Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Honestly, what ELSE would you expect an enormous collective enterprise (now, more that 300 MILLION people), which relies on cooperation and understanding among wildly disparate cultural and ethnic groups, and a common stock of shared meanings for it's merest survival, to do?
Lights, Camera, Ideology: The full-frontal attack on public schooling has been financially underwritten and generously sponsored by Right-wing ideologues (including the Gates Foundation). No, really.
The cinematic portrayals of USer schools have NEVER been particularly flattering for the institution, of course, but they have been numerous, and they have almost always ended with a glimmer of hope.
One consistent theme of Hollywood portrayals of schools - from Blackboard Jungle (1955), Up the Down Staircase (1967) and Stand and Deliver (1988) to Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), October Sky (1999) and Freedom Writers (2007) - has been the idealistic teacher fighting to serve his and her students against overwhelming odds, including uncaring administrators, cynical colleagues, a stultifying required curriculum that crushes the spirit of teachers and students alike, dilapidated conditions, budget cuts, unruly and hostile students, or students suffering from the symptoms of poverty or neglect. The underlying message is that while occasionally a rare teacher can light a spark in a few students, our public schools are failing most of the students they are supposed to serve. Most documentaries about education - from Frederick Wiseman's High School (1968) to Bill Moyers' Children in America's Schools (1996) - paint a similarly grim picture.The difference? As Deep Throat told Woodstein: "Follow the money."
Grim, but not hopeless. All these films hold out the prospect that change is possible if society is willing to honestly confront the social, economic, and bureaucratic conditions that have made public education less effective than it could and should be.
In contrast, the two most recent high-profile films about public education - the documentary Waiting for Superman (2010) and Hollywood's Won't Back Down (2012), starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis - portray our public schools as beyond reform and redemption. (emphasis supplied)
Doing so reveals that the deep pockets sponsoring and underwriting the recent spate of attacks belong to COrpoRatz who advocate the complete abandonment of Public Schools and the privatization of the whole system. The big players in this game are "philanthropic" interests: The Gates Foundation,Phil Anschutz and other Righturd billionaires are in on the deal:
It is no accident that both films promote similar themes. Both were produced by Walden Media, which is owned by Phil Anschutz, a right-wing businessman who owns two of the nation's premier conservative publications (the Weekly Standard and the Washington Examiner) and whose foundation has donated $210,000 to the antiunion National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund. Anschutz is also a backer of Americans for Prosperity, the political war chest founded by the right-wing Koch brothers and has donated to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has made dismantling labor unions a key part of his policy agenda. Anschutz also spent $10,000 in 1992 to promote Colorado's Proposition 2, which let private property owners discriminate against gays and lesbians, $150,000 to the Mission America Foundation, which condemns homosexuality as "deviance," and $70,000 to the Discovery Institute, which attacks the idea of evolution and proclaims that "Darwinism is false."
Because Building Hope is also using government grants and tax-exempt foundation funds to provide capital to the for-profit
charter sector, allowing charter management organizations and charter
school landowners, like the Zuluetas, to maximize their profits.
Thanks to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.NVmaFp3F.dpuf
Thanks to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.NVmaFp3F.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
In education reform, there is no such thing as a well-meaning amateur. They've ALL got agendas, and children, their education and/or care, aren't on them."Venture Philanthropy" & Zombie Capitalism: Speaking of Bill and Mal-inda Gates, here you will find a compilation of letters from teachers in the trenches beseeching the Gates' to just leave education the fuck ALONE, since neither they nor anyone associated with them knows the least fujcking thing about 'education,' other than what they learned in detention.
Follow The MONEY!
There's just pots and sacks ond and bags of money in education, if you can tickle the right buttons. Not for teachers, of course. And not for kids; heaver fuuking forfend.
Scammers are as thick as flies on a suppurating wound around the money that hemorrhages from the Privatization-enamored Duncan/LowBar DoE. The Joyce Foundation is one such blood-sucking creature. Interestingly, through the Gordian knots and labyrinthine permutations of Chicago power and politics, the name and influence of President LowBar seems to be always just below the surface, aas the moguls scheme to close schools in poor districts and free up capital for other projects.
And, if you're slick enough, and sleek enough, and reek sufficiently of sun-tanning oil, and wear enough gold jewelry, and maybe do vanilla rap, you can surely feather your nest, and improve your cash flow in the "Skule Binness." Just like in vacation condominiums.
Just ask THESE worthies "How to make BIG money in charter schools.":
This tale, limned by the astute and well-regarded tracker of many things financial on the educational prairies, the Jersey Jazzman, lays it all out for you, in all its slime and sleeze. He, by the way, comes recommended by the patron saint of The BATs, members of the F-book discussion group, BadAss Teachers, the redoubtable Prof. Diane Ravitch. His site interferes with c&p, so ya gotta go there to read the gory details.
Re: BadAssTeachers: It's a lively group of pissed-off professional educators, unafraid to take up delicate issues, though their unshakable principles are distinctly opposed to those of the Corporatz' "reformers," like Duncan, Michelle Rhee, the Gates Foundation, Pearson Edn in Britain, and assorted, wealthy educational quacks like .What are they pissed off about? The Phi Delta Kappan, house-rag of the national educational honorary society said it this way:
And, what specifically are they not happy about? School closures in Chicago. Massive layoffs in Philadelphia. Union leaders who listen more to billionaires than the people the unions represent. Democrats who have fallen in line with conservative education reform plans. Excessive testing and evaluations based on student test scores. States undermining teachers’ bargaining rights and pensions. Being labeled as bad, bad, bad, bad, bad for everything that goes wrong in a school.As to what they wanna do about it? From a piece in the AJC:
Our Mission: Badass Teachers Association was created to give voice to every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality through education. BAT members refuse to accept assessments, tests and evaluations created and imposed by corporate driven entities that have contempt for authentic teaching and learning.
Our goals: BATs aim to reduce or eliminate the use of high stakes testing, increase teacher autonomy in the classroom and work to include teacher and family voices in legislative decision-making processes that affect students.
Speaking of Diane Ravitch: I am sorry that by the time you see this, it will already be too late. Really, this didn't show up until Monday, the 15th, and by then the vote was only a day off. Depending on when this runs on the blog. WTF: Who can justify/rationalize "national "perrformance' standards for teachers?" This is an issue about which yer ol' Perfesser still really cares.
Congress debating the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is the basic legal framework for federal aid to education. In 2001, in response to the proposal by the new President George W. Bush, Congress added high-stakes testing as a requirement for federal aid. Congress wrongly believed that high-stakes testing had produced a miracle in Texas. We have had a dozen years of NCLB, and it has failed to improve education or to increase equality of educational opportunity.
NCLB has been a disaster for children, who are subjected to endless hours of testing; to teachers and principals, who are scapegoated for low scores; for schools, which are cruelly closed if their students don’t reach an unrealistic goal of 100% proficiency, and for communities, which are losing their beloved neighborhood schools.
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS: STOP HIGH-STAKES TESTING NOW!
Because Building Hope is also using government grants and tax-exempt foundation funds to provide capital to the for-profit
charter sector, allowing charter management organizations and charter
school landowners, like the Zuluetas, to maximize their profits.
Thanks to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.NVmaFp3F.dpuf
Thanks to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.NVmaFp3F.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Thanks
to Joe Bruno, Ferny Zulueta has been able to use capital, ultimately
subsidized by taxpayers, to increase the capacity at his charter schools
and collect more in both management fees and rent. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.2JwSO6Rq.dpuf
Bad News From Walton Mountain: Connect the dots. There seems not to be ANY 'corpoRatz' reform astroturf outfits on the fuukin PLANET into the very depths of which the Waltons have not insinuated their grimy, grubby, shit-encrusted fingers.
Makes ME feel muuuuch better; I dunno about you...
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