Ravitch declared, "I Stand With the Teachers of Wisconsin," AEI's Rick Hess somehow felt compelled to make clear to his patrons exactly where he stands. No surprise there since Hess' organization is funded by union-busting billionaires like the Koch Brothers. 

***

Speaking of which-- Gov. Walker is now the laughing stock of Wisconsin after his recorded butt-kissing conversation with David Koch impersonator and Buffalo Beast editor, Ian Murphy. Trying to impress his patron with his cleverness, Koch revealed his secret plan to trick boycotting Democratic senators back to Madison for a pretend compromise meeting.  What great grist for Jon Stewart's mill. 

President Obama's lips remain sealed. How far he's drifted since that December, 2008 day of hope, when then president-elect Obama came out strongly in support of Chicago union workers who sat-in at Republic Window and Door to keep the plant from leaving the state.

Side Note on the Republic battle: Obama's new chief of staff, Bill Daley, was Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase, which owned 40 percent of Republic.

***

If you can make it to Mad City this Saturday, the teachers unions have scheduled a giant rally at the capitol for 3 p.m. See brother Fred's blog on this.

Miguel's speech

The victory party

Last night's Miguel del Valle victory party at Revolution Brewery, over in the 35th Ward, actually felt like victory. Even though big-money candidate Rahm Emanuel, as expected, won the mayor's race handily, spirits (no, not just those) ran high. When Miguel finally arrived, the place went up for grabs. The hundreds of supporters, including many young, hard-core community organizers,  exploded into chants of "Miguel, Miguel..." I had the feeling that this was the beginning of something big, rather than just the end of another campaign.

Of course, time will tell. I had the same feeling standing in Grant Park at Obama's victory celebration in 2008. But after that victory, the movement went to sleep, anesthetized by phony Democratic Party promises. Still, given the events of the past two weeks, from Cairo to Madison, I walked out into the crisp Chicago air feeling as hopeful in this local electoral defeat as I did that night of victory in '08.

These two young campaign organizers sum things up perfectly.

In what could have been a concession speech, del Valle laid claim, “There are people willing and able to fight the battles that need to be fought… We are going to build an agenda that says progress should be for all and not for some. I can feel it coming.” We haven’t missed our opportunity. Our moment to democratize Chicago has just begun. February 22^nd doesn’t mark a loss but a first step toward victory. -- - B. Loewe & Josh Prudowsky