Bundy's Racist Moocher Army Headed for Motown?

Cliven Bundy's moocher Army.

BREAKING... Justice Scalia announces he is deputizing Cliven Bundy and his Nevada moocher army to ride herd on Schuette decision. Moochers were last seen headed for Michigan to put down any  protests and to graze their cattle for free on the overgrown fields in Detroit. Their banner reads, "Slavery Worked Better. Let's Do it Again."

Scalia

QUOTABLE SCALIA

 “As Justice Harlan observed over a century ago, '[o]ur Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.'" -- Daily Kos

Yes, Scalia doesn't see color and has no class.

RACE MATTERS...Teacher unions spoke out forcefully on Schuette.

Randi Weingarten attacked the decision.

This ruling, taken with the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, takes us backward on racial equality. We agree with Justice Sotomayor that "this refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable."

So did NEA Pres. Dennis Van Roekel:

“Having spent 23 years in the classroom, I saw first-hand the important role diversity played in the classroom and how learning from people with different backgrounds and perspectives can benefit all students, our workforce and our country as a whole...Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, we find ourselves still separate and unequal, and the fight wages on to level the uneven playing field."

Progressive education bloggers and anti-testers...not so much. A blind spot?

The NEA, representing more than 3 million educators and joined by the MEA and SEIU, filed an amicus brief urging the Court to uphold affirmative action.

JOSE VILSON writes, "...when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the recent affirmative action case, I nodded like my head was about to fall off."

STILL WAITING to hear something...anything on this landmark decision coming from POTUS OR Sec. Duncan. Is Obama going to leave is appointee Sotomayor hanging in the racist wind?

Questions my media friends need to be asking

President Obama -- You've often called education, "the civil rights issue of our time." Where do you stand on Civil Rights Movement hero James Meredith's call for an American Child’s Education Bill of Rights?

IFT & IEA leaders join in applause for passage of SB7

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel -- You're standing up with Colorado teachers in fighting back against SB191, a bill which makes teacher evaluations based mainly of student test scores and has led to the firing of 100 teachers without due process.

But when nearly identical legislation in the form of SB7 was passed in Illiinois, again with support from Dems who took Stand For Children money, you along with IEA Pres. Ken Swanson, hailed its passage as a national model of collaboration. Explain please?

Barbara Byrd-Bennett -- How's your threats and intimidation strategy against parents and students working for you?

Mike Madigan -- How can you reconcile your latest $1.5 billion gift to the corporations with your support for cutting the pensions of state retirees?

Donnita Travis -- We understand that God revealed his vision to you for starting the By Your Hand Club. Did he [she] also advise you to apply for your By Your Hand Charter School?

Obama calls for even more testing madness

The maddening Race To The Top continues

Not much for educators to get excited about in last night's speech. It's that time again when Dems give us a slight head-fake to the left-center to keep their base in line. I did like the focus on income inequality and the promise to raise the minimum wage for fed-contracted workers by executive order. That alone has the Republican wing-nuts in a frenzy. They're already crying "coup d'etat" over Obama's tepid moves. I'm also glad about his shift towards diplomacy, rather than saber-rattling on Iran and Syria, but fear it's like promises to end the war in Afghanistan -- lots of talk, lots of wavering, more winks to the generals and the M/I Complex.

I also liked his call for universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds. But there's little chance of that, or much else positive (gun control, immigration reform, etc...) going anywhere with this Congress. 

You write the caption for this one. (NYT photo)

The worst of it was Obama's call for even more standardized testing -- an obvious reassuring bone thrown to his Common Core pals at Pearson, N.Y. Gov. Cuomo, and  the state’s education commissioner, John King who's facing a rank-and-file teacher revolt against CC in N.Y.. That could be the start of something big and even has AFT and NEA leaders nervous. 

N.Y. Times reports

Mr. Obama gave tacit credit to the Race to the Top grant program for helping states “raise expectations and performance.” In exchange for grant funds, states agreed to put in place evaluation systems that grade teachers in part on how students score on standardized reading and math tests, and to adopt “college and career-ready” standards. Many states used the Common Core state standards to meet that requirement, and their roll-out has been very controversial, with critics on the right claiming they were forced on states by the administration and critics on the left objecting to a renewed emphasis on testing.

AFT's Randi Weingarten is lagging behind her own membership as she flips from outright support for CC to "de-linking" Common Core from testing. My brother, as he's wont to do,  turned my comments on that piece of fantasy into art. 

Is that really supposed to be me? I'm much younger than that.

NEA's Van Roekel is even worse. He's been the loudest supporter for Common Core and even claimed secret internal polls showing that his membership overwhelming supported Common Core.

“Our members support the Common Core State Standards because they are the right thing to do for our students and they embrace the promise of the standards: that all students will have access to the critical thinking and creative skills they need to succeed, regardless of where they live.

Now he's trying to quell the revolt, saying CC standards are fine -- just "being implemented wrong".

Pension fight moves to the courts

Got this notice yesterday from my union:

Pension lawsuit filed – Today AFSCME and our partners in the We Are One Illinois union coalition, along with a group of active and retired public employees, filed suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court to overturn pension-slashing Senate Bill 1 (Public Act 98-599), which cuts the pension benefits of all active and retired employees in SERS, SURS and TRS. Defendants in the suit are the state’s constitutional officers, the state retirement systems and their boards. Our suit makes clear that pension theft is not only unfair, it’s clearly unconstitutional. 

Go for it. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 "I believe this was when I was telling the press I was embarrassed as a Jewish woman to have a Jewish mayor experimenting on black children after listening to a bunch of board members say that black parents don't know how to raise their children." -- Wendy Katten, RYH

Oklahoma teacher, Jennifer Simonds

"The children were asking why a train was coming through the school.The next thing we knew, the entire roof of the building was torn off and we were being pelted with all this stuff. I laid myself over my students to protect them, and I remember praying that God be with us and keep us safe, and asking please — let it be me who dies if something happens — and not any of the kids.” -- Sun-Times

NEA Pres. Dennis Van Roekel

What is a "safe passage route"? Google the term and you'll find essentially two definitions: It either refers to the designated routes Palestinians may use to travel from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, or it refers to special routes created by the city of Chicago so children can more safely navigate through gang territory to get to their new schools. -- Huffington Post

CTU V.P. Jesse Sharkey

“We must derive truth from facts here, so … we need the Board of Education to commit that you will not lose any students, that is to say, you should be able to account in one year’s time for where every student went. We need you to commit that you will own up to the declines in academic progress that will happen.” -- Sun-Times

Jitu Brown of KOCO

“There’s a legislative strategy and a street strategy. We are organizing in our communities to stand up for our children, to stand against disinvestment — which is what this is.” -- Curtis Black, Newstips

 Erica Clark, Parents For Teachers

“I don’t think anybody thinks this is the end.” -- Curtis Black, Newstips

 Anthony Cody

A few months back, Chicagoans discovered the Broad Foundation actually had published a detailed guide explaining how to go about closing schools in your community. -- EdWeek