News, Etc.

Wisconsin dictator Scott Walker decided giving into a judge was better than being hauled off to jail.
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Get ready for a double-dip recession.

How Good Does Michelle Rhee Look in Orange?

As Valerie Strauss notes in a column following the latest D.C. schools scandal, it's time for authorities to subpoena everybody connected with the standardized test cheating, including Rhee.

Nonstop pressure to raise the test scores INEVITABLY leads to cheating. This despite the fact teachers can lose their licenses and they and their "superiors" can be held criminally liable.

I Thought I'd Post This Link

of a piece by David Walsh of WSWS on the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor and how that life and career was a reflection of the times in which she lived.

It's a very interesting piece.

A Place in the Sun was actually shot in late 1949, when Taylor was only 17. Father of the Bride and Father’s Little Dividend, it seems, were filmed after the Stevens’ production, although both were released earlier. On the basis of viewing the respective films, this makes a good deal more sense than the reverse order, because Taylor has obviously “started to take acting seriously” by the time of the Minnelli films.

Even in such a slight film as Father’s Little Dividend, Taylor has a number of scenes with Tracy that are sensitive, well-paced and intelligent. Minnelli was a remarkable director, even in this ostensible paean to middle-class postwar life. One of the striking features about the Tracy-Taylor sequences is how much time the director takes to work the dialogue through and how harmoniously the actors work together. Taylor, who was 18 or so when the shooting occurred, is both modest and also remarkably mature for her years.

In any event, A Place in the Sun was without question a turning point in her career. Apparently, Stevens had wanted to film a version of Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 masterpiece An American Tragedy for years. The novel treats a poor relation of a wealthy family who impregnates a factory girl and then finds her an encumbrance when he enters into a relationship in with a rich, pretty girl, a relationship that promises to open up for him a golden world of comfort and affluence. Dreiser’s work is a devastating indictment of the American striving for success at any cost, painstakingly and painfully built up, inexorable incident by inexorable incident.

It Doesn't Mean Anything

There is no real evidence hiring is picking up; the few jobs there are are simply crap sales jobs or part time jobs.

It's nothing to brag about.

Goodbye and Good Riddance

to the concept of "globalization," and the crackpot ideas of Milton Friedman should be flushed down the toilet where they belong.

Our world is on the brink of ruin because of this crackpot idea of "unregulated markets." It didn't work in the past, and it sure as hell won't work now.

The Shame of Michelle Rhee

The latest scandal of the D.C. schools, so memorably exposed by USA Today, points out Rhee is not blameless, but she is sure is shameless.

Apart from Rhee, the idea that one can run public schools on business models or privatize them is absurd and unworkable.

Ravitch:

Her celebrity results from the fact that she has emerged as the national spokesman for the effort to subject public education to free-market forces, including competition, decision by data, and consumer choice. All of this sounds very appealing when your goal is to buy a pound of butter or a pair of shoes, but it is not a sensible or wise approach to creating good education. What it produces, predictably, is cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum.

This formula, which will be a tragedy for our nation and for an entire generation of children, is now immensely popular in the states and the Congress. Most governors embrace it. The big foundations endorse it. The think tanks of D.C., right-wing and left-wing, support it. Rhee helped to make it fashionable. If she doesn't pause to consider the damage she is doing, shame on her. If our policymakers don't stop to reflect on the damage they are doing to public education and to any concept of a good education, then our ntion is in deep trouble.

Rhee has no business being anywhere near a classroom or school district. Her license should have been revoked the minute it was discovered she had duct taped students.

If People Don't Rise Up in Opposition,

pretty soon students will all be "taught" on computers with "teachers" thousands of miles away.

This CANNOT be allowed to happen. Teaching is not something that should ever be outsourced and deskilled to the point anybody can do it.

News, Etc.

South Carolina plans more cuts.
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A California city worker facing layoff took his own life instead.
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Waiting for Stupid: Former D.C. schools tyrant Michelle Rhee tries to desperately cover her ass and paint over the remarks she made in response to the USA Today article contesting those miraculous test scores, the increases most likely as a result of cheating.
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What a pathetic deal when thousands of people hope against hope they might be able to land any kind of job at all.

This is in Reno.

It's time for people to pull up stakes and move out. Only the well off can retire there.

This Documentary is Worth Watching

It attempts to explain why this country got so screwed up. Of course it has to do with the increased concentration of wealth and the control of the two parties by the elites profiting from that wealth:

Obituaries

Actor Farley Granger, 85, of natural causes.

Granger was in Hitchcock's Rope and Strangers on a Train, among many appearances. He didn't get married or have children, and you know what THAT means, whatever that means. Wikipedia says he had a longterm relationship with one Robert Calhoun who co-wrote Granger's autobiography and a fling with Leonard Bernstein, so take it as you will.

Actress Shelley Winters was awfully stuck on him, and while the two never got married to each other, they remained lifelong friends.
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News, Etc.

Obama is saying one thing about education policy while his administration is making it worse for public schools.

If this is an attempt at triangulation or whatever, it isn't working.
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Despite evidence it doesn't work for teacher evaluations, LAUSD is still going through with its "value-added" nonsense.
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Any Teacher Who is Told

by a principal to falsify records, cheat on standardized tests, or otherwise violate state and federal law because he or she is afraid of losing his or her job isn't fit to teach.  Period.  I don't care what a principal has to say or tells a teacher what to do, you don't ever do it and risk your teaching license.

That is when a lawyer needs to be called in, not contacting the mostly ineffective unions.

But if teachers in D.C. did erase answers on tests, they are as guilty as those who ordered the changes.

If This Doesn't Beat All,

I don't know what does, but there is no limit to what the radical right does in order to manipulate public opinion:

News, Etc.

Michigan tries to balance its budget on the backs of the unemployed.
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My former employer Harry & David filed for Chapter 11 protection; let's hope the company survives.
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Because of union contracts, principals are almost never fired, so why should the AP be shocked when they are shuffled around with "turnaround" models?

Arnold's situation is typical for principals in several states who were removed last summer under the federal School Improvement Grant program, intended to reform the nation's worst schools. The most popular way for schools to qualify for a slice of the $3 billion available was pick a reform plan that called for replacing what was considered failed leadership - but many of those principals are still running schools.

You can't fire them, unlike teachers, but even then, as in WCSD, teachers are merely shuffled around to other schools under "turnaround models."

Federal law doesn't supercede union contracts. And, as the article notes, rural districts have a hard enough time recruiting principals.

link

Education Follies

It figures Michelle Rhee would be caught in yet another lie:

Michelle Rhee, then chancellor of D.C. schools, took a special interest in Noyes. She touted the school, which now serves preschoolers through eighth-graders, as an example of how the sweeping changes she championed could transform even the lowest-performing Washington schools. Twice in three years, she rewarded Noyes' staff for boosting scores: In 2008 and again in 2010, each teacher won an $8,000 bonus, and the principal won $10,000.

A closer look at Noyes, however, raises questions about its test scores from 2006 to 2010. Its proficiency rates rose at a much faster rate than the average for D.C. schools. Then, in 2010, when scores dipped for most of the district's elementary schools, Noyes' proficiency rates fell further than average.

Test scores aren't an indication of anything, especially when kids can simply game the tests.

Or administrators, especially when it comes to "erasure" marks on tests.
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Health Issues

Yesterday, when I got up from the couch, I lost my balance and almost fell through the window at my brother's house. I started breaking out in a sweat and finding it almost impossible to regain my balance. I called 911 and was taken to Providence Hospital.

They ran a bunch of tests on me, and it appears I likely have an inner ear infection, which is creating this vertigo. I was given some medication for it, but I really have to take it easy the next few days.

This is very scary stuff, so I make sure I grab onto something anytime I get up and walk around.

Obituaries--Geraldine Ferraro

Political trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, who became the first woman to be on a national party ticket, has died at age of 75. She had suffered from blood cancer.

Ferraro was nominated as running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale back in 1984, but they both were buried under the Reagan-Bush landslide.

A former Queens criminal prosecutor, she was a vigorous but relatively inexperienced candidate with a better feel for urban ward politics than for international diplomacy. But she proved to be a quick study and came across as a new breed of feminist politician — comfortable with the boys, particularly powerful Democrats like the House speaker, Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., and less combative than predecessors like Representative Bella Abzug of New York.

She was also ideal for television: a down-to-earth, streaked-blond, peanut-butter-sandwich-making mother whose personal story resonated powerfully. Brought up by a single mother who had crocheted beads on wedding dresses to send her daughter to good schools, Ms. Ferraro had waited until her own children were school age before going to work in a Queens district attorney’s office headed by a cousin.

In the 1984 race, many Americans found her breezy style refreshing. “What are you — crazy?” was a familiar expression. She might break into a little dance behind the speaker’s platform when she liked the introductory music. Feeling patronized by her Republican opponent, Vice President George Bush, she publicly scolded him.

Acceptance speech:

News, Comments, Etc.

Although it is true "austerity" measures don't work, that doesn't mean the neoliberals won't stop trying to force these measures on the backs of the population.

These politicians are on the take from the financial elites who are bound by ideology, not facts.
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Columnist Bob Herbert follows Frank Rich in leaving the New York Times before the site goes pay-for-play on Monday.

I suspect this latest scheme is going to fail, just as the previous attempt, Times Select, failed.
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The Filthy Rich (Meaning Billionaires) Really ARE Different

Now they have turned into little more than a parasitical class feeding off of the masses. I'd say that's largely due to policies enacted by our wonderful Congress and various presidents to create a two-tiered society:

The US has the most billionaires in the world (413), better than one third of the total, the greatest proportion among the “big countries in the world. A closer look also reveals that among the top 200 billionaires (those with $5.2 billion and more) there are 57 from the US (29%). Over one third made their fortune through speculative activity, predators on the productive economy and exploiters of the property and stock market. This is the highest percentage of any major country in Europe or Asia (with the exception of England). The enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of this tiny parasitical ruling class is one reason why the US has the worst inequalities of any advanced economy and among the worst in the entire world. Speculators do not employ workers, they secure tax loopholes and bailouts and then press for cuts in the social budget, since they do not require a healthy, educated workforce (except for a tiny elite). In 1976 the top 1% held 20% of the wealth; in 2007 they commanded 35% of total wealth. Eighty percent of Americans own only 15% of the wealth. The recent economic crises, which initially reduced the total wealth of the country, did so in an uneven fashion – hitting the majority of workers and employees worse. The Bush-Obama bailout led to the economic recovery, not of the “economy in general”, but was confined to further enhancing the wealth of the billionaires – which explains why the unemployment/under employment rate has hardly moved, why the fiscal debt and trade deficit grows and the state lowers corporate taxes and slashes federal, state and municipal budgets. The “dynamic” sector composed of parasitical capitalists employ few workers, exports no products, pays lower taxes and imposes greater cuts in social spending for productive workers. In the case of the US, billionaires , their wealth is largely accrued via the pillage of the state treasury and productive economy and via speculation in the information technology sector which houses one-fifth of the top billionaires.

There's much more at the link. It boggles the mind that so few people have way too much money and the political power that goes with it.

It Simply Doesn't Matter

No matter how well documented these complaints are, and I am referring to the first link here where the teacher has documented continued bullying by a principal, nothing will happen to him. It's because of the top-down, authoritarian style of management in public education, and the fact principals are heavily unionized, that makes it virtually impossible to remove a principal from a school district. Once one becomes a school principal, he or she has a job for life for all intents and purposes.

Teachers don't have a prayer in this rigged system. The teacher basically wasted her time typing 19 pages. She apparently believes she can get this principal removed if only she complains enough and to the "right" people. But knowing what I know about schools and administrators, it is simply an exercise in futility. Somebody higher up the school district ladder appointed this moron, and this person will be damned if his or her reputation will be sullied by meting out discipline to somebody he or she appointed. The teacher will lose her job long before any principal does.

News, Comments, Etc.

Elizabeth Taylor was laid to rest not beside her parents at Westwood but at Forest Lawn, Glendale, I suspect because the cemetery is legendary for its high security. This is the final resting place for celebrities Michael Jackson, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow, and many, many others.

Some parts of the cemetery, especially the mausoleum, are closed to the general public at all times.

From CNN:

Taylor's final resting place at Forest Lawn -- the same place of burial for her longtime friend Michael Jackson -- is in the memorial park's Great Mausoleum "sheltered beneath a soaring marble Michelangelo angel," Morrison said.

link
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Liz, Dick, and 60 Minutes

From 1970. A hoot:

How DARE You, Bob?

Are you really so naive as to believe it is the poverty we have to deal with when it comes to student achievement rather than getting rid of shitty teachers, gutting unions, and forcing in canned curricula? My God, our bosses at the Times are going to kick you out the door for your heresy:

The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought about gains on the scale that is needed.

If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by poverty. This is being done in some places, with impressive results. An important study conducted by the Century Foundation in Montgomery County, Md., showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income students in higher-poverty schools in the county.

News, Etc.

New census figures show a drastic population decline in Detroit.

Ten years from now, the census will show a similar decline in places like Reno and Las Vegas.
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If you are going to attend a degree mill like Kaplan "University," don't become a dietician.
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The next "reform" on the Wisconsin Republican agenda is battling "election fraud." Translated this means doing everything in the party's power to turn the state into a one-party state.
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Elizabeth Taylor was married eight times to seven different men, but only one of them had his grave robbed.

According to Find A Grave, although Mike Todd's headstone is still at the cemetery where his remains were initially buried, the remains are elsewhere thanks to the elsewhere.
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Debbie Reynolds had nothing but kind words about her friend and one-time rival Elizabeth Taylor:

"I said, 'Getting old is really sh––,' " Reynolds tells Access Hollywood of her final conversation with Taylor. "And she said, 'It certainly is. It certainly is, Debbie. This is really tough.' "

"I said, 'Well, you just hang in there now, Elizabeth,' " Reynolds recalls. "And she said, 'I'm really trying."

"God bless her, she's on to a better place," Reynolds says. "I'm happy that she's out of her pain, because she was in a lot of pain."

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I would be very surprised if Richard Burton's widow, Sally Hay Burton, would ever allow this to happen.

Color me skeptical.
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This is a nice write-up about Taylor's life and career.
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Speaking of Mike Todd, here is a link to a Person-to-Person interview from 1957 with Edward R. Murrow:

link

One could tell Todd was quite the character and made Taylor laugh. It's entirely possible they would have remained together if he hadn't died so suddenly.
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Just What

is the significance of the Wisconsin battle? Obviously, the Democratic Party and the unions didn't do enough for public employees affected negatively by the Koch puppet's actions.

Obituaries--Elizabeth Taylor

Hollywood great Elizabeth Taylor has died after suffering from congestive heart failure. She was 79 years old, which isn't that old, but considering the numerous health problems she had over the decades, was probably longer than expected.

Although she was a very good actress, turning in excellent performances in many films as well as starring in a few duds (mostly with Richard Burton), she was as noted for her numerous marriages and divorces and rather messy private life as her screen performances. Taylor was also known for her world-class jewelry collection and her humanitarian efforts, especially regarding AIDS.

I always liked her. She seemed to have such a great outlook on life.

I will never forget an interview her ex-husband Richard Burton gave with Today's Gene Shalit back in 1984, shortly before he died. Despite the divorce, he thought the world of his ex-wife.

AP obituary

Taylor had four children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

CBS report:



Her son Michael Wilding said it all:

"My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor and love," her son Michael Wilding said in a statement. "Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

NYT obituary

The famous Taylor-Burton diamond (later sold at auction by Taylor to help build a Botswana hospital) was the star of this Here's Lucy episode.

Another video from the same episode:



After having looked at the pictures of her parents' final resting place over at Find A Grave this morning, I am not one bit surprised she will be interred alongside them at Westwood Memorial Park. There was an empty crypt next to theirs. It never made sense she would be buried next to ex-husband Richard Burton in Switzerland, who was married at the time of his death. It would have been too tacky on her part.

link

If It Wasn't Obvious Thirty Years Ago,

it should be obvious by now that Republican neoliberal "ideas" about job creation should be flushed down the ideological toilet. I am of course referring to the "trickle on" theory of economics, which is very similar to the "seed faith" theology of those con men for Christ. The theory goes like this: If you give the rich more money by giving them tax cuts at your expense, somehow their "investments" in yachts, sixth or seventh mansions, and priceless art works will boost the economy by creating millions of jobs. Eventually you, too, can be rich, if you simply give the rich everything they want. Of course, all it really does it give them even MORE obscene wealth while making everybody else much poorer.

Robert Reich may implore Obama to counter this nonsense, but in truth Obama is cut from the same neoliberal cloth as the GOP.

I have little hope Obama will do jack shit on the economic front.

I Don't See How This is Even Legal

South Dakota decided to "discourage" women from seeking abortions by requiring them to first get "counseling" from anti-abortion propagandists:

A law signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard on Tuesday makes the state the first to require women who are seeking abortions to first attend a consultation at such “pregnancy help centers,” to learn what assistance is available “to help the mother keep and care for her child.”

There will be a court challenge, of course. I don't see how the law could possibly be upheld.

Insanity is Running Wild

when it comes to public education "reform." Take a look at Florida, for example:

In Florida, the "reform" legislation eliminates teacher tenure and bases 50 percent of teachers' evaluations on standardized test scores. The legislation also calls for merit pay for test-score gains and requires districts to develop tests in every subject that is taught, including art, band, choir, physical education, and on and on. Critics warned that the legislation was a multi-billion-dollar unfunded mandate, because the legislature is not providing funding for merit pay or for test development. I don't know whether this legislation is stupid or insane; I expect it is both. It certainly will not improve the quality of teaching and learning in Florida. I note that Michelle Rhee advised Gov. Rick Scott on his "reform" agenda. Shame on her.

Politicians want to quantify art, choir, and other electives? They are completely and totally batshit and probably on the take by the likes of Broad, Gates, and Walton.

More

Why is Anybody Giving Bill Gates

a forum to speak about things he knows absolutely NOTHING about? Of course I am talking about his attempts to scam the public education system including his attempts to deprofessionalize teaching (I am sure ultimately so that kids are taught through "distance learning" which will make them more maladjusted than they already are).

Gates is a con man, always was, always will be.

News, Etc.

Obama owns this mess with Libya; I doubt it is going to turn out very well, just like everything else he has done as president.
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News, Etc.

Detroit's teachers will be made to suffer as a result of the city's budget problems.
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Teachers in Tennessee are about to get the shaft big time, and the TEA is doing little to help them.
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A newly-elected Koch puppet is under fire for being so blatantly on the take.
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The Biggest Mistake Teachers Make

is believing they actually have "due process" rights and believing school districts have to follow the law. The fact is neither is true. All "tenure" really does is protect school districts from more wrongful termination lawsuits being filed against them; right now it is very difficult for teachers to get any kind of legal recourse through civil court. But given the fact school district administrators and politicians don't understand the real purpose of "post-probationary" or "tenure," they want to be able to gut it to put about wholesale age discrimination. After all, it is the more expensive hires--those over 50, regardless of how many years they have taught--who are the targets of nonstop principal harassment. They don't seem to understand that "at-will" employers ALSO have to follow federal prohibitions regarding discrimination against protected classes. The same is true with new teacher hires--they are still protected by federal laws against discrimination. School districts may rue the day "tenure" is done away with and more and more federal lawsuits are filed against them.

What terminated teachers discover is that school districts don't even have to follow the law; administrative law and union contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on. After all, who is going to enforce them? The arbitrators in some states (or panels in other states) who are bought and paid for by the school districts? They just make up a shit ruling supporting the principals' wrongdoing or incompetency with the knowledge few teachers have several hundred thousand dollars on hand to hire a lawyer and go through the appeals process for a job paying maybe 50 or 60 grand tops. Teachers aren't going to do it because they can't. Furthermore, school administrators and their attorneys get away with murder because they can't be held criminally liable when they commit illegal and criminal acts on behalf of a principal.

This blogger took a look at one "hearing" of a veteran teacher which took little time at all. It appears her hearing was even shorter than mine was, and my case was a blatant violation of federal law, contracts, and administrative law. The asshole who fired me is still with Washoe County School District albeit "transferred" to an easier school to run as "punishment" when in fact she should have been fired and had her administrative license pulled. She was and is that incompetent.

Miscellaneous Whatever

I don't know what I am going to do about the obituaries when the NYT goes pay-to-play on March 28.
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Obituaries to note:

Former secretary of state Warren Christopher, 85, after being ill with kidney and bladder cancer.

He was involved in Bush v. Gore:

Mr. Christopher was in overall charge of Mr. Gore’s Florida recount effort, although much of the legal strategy was devised by a team of lawyers led by David Boies, the prominent corporate lawyer, and Ronald A. Klain, Mr. Gore’s former chief of staff and a onetime partner of Mr. Christopher’s at O’Melveny & Myers.

Mr. Christopher came under criticism at the time, and later in “Recount,” the 2008 HBO dramatization of the Florida vote dispute, over his handling of the Florida episode. His detractors said he had showed a lack of legal and political aggressiveness against Mr. Bush’s legal team, led by James A. Baker III, another former secretary of state. The movie, in particular, portrayed Mr. Christopher as overly concerned with the niceties of the law while Mr. Baker was waging a bare-knuckled campaign on all fronts.

In other words, Christopher was honest and Baker was a crook.
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Country music star Ferlin Husky, 85, of undisclosed causes:

Mr. Husky had previously recorded an unvarnished take of “Gone,” featuring the pedal steel guitarist Speedy West, for Capitol Records in Hollywood in 1952. Released under the pseudonym Terry Preston at the urging of the label’s representatives, who insisted that Mr. Husky’s real name sounded like a fabrication, the single failed to chart. Four years later, performing under his given name and employing a smooth uptown arrangement, he rerecorded “Gone” for Capitol in Nashville. The single went on to spend 10 weeks at No. 1 on the country charts and climbed to No. 4 on the pop chart.

From Today's Flea Market

Of course I am not referring to the dog, flea-bitten or not.

I bought a little "Pendleton" fleece jacket today for Sam.  It is XXS, which barely fits him.  If he gained another pound, it would be too tight on him.  The woman selling pet clothing makes these items herself, with her mother knitting dog sweaters.  Sam seems to like it.

I found this site explaining the origin of the term "flea market" interesting.

Education Rant of the Day

I'll pick David Berliner over the likes of John Merrow any day of the week, any time of the year.

When you write nonsense that principals should have even MORE power than they already have, and also brag up the likes of Rhee and Vallas, then you are a clueless fuck about education and teacher "quality."

The problem is with the education hierarchy, that it is almost impossible to remove administrators when they abuse their power, while teachers have to take whatever shit is dumped on them. The LAST thing schools need is even more abuse by principals, who are invariably unionized, and, as one commenter at Huffington Post wrote, are "tenaciously tenured."

It's the power structure, stupid.

Given the Fact School Principals are the Least Capable People

in the system, the notion of "merit pay" and firing teachers after "unsatisfactory" evals is a total absurdity, put through by people who haven't a goddamned clue about education but prefer to gut pay and benefits for public employees in general.

Teacher contracts typically aren't worth the paper they are written on, but this Florida legislation makes the scam apparent to all:

The measure is of a piece with similar legislation around the US, placing the burden of the economic crisis on the backs of working people, and targeting public sector workers in particular as allegedly overcompensated and unaccountable. The proposed bill eliminates tenure for new hires and allows school districts to take back tenure even from teachers who are grandfathered in from the old system if they have two years of inadequate performance, or, for that matter, if they move to another county within the state!

The goal, of course, is to ditch public education altogether in Florida.

Where are the massive protests there, by the way?

Other Than the Likes of Glenn Beck

bitching about how "his" money once blown in on booze is now going to "support" those "bums" collecting unemployment insurance, people have largely forgotten those who are jobless.

I should correct that and say those "people" who have forgotten are the on-the-take politicians of both political parties in D.C., who are far concerned with what their wealthy donors want than the people who voted them in.

Of course having a huge number of people who can't find jobs since there are few to be created helps drive down wages and salaries even more.

Etc.

Wisconsin public employees got a bit of a reprieve from a judge blocking Walker's attempt to destroy unions in that state.
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Etc. and News

Japanese officials aren't telling the truth about how dire the nuclear situation is.
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Wisconsin protesters decided to crash a GOP event in D.C. for the traitors who tried to sell public employees down the river.
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Etc. and News

Still another article quoting some outfit saying we need to get better teachers, all the while, of course, districts around the country are getting rid of the most "expensive" and best teachers, and all the while we have pundits, reporters, and "reformers" telling us how shitty teachers are and how we need to get rid of them.

Do you think anybody is going to bother going into these hellholes knowing a person can't make a career out of teaching anymore?
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The Decline and Fall of the United States of America

Or, a bad penny always returns: Disgraced politician Sharron Angle has announced her candidacy for the United States congressional seat now being vacated by incumbent Dean Heller, who is running for John Ensign's Senate seat.

I am sure the Washoe County Republican Party will panic and put in somebody who isn't a laughingstock. It is critical they do, for this seat has NEVER gone Democratic since it was created thirty years ago.

You can watch her video at the link.

If There is Anything More Stupid Than the Oregon Legislature,

I don't know what is. They want to gut the ESDs in favor of dumping these high-needs kids into classrooms paid for by cash-strapped school districts instead of the services being contracted out, which is far less expensive and far better and more efficient.

Are these idiot politicians out of their fucking minds? Do they even UNDERSTAND just how expensive it is to educate these kids? Do they understand students with severe autism can become violent and create a huge disturbance in the classroom and need special programs and classrooms? Do they understand education AT ALL? Do they understand you have to have trained staff to handle toileting and tube feeding issues?

Most school districts in Oregon are small; they aren't like the big districts in Nevada, for example, which can supply the services through their school districts. Most of these districts in Oregon are municipal, as in almost everywhere else in the country, and it is just impractical to gut ESDs.

link

Of course this is all about cutting budgets and saving money; to hell with what is best for the students.

And these idiots quoted in the article about drastically changing the law are confusing the fact a STEPS classroom in Medford was not included in the new high school building with the idea of having a STEPS program by the ESD at all.

From the professionals:

Sandra Crews, special education director at the Southern Oregon Education Service District said the bills could reduce choices for special education students and their families.

"They might not have self-contained classrooms at all for students such as autism,"
Crews said. "It would be really hard for districts to set something up that would be age- and disability-appropriate.

"The fear I have is it will be more costly, and school districts won't be able to provide the services," she said.

And students with disabilities have the right to a free, APPROPRIATE education. That doesn't mean dumping the kids in underprepared school districts and classrooms. ESDs are WAY more efficient than school districts providing the very expensive services themselves.

Our politicians have no fucking clue what they are talking about or are doing. It's cut, cut, cut, and to hell with the consequences.

I Didn't Bother Watching the Public Education Hit Job on 60 Minutes

The program over the years has trashed public education; I especially remember Lesley Stahl's smears of public ed.

Of course this piece had as its underlying message "tenure," which has been deliberately distorted to mean teachers have it "made" by the third year. As yours truly can attest from experience, that is bullshit, and you don't have to be a "bad" teacher to get fired. It's very, very easy for school districts to do. "Tenure" actually protects school districts from more wrongful termination lawsuits by putting the brakes on idiotic principals' worst impulses. Of course, the idiots can do it anyway, as school districts routinely flout the law to protect these assholes.

No person in his or her right mind, a potential "superteacher" or not, is going to waste tens of thousands of dollars being trained for a high-stress, low-paid job where he or she can be tossed out before he or she ever gets vesting in retirement.

News, Comments, Etc.

What teachers need, including Wisconsin teachers, are REAL unions with REAL clout who will actually stand up for the rank and file instead of selling them down the river when push comes to shove.

A comment from the piece:

As a kid, I saw what unions were doing for people. They helped people get better wages and it brought up the standard of living. Now the union has lost its voice, and the power has all gone to the corporation. Starting in the late 60’s early 70’s the unions were losing their power; there have been fundamental changes.

It's as if they were deliberately co-opted.
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If teachers especially had real unions, there would be no executive directors willing to cut deals and take bribes in order for principals and senior administrators to cover up their wrongdoing (by committing MORE wrongdoing, of course) as in my case or simply target a teacher who dares to have an opinon.

It is a national problem, however.
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If I had a dollar for every lie WCSD officials and WEA has told in this article, I'd be richer than Bill Gates.

News, Comments, Etc.

Once upon a time, the Atlantic was one of the truly great magazines in the United States, but now the Kochroaches have infested that publication, too.

Another bimbo know-nothing thinks she knows what is ailing public education.
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Idiotic lawsuits like this one are why people bitch about curbing "frivolous" lawsuits.
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WI

Despite the seeming collusion between the Democratic lawmakers and the unions and the dictator in the governor's office, I hope the protests against the gutting of collective bargaining and budget cuts continues.

Something like 100,000 people protested this weekend.

Meanwhile, it's time to look at the REAL agenda of Walker's, or rather the Koch brothers.

Too Much Rain from His Hometown of Yamhill, Oregon,

has rotted the brain of NYT columnist and public school graduate Nicholas Kristof when it comes to writing about public education.

Either that or he feels he must kowtow to his bosses at the paper and continue with peddling neoliberal rot.

Apparently the "brilliant" women who used to flood public schools have decided to be surgeons, or shyster attorneys, or newspaper columnists and we now have morons graduating from teachers' colleges, or so people like him think.

I don't think Kristof would know what a "great teacher" was if one bit him in the ass. Of course no teacher, great or not-so-great, would bite him in the butt and risk his or her career and license. However, administrators like Michelle Rhee can duct tape students, publicly joke about it, and make tons of taxpayer money instead of having her license yanked and be banned from the field.

After all administrators, not teachers, are the real problem in public ed, but the "reforms" have nothing whatever to do with putting in "great teachers." It has to do with dismantling public institutions because they run counter to neoliberal "thinking." The public good does not exist; everything must be subject to something called "market forces."

In any case, talk is cheap regarding teachers. Nobody in his or her right mind would go into this field now given the shabby way they are treated.

News, Etc.

The Koch brothers really have too much time and too much money on their hands; these parasites need to be paying their fair share in taxes instead of trying to make things harder for everybody else.

They are going around the country trying to change laws protecting the right to unionize.
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If it weren't for dumb shit parents, dumb shit politicians, dumb shit reporters, and dumb shit administrators, teachers' jobs would be so much better.
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The death toll from the Japanese earthquake/tsunami could exceed 10,000:

Millions of Japanese were without drinking water, electricity or proper food Sunday, two days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami hammered the northeastern coast, killing at least 1,000 people.

Police in Japan's northeastern Miyagi prefecture warned, however, that the death toll in that hard-hit area alone would likely exceed 10,000.

As I Have Said Many, Many Times,

college is a colossal waste of money and a piss-poor substitute for a union when there are few jobs existing for college graduates.

The overwhelming majority of jobs, historically and now, require little education beyond high school and can't be "outsourced." Sales clerks, janitors, nurses aides, and other "entry-level" jobs are still there in the millions.

There needs to be more unionization, not less. There needs to be a complete reversal of economic policies of the last thirty years.

More from Krugman

Japan Earthquake

The 8.9 earthquake centered off the coast of Japan was the seventh largest in the history of the world. Hundreds are believed dead; the only thing preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths is that Japan is a wealthy, industrialized country with buildings that are made to withstand earthquakes for the most part.

If this had occurred in China or Indonesia, the death toll would have run into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

Seven earthquakes over magnitude 8 have rocked Japan since 1891. In 1923, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake killed 147,000 people in and around Tokyo, mainly due to fires that raged through wooden and paper houses. In 1995, despite strict building codes in modern city areas, more than 6,000 people died in the Kobe earthquake, predominantly in poorer, working class districts where the government had failed to implement the higher standards.

The entire Pacific Rim was put on high alert last night after a tsunami warning was issued throughout the region. Tsunamis were feared across the Pacific, because the earthquake was almost as powerful as the 9.1-sized quake off Indonesia that set off the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, killing more than 200,000 people.

The waves that sped across the Pacific at speeds of up to 800 kilometres per hour were so powerful that they reached California early yesterday morning local time, where they pummelled the harbour at Crescent City in the state’s north. Residents had heeded the blaring evacuation sirens, and this saved lives, but the tsunamis ripped chunks off wooden docks and destroyed or damaged two dozen or so boats. One man who tried taking photographs of the tsunami on a beach about 20 kilometres south of town was swept out to sea. Federal seismologists said the 3-metre swells that roared into Crescent City were the largest to hit the United States on Friday—higher than the 2-metre surges that hit Hawaii. The rest of the California shoreline quickly began seeing surges after that. By then, all residents in low-lying areas had been urged to evacuate, and officials closed some schools and coastal roads as a precaution.

A seismologist says this earthquake belongs in a completely different class from the usual kind of earthquake.

He happened to turn on the television 10 minutes after it struck and started watching the coverage. The initial reports were that it was a magnitude 7.9 quake. Kent said it is common to underestimate the strength of powerful quakes until better assessments are made. Then he saw footage of the tsunami hitting Japan.

“I was looking at the tsunami wave and I said there was no way that was a 7.9,” Kent said. “I knew it was going to creep up to the 9 just by looking at the tsunami.”

From the point of an earthquake, Japan seemed well-prepared for what happened, Kent said. Many of the structural safety features worked to protect people against earthquakes.

“There is no other nation that is greater prepared than Japan for large earthquakes,” he said.

But it’s the following tsunami that did so much of the damage.

As people know, a nuclear plant exploded.

More about it.


Video showing a tsunami's destruction:

So Why is It

gas and food prices are going through the roof? The same reason housing prices went through the roof:

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News, Etc.

A massive earthquake has struck Japan. It was measured 8.8 or 8.9, depending on the news source.

The link provides live updates, including tsunami reports.
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Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy

Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy


Either tonight or this weekend I will make it a point to watch this brand new documentary about what is REALLY going on in the world.

Even If Recall Efforts Are Successful

in Wisconsin, that may not be enough to change course. Our political system is completely broken, and to think more drastic action isn't necessary is a bit naive considering the fascists out to destroy this country and turn it into a third world one.

Yet Another Reason

Republicans and their neoliberal ilk need to be tossed into the trash can of history:

As unionism peaked from the 1930s through the 1960s, from the old IWW through the salad days of the AFL-CIO and the UAW, we saw American prosperity grow in leaps and bounds to the point at which we became the greatest economic engine that the world has ever seen. This success was a result of sharing the fruits of our industry widely, and this sharing was only accomplished by the balancing power of union power against the power of property ownership. It is no coincidence that our prosperity has waned as the power of organized labor has been eliminated -- the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands at the top is a direct result of this imbalance of power, and it inevitably causes the situation to arise where consumer markets fueled by worker incomes are no longer prosperous enough to purchase domestically manufactured goods in quantities necessary to sustain growth. We saw it in the 1870s, and again in the 1920s, and again today.

This is the situation that Republicans in their slavish devotion to greed strive to achieve, through tax cuts, through cuts in the budget that mainly affect the underprivileged classes, through internationalization that makes our workers compete in their salaries with rag sellers in third-world nations, and by systematically stripping workers of rights, most prominently the freedom of association.

Fer cryin' out loud, it was less than two years ago that Republicans in Congress tried to end -- completely Chapter 7 bankrupt -- the ENTIRE American automobile industry because of the temporary inability of prospective car buyers to obtain credit, a situation brought about by the very same robber barons they represent. They did this to break the back of the UAW. Now, how can any American not hate that?

So if you or any of your loved ones work for a paycheck, then you have very good and valid reasons to hate Republicans. A vote for any Republican at any level of jurisdiction is a vote against your own economic and social interests, and of course also against democracy itself.

Since Evaluations Have ALWAYS Been Used

to oust teachers principals don't want, and since there is a concerted war on the teaching profession in general in order to privatize public institutions which are cornerstones of democracy, I frankly don't give a shit what a newspaper that has been in the forefront of trashing teachers says about "evaluations." They don't know a goddamned thing about public education and about how unaccountable principals are for their actions, that they can literally be completely incompetent and negligent in their jobs and still be allowed to make obscene salaries while teachers are ruined.

Changing evaluations to make it even more likely the most expensive teachers are thrown out the door to make way for the bimbo brigades, who in turn are fired before they EVER get vested in retirement, doesn't change the rot that is at the top and middle in public school systems around the country.

It's the administrators, not the teachers, stupid.

News, Etc.

The road to serfdom, indeed the road to ruin, begins with neoliberalism.
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Obscenely wealthy morons Bill and Melinda Gates continue with their anti-public education poison by further trying to propagandize the masses to support their filthy, undemocratic scheme.
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"Merit" Really Doesn't Exist,

but in public education, "merit" can apply to any worker who is young, pliable, and willing to work for nothing.

That's what it's all about anyway.

The War Against Workers in Wisconsin

A typical Republican, Scott Walker couldn't care less about the law and last night illegally rammed through a law which gutted collective bargaining for public employees.

Some have indicated this is a cynical ploy by the GOP to try and force rioting and then be able to run campaigns denouncing "lawlessness," which they themselves instigated.

It's really the cynical politics, stupid:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now That Walker Has Told Wisconsin Public Employees to Take a Hike,

what will they do in return?

I know what they SHOULD do, but of course that isn't going to happen. I wonder how long the recall process takes in that state.

More to the point, how did the voters so badly screw up as to vote a bunch of Republicans in both houses and in the governorship?

One Nation, By and For the Rich

Yet another outfit we have to be concerned about which is designed to con the masses into supporting increasing economic stratification in this country. This organization, ALEC, seeks to undermine worker protections, including unions, of course.

There are so many of these front groups it is very difficult to keep track.

Just another argument in support of the idea the rich have WAY too much time and WAY too much money on and in their hands.

News, Etc.

"He came and trashed the place, and it wasn't his place."

The "dean" of the Beltway mob, Wshington Post columnist David Broder, has died of complications from diabetes.

He was 81 years old.

That's all I am going to say about him. That quote, of course, was Broder's being upset the White House was "tarnished" by former president Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky crap.
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Senator Ensign should resign, according to the cuckolded husband of Ensign's ex-girlfriend, Doug Hampton.

Of course that's not likely to happen. Hampton ought to be grateful this cheat isn't seeking another term.
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News, Etc.

Why should private employees be bitching about public employees' benefits when in fact they should be asking their employers why they are screwing them over?

This is yet another triumph of propaganda over truth.
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Will Wisconsin's Democratic politicians sell workers down the river? Stay tuned.

Chile Comes to America

at least according to scholar Lois Weiner, who gave this interview last September (HT Queens Teacher):



Part Two:



Ed Schultz or Rachel Maddow should have her on because she looks at the big picture.

Nobody Should Be Surprised That Obama

shares the stage with crooks like Jeb Bush; after all, he is one of them anyway. I hope teachers and others hold HIM accountable for his filthy rhetoric and policies undermining public education in this country.

Obama needs to go, and somebody else needs to replace him who is a REAL Democrat.

I Just Love This Liar

who claims "tenure" for public school teachers is a "lifetime" job. That is utter bullshit, and he knows it. All it does is prevent more lawsuits leveled at school districts for idiotic principals' actions.

The bottom line is there is NO such thing as "merit" and teachers can not be "objectively" evaluated for "effectiveness," certainly not with the idiots and sociopaths typically in charge of individual schools. Kids aren't widgets or sales objects.

News, Etc.

Demand for a general strike in Wisconsin grows in light of the likelihood the so-called Democratic legislators are about to cave in to Walker's insane demands.
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And we know or should know cries the states are broke and we can't do anything about it are simply lies put forward by a media and politicians bought off by the financial elites who have created the economic crisis in the place:

The problem is the entrenched power of the capitalist ruling class and its total domination of the political system. The two established parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the financial elite. Both parties defend the profits and property of the owners of the banks and giant corporations.

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Facing almost certain defeat and embarrassment next year in losing the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, incumbent John Ensign uses the "family" excuse to not seek re-election.

News, Etc.

If you need a job, prepare to learn Chinese and move there.

Actually, the new paradise for slave-dependent employers is Vietnam. I have noticed more products being made there now for selling here. The Vietnamese make even less money than the Chinese.

Seriously, though, our trade policies MUST be reversed to avoid almost certain bloodshed in this country. It can be done without bloodshed PROVIDED our elected officials quit sucking off the teat of the neoliberals and rich donors or we find people to elect who DO actually represent the people.

My Response

to this piece about so-called teacher "due process" and "tenure" can be found right here:

Let's be honest here about "tenure," from somebody who is presumably a "bad" teacher because my school district chose to violate federal law and state statutes in order to protect an incompetent principal, who, by the way, did not implement ANY improvement program, violated FMLA, and a host of other things at the behest of human resources. They in turn rigged my hearing by committing offenses that if done in a regular legal proceeding would be subject to criminal charges. These things are routine in "due process" hearings.

Well, the purpose of "tenure" isn't to protect teachers at all but to protect school districts from even more lawsuits as a result of idiotic principals deciding to fire teachers they don't want. However, once the process of firing starts, it is almost impossible for the teacher to fight back as the districts have unlimited funds to fight you. What districts typically do is try and starve you into settling, thus giving up ALL your legal rights for a pittance and most likely any right to unemployment compensation. Most teachers don't fight bogus allegations but either take settlements (which there is NO evidence it makes them any more likely to be hired than somebody who fights and loses) or early retirement.

Being non-renewed or fired outright has little to do with the quality of the teacher and everything to do with the obscene power imbalance between principals and teachers. Principals are almost impossible to fire, by the way, no matter how bad they are.




By the way, in theory you can file an appeal of an arbitrator or school board's decision, but the reality is the union will NOT pay for your representation, so unless you have a couple of hundred thousand dollars up front for a lawyer who practices ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, you are out of luck. Unless your termination is a result of discrimination based on a protected class, as I was in a protected class but was made COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF MY LEGAL RIGHTS thanks to my "union" and my union attorney and thus the statute of limitations ran out on filing EEOC, DOL, and federal lawsuits, you are out of luck there.

The author of the Forbes piece confuses administrative law with civil rights law. They are two completely different legal tracks. If you "win" an administrative hearing, you will NOT collect damages except get back your job and back pay. If you lose an administrative hearing and have money to burn on appeals, the appellate court COULD do the same thing or simply order another administrative hearing held. Filing a wrongful termination case in court is much different and the grounds are extremely narrow. Not only that, but it is almost impossible to find a lawyer willing to take your case, which can drag on for up to 5 or 10 years.

In other words, a principal can do pretty much what he or she wants, thanks to the enormous legal obstacles facing any teacher to fight a termination. School districts can flout the law with impunity, knowing nobody will ever hold them responsible for their administrators' actions.

News, Etc.

The February jobs report was not anything to brag about.
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These Clips Hit It on the Head

about the sheer audacity of people who want to trash teachers while letting the real culprits get off scot-free:

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Diane Ravitch tries to school viewers about the problem being poverty:

The Daily Show - Diane Ravitch
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

One Has to Understand

that of course it is the poverty, stupid, when it comes to education and students being left behind, but the reformers don't care to deal with poverty because they want MORE OF IT. Kicking more people out of a middle class livelihood (whether it is being a teacher or other public employee) is the goal here. Reducing living standards to third world levels is the ultimate goal.

Without Teaching and Teachers,

society as we know it wouldn't exist, and people like Jeb, Bill, Eli, and Barry wouldn't be able to have enough knowledge to despise the profession if they weren't taught how to read, write, and speak in bullshit terms.

Not that the "reformers" care. Money is a bigger factor with these cretins.

link

Given that I believe that teaching may well be the profession with the greatest responsibility and require the truly best and brightest, wisest and most motivated, most creative and compassionate people, the argument that teachers are overpaid because they make more than the “average worker” is not only absurb, it is also dangerous. We rightly decry bad teachers in our schools, and I am the first to agree that bad teachers are overpaid. I think they’re overpaid if they they make $30K/year. They should be fired, period, just as incompetent doctors are stripped of their licenses. But we are now doing the opposite of promoting master teaching and reducing poor teaching. Instead of seeding our schools with great teachers, many of the most creative and brilliant educators are leaving a field laden with bureaucracy, rote memorization for standardized bubble tests, increased classroom size, and now the insulting commentary from a public that wants to reduce their already inadequate wages and which seems to have forgotten who it is who has the grave responsibility of educating our children. The best teachers are fed up, and many are deciding to take their talents and skills elsewhere, where they’ll not only get paid more but where their intelligence and creativity will also be respected and rewarded. This is the great irony and tragedy of the “discussion” we’re having through the media, launched by the protests in Wisconsin against a governor trying to bust the unions. We say we want to fix the educational system, which indeed needs an overhaul not just repair, but by denigrating the profession and claiming that $51K/year plus good benefits is excessive, we are doing the opposite of creating better schools for our kids.

That's 51k--BEFORE taxes eat it up.

Scoundrels of a Feather

definitely stick together. It should be apparent to all of the world Obama is far more comfortable hanging out with Republicans as he really is one himself.

Even hanging out with one as scandal-ridden and vile as Jeb Bush. But then again Obama IS from Chicago, that center of ethical political activity.

Breaking bread with Jeb Bush on school reform should be a questionable proposition for a president from a party that has traditionally championed public education (which is not to say it doesn’t need reform) and teachers unions (which is not to say that they should not reform).

Florida is about to gut all teacher protections.

This Piece is Supposedly Satire,

but there is more truth in it than he realizes.

Age and experience surely don't count in this increasingly privatized and poisonous education climate.

I mean, billionaire funders and chancellors/superintendents don't need much in the way of knowledge about schools, so why should teachers be saddled with the same burden?

News, Etc.

It appears Nevada governor Brian Sandoval is just like Jim Gibbons, only more photogenic.

He's really way in over his head. At least one of the comments following the article suggests Nevada should revoke its charter and become a territory of the United States. The situation is dire if not completely hopeless there.
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Ohio workers have been given the shaft by the nutjobs in the state senate.

What else did voters expect when they put these extremists in?

Snip:

After the bill passed the senate Wednesday, the president of the AFL-CIO in Ohio issued a statement treating the measure as though it were already law, even though it must still be introduced in the House. AFL-CIO head Tim Burga called the bill’s senate passage “a sad day for Ohio’s middle class.” He made no mention of further demonstrations against the bill, much less strikes in opposition to its passage.

The unions are far more fearful that serious resistance to the bill—including the possibility of a general strike—could emerge, than they are of losing their role in the contract negotiation process. With a large working class that has been hard hit by the decline of heavy industry—auto, steel, and tire production—there is enormous social anger in this state of 11.5 million, whose economy is larger than that of Sweden.

Once Upon a Time

people actually revered teachers even though they were paid very little for their efforts. People back then knew what public education was all about, but thanks to propaganda beginning with the fraudulent A Nation at Risk in 1983, teachers are held in almost lower esteem than attorneys or used car salesmen.

It's all on purpose to get people geared up for the day when they will work for pennies an hour and never, ever be able to attain upward mobility. People can go fucking die for all these elites care. In the meantime, everybody who works in public institutions must be demonized and destroyed in order for these elites' third world fantasies to come true.

The NYT, of course, has been in the forefront of lying about education, tenure, and teachers. Is it any wonder people are swallowing the bullshit hook, line, and sinker?

But what happens when eventually the teacher supply dries up? Who in their right mind would go into a field where they cannot even make a career out of it but have their lives and livelihood destroyed after two or three years of constant abuse by administrators if they don't teach to the test? I am sure the ultimate goal of the privatizers is distance learning for students "taught" by slave-wage "teachers" in India or China, who will never know how to work with others, like many if not most homeschooled kids, be basically ignorant of the world around them, and will take any kind of garbage the powers-that-be want.

If education is in bad shape, blame that corrupt son-of-a-bitch in the White House. The next presidential election can't come soon enough to get rid of this fraud, this neoliberal.

I Like This Column by Valerie Strauss

about the "Diane Ravitch Myth." Everybody should read this piece.

She is revered by teachers because she knows what she is talking about and is willing to admit when she is wrong about policy. She is reviled by the asshole reformers because of those very reasons.

Public education is a civic institution designed for the public good. It is NOT a business and CANNOT be run on business models. That is why the "reforms" will fail, but I think it has gotten to the point where the privatizers frankly don't give a shit if their ideas are unworkable. The whole point of their reforms to destroy upward mobility for the vast majority, to make Americans work for the same pittance as those in Vietnam and in China. Of course, these morons don't understand that people who work for little cannot buy what these assholes are selling, but don't you dare tell them that they are stupid.

This Expresses My Thoughts

as to why the GOP cannot be dealt with because they are basically anti-American. Of course, that hasn't stopped Bend Over Barry from trying to compromise with a gang of nutball fascists:

What the Republicans are doing is very dangerous to America and to democracy. Their policies are specifically designed to lower the standard of living of American workers and make America less powerful economically, socially and militarily. They welcome disasters they think they can blame on somebody else, even at the cost of millions of American lives and trillions of American dollars.

They hate nothing more than for government's most beneficial policies to succeed in easing human suffering, or reducing international tensions, or lightening the burdens our families, particularly our children, face. If something harms American education, they are for it. If something diminishes American science, they are for it. If something dirties our water or our air, they are for it. If something places closer surveillance on our private activities, they are for it. If something wastes energy, they are for it. If the choice is between diplomacy and war, they choose war. If the choice is between kindness and cruelty, they'll opt for cruelty every time.

Their goal is nothing short of a permanent corporate feudalism without class mobility or hope, with our robber barons enjoying a hereditary aristocracy in all but name, unassailable by the aspirations of the great masses of Americans on whose backs they stand in their opulent tyranny. The idea of an American worker wanting time of his own outside his employer's control, or who wants job security, benefits and a pension like we all once enjoyed, and might not wish to be financially ruined because his child falls ill -- these people -- American workers, American families, American children -- are regarded as beggars in the street, and the robber barons now perhaps have obtained the power to eliminate these offensive sights from their field of vision through neglect, disease, deportation and imprisonment, or by intimidating them to the point at which they will hide from view and no longer ask for fairness, for justice, for rights, for hope, since the effrontery of asking will place even those meager pittances they retain at risk.

Hey, if I believed in these cruel, selfish and short-sighted things and supported these vile politicians of the right, well, I might not want it pointed out either. But tough noogies. I am going to point it out, I am going to keep pointing it out, and I appreciate the many, many notes of support I receive from those of you with brains and hearts. I will continue to scoff with gusto at those whose thoughts are less charitable toward me and toward the American people than they ought to be until they either come around to a more beneficial way of thinking or stop sending their crap to me -- for an extended period of time.

But anyhow, as I was saying, the right is smarter now. Instead of allowing true, fully funded continuing resolutions until the eventual budget showdown, much earlier in the game, resulted in a shutdown of the American government like we saw in 1995, the right-wingers now extract major concessions for each step in a whole series of very brief continuing resolutions, each one chipping away at the New Deal and the Great Society piece by piece. We gave up four more billion dollars yesterday to keep the government running only two more weeks. What will The Great Capitulator give up two weeks from now? What will he forfeit from his "meet 'em WAY more than halfway" budget proposal to finally get an actual budget passed? What will he give up in return for a debt extension to keep us from default? The mind of this old New Dealer reels to contemplate it.

Now, mind you, the "majority" won by the right in the 2010 election wasn't all that landslidey. They won a few heavily targeted House districts and a couple of heavily targeted Senate seats, with almost all of the actual TEA Party candidates going down to ignominious defeat. The only major TEA Party victory was in Kentucky, where Rand Paul replaced the equally crazy, if not actually crazier, Jim Bunning (what on earth is wrong with the voters in Kentucky, too much moonshine?). All of their other headliners lost, some in particularly embarrassing fashion. Almost all of the TEA Party's victories came in Republican primaries, not in the general election, and in many cases (Nevada, Delaware and Connecticut spring to mind) cost the Republicans seats they might have taken had they run somebody who was able to put forth even the slightest claim to sanity.

But they have parlayed this self-proclaimed "mandate" into real power by intimidating the Republican leadership, who unfortunately now control the House, to do their bidding or see their own incumbents face serious challenges for renomination. The flea-bitten TEA Party tail is wagging the Republican Party dog, and a rabid dog is something to be feared, not respected, not listened to, not followed, and not compromised with.

Smart, vicious and crazy is a really bad combination. When somebody is always wrong, I really do not want him to be clever enough to succeed in implementing his ideas.

Chalk Up Another Victory for the Eli Broad Bunch

as Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson, superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, was ousted after it was discovered there was financial malfeasance in the district.

Johnson will probably find another school district to ruin, or else Eli or Obama will find her a cushy job.

These people always bounce back.

For a first-person account of the sacking, go here.

News, Etc.

It's time for a nationwide strike supporting workers, and not just one limited to Wisconsin.
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Nevada Decides to Join the Rest of the Country

in vilifying teachers with "reforms" aimed at deprofessionalizing teaching and screwing them out of vesting in PERS or getting full retirement benefits.

Lots of ignorance displayed in this proposed legislation, which fails to address the real problem with school administrators.

News, Etc.

Public employees in Ohio are just as pissed off as those in Wisconsin and are demonstrating against what the GOP is trying to do in that state.
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It appears another Eli Broadie superintendent is about to bite the dust, this one in Seattle, Washington, thanks to scandal.
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Of course having an obscene amount of money and being a celebrity doesn't mean you know anything, but in order to compensate, you merely try to buy off public opinion and politicians to get through your ignorant ideas. Naturally Bill Gates is the perfect example.

Gates and his old lady need to go away and quit trying to pollute public discourse.
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It is ALWAYS the teacher's fault no matter what anybody else does.

Unbelievable.

The administration dropped the ball by not putting in a districtwide cell phone ban. Kids don't need them; they can use the office phone if they need to contact parents.

It's too easy a temptation for kids to misuse them.

Attack on Teachers

Wisconsin teachers have sharply criticized the Koch's puppet's attempt to slash the budget to their detriment.

This person hits the whole thing on the head:

A retired public employee who worked at Department of Transportation told the WSWS, “We’re here to defend workers’ rights. If they take teachers’ collective bargaining rights they are going to pay for the $1 billion in cuts by throwing out the older, higher paid teachers. Why pay $45,000 for an older teacher when you can hire someone for $15,000? We have grandchildren in the public schools and they are going to affected.

“Public employees haven’t had a raise in ten years. The former governor [Democrat Jim Doyle] imposed furloughs. My daughter and son-in-law are both public employees. If they have to pay more for health care and pension benefits it will cost them $600 a month. They’re already paying $1,600 for childcare every month. At the same time they are giving tax cuts to the richest two percent in America.”

That's IF anybody is stupid enough to waste the time and money to go to college to go into a job that one can't ever make a career out of. Unless one becomes a crooked administrator.

Of course the more expensive hires will always be tossed out. Experienced always does mean better than some newbie when it comes to education or to any other occupation. But the older teachers who may not have as many years in are also seen as too expensive because of health insurance concerns. They also aren't as easy to "mold" into some complaint teacher to take shit from a stupid principal, and most of them ARE stupid.

News, Etc.

After giving handouts to his corporate backers, Gov. Walker proposes some $1 billion in budget cuts.
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Andrew Cuomo brings shame and disgrace to his family's name by trashing teacher seniority rules and "tenure," which actually protects school districts from even more lawsuits.
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The less I hear from Michelle Rhee and her ilk in the education "reform" movement, the better.