Sunday, February 23, 2014

Book Review - Chris Pavone: The Accident


'The Accident': book review

Chris Pavone's suspenseful thriller is set in the worlds of book publishing and global media; also reviewed: Anne Thompson's 'The $11 Billion Year,' Felix Martin's 'Money: The Unauthorized Biography' and Caeli Wolfson Widger's 'Real Happy Family'

Chris Pavone, author of “The Accident”

Chris Pavone follows up "The Expats" with “The Accident,” about a provocative and dangerous book manuscript.

  • Publisher: Crown
  • Genre: Fiction
“The Accident,” Chris Pavone’s followup novel to his debut best seller, “The Expats,” is a slick blend of suspense and savvy as a media overlord’s choke hold on the power establishment is threatened by, of all things, a manuscript.
Wolfe Media, ruled by Charlie Wolfe, ascended by breaking exposés on two dozen websites before consuming newspapers and television stations across the world. In the U.S., its cable channel is a loud, haranguing presence and a ratings triumph.
“The Accident” follows a literary agent as she tries to determine the veracity of an explosive manuscript that has landed on her desk.

“The Accident” follows a literary agent as she tries to determine the veracity of an explosive manuscript that has landed on her desk.

All of that is jeopardized by a manuscript that shows up on the desk of Isabel Reed, the “once-famous” literary agent at Atlantic Talent Management. Reed used to be known for the high-profile books she shepherded onto the best seller lists. But she’s getting older and, slowed by a personal tragedy, is falling behind the hot young things creating buzz in publishing.
Reed knows that what’s revealed is explosive. Wolfe, who has political ambitions, killed a woman in his youth and turned to his powerful father to hatch the coverup. As malignant is the disclosure of the CIA’s involvement in the company’s exposés. It seems Wolfe Media scoops may have been hand-delivered by the agency, the equivalent of a public execution for a targeted politician or businessman.

What the literary agent has reason to doubt is the veracity of the charges, particularly since the title page reads “The Accident by Anonymous.” The email address listed proves defunct. Reed is finally convinced when her assistant, who had a first look at the manuscript before she turned it over, is murdered.
Pavone’s marvelous setup is the prelude to an effective thriller that intercuts scenes from Anonymous’ life on the run, a rogue CIA officer’s pursuit with lethal intent, and Reed’s sometimes quavering efforts to protect the property on the way to publishing it. Also, her life is at stake since she can’t unknow what she has learned even if the manuscript “disappears.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/chris-pavane-accident-book-review-article-1.1618728#ixzz2uC7q2c9b

The American Public School Under Siege


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-american-public-schoo_b_4804416.html

michael Brenner 
Senior Fellow, the Center for Transatlantic Relations; Professor of International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh

The American Public School Under Siege

Posted: Updated:
A feature of the Obama presidency has been his campaign against the American public school system, eating way at the foundations of elementary education. That means the erosion of an institution that has been one of the keystones of the Republic. The project to remake it as a mixed public/private hybrid is inspired by a discredited dogma that charter schools perform better. This article of faith serves an alliance of interests -- ideological and commercial -- for whom the White House has been point man. A President whose tenure in office is best known for indecision, temporizing and vacillation has been relentless since day one in using the powers of his office to advance the cause. Such conviction and sustained dedication is observable in only one other area of public policy: the project to expand the powers and scope of the intelligence agencies that spy on, and monitor the behavior of persons and organizations at home as well as abroad.
The audacity of the project is matched by the passive deference that it is accorded. There is no organized opposition -- in civil society or politics. Only a few outgunned elements fight a rearguard action against a juggernaut that includes Republicans and Democrats, reactionaries and liberals -- from Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York to the nativist Christian Right of the Bible Belt. All of this without the national "conversation" otherwise so dear to the hearts of the Obama people, without corroboration of its key premises, without serious review of its consequences, without focused media attention.
This past week, as the deadline approached for states to make their submissions to Arne Duncan's Department of Education requesting monies appropriated under the Race to the Top initiative, we were reminded that the DOE has decreed that no proposal will be considered where the state government has put a cap on charter schools. In other words, the federal government has put its thumb heavily on the scales of local deliberations as to what approach toward charter schools best serves their communities' interests. Penalties are being imposed on those who choose to limit, in any quantitative way, the charter school movement.
This heavy-handed use of federal leverage by the Obama administration should not come as a surprise. After all, Obama himself has been a consistent, highly vocal advocate of "privatization." He has travelled the country from coast to coast, like Johnny Appleseed, sowing distrust of public schools and - especially - public school teachers. They have been blamed for what ails America - the young unprepared for the 21st century globalized economy; the shortage of engineers; high drop-out rates; school districts' financial woes, whatever.*
To hear Mr. Obama explain it, one would think that full employment in 2007 turned into the lowest rate of employment among working age adults in 40 years in 2013 because of America's teachers falling down on the job - the failure of public schools to prepare students for radical structural changes in the job market. He downplays the Wall Street/Fed created financial crisis or his administration's mishandling of the recovery effort. Nor does it have anything to do with downsizing, outsourcing, and the business world's discovery that productivity can rise by paying workers less and resorting to temps. As for the financial squeeze on school districts, this too was laid at the door of greedy teachers unions who resisted having their salaries cut or their contracted pensions slashed. They became scapegoats for a condition stemming from the protracted Great Recession and the austerity mania that his rhetoric and actions helped to promote.
Let us recall some highlights of this presidential campaign. In 2010, Education Secretary Arne Duncan castigated public school teachers in Rhode Island for going on strike to protest arbitrary changes in working conditions and wages while encouraging authorities to fire them if necessary. He "applauded" the move to fire every teacher at Central Falls High School (as reported in the Providence Journal). This is from an administration that never asked anyone to resign from AIG, Bank of America, CITI, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Fannie Mae or Sally Mae.
Similarly, in 2012-2013, Obama lent the tacit backing of the White House to Rahm Emanuel's strategy for busting the Chicago teachers union and for a mass closing of public schools. The follow-on 'charter' program has been cited as rife with corruption. Secretary Duncan has been given free rein to use the powers of his department to cajole and pressure states into the unqualified promotion of charter schools -- whatever the record shows about their mediocre record.
Duncan's office has been the moving force behind a concerted effort to conceal the reality of what charter schools have, and have not, accomplished. The truth is not very pretty. Overall, the performance of their students on standardized tests, and graduation rates, are marginally worse on than those of the country's public schools. The drop-out rate among minorities is actually higher.** This dismal record is despite the preferential treatment that charter schools' receive: subsidies above and beyond the budgets of counterpart public schools; the cherry-picking of students that excludes many of those with chronic learning and/or discipline problems and/or from non-English speaking families; etc.
Other results are more favorable - for investors. A number of start-up companies have jumped onto the charter school bandwagon with little experience in education and with their eyes fixed on the bottom line. They hire a disproportionately large percentage of young teachers who may be highly motivated but who lack the essential seasoning that makes for quality teaching. These youngsters of course are given lower salaries that veteran teachers would receive. This exploitation is encouraged by Arne Duncan who makes much of the opportunities thereby created to tap the market of unemployed recent college graduates. It supposedly is a good and virtuous thing that they may spend only a few years in the classroom before moving on to other career "experiences" - to be replaced by yet another batch of enthusiastic, underpaid novices. Several states, e.g. Texas, do not even require charter schools to hire certified teachers - easy come, easy go. Presumably, the senior teachers who are laid off as their public schools are shuttered are expected to retrain as greeters at COSTCO and Target. Their expectations of being solidly middle class then will be fulfilled by their children who avail themselves of Obama's shaky ladders of opportunity to acquire the skills needed to entrepreneur their own charter school companies.
Shouldn't we ponder this question: what reasonable, qualified, person would be inclined to pursue teaching as a career under these circumstances? In fact, the voluntary drop-out rate of school teachers is at historical highs. Nationally, 16% leave after the first year; approximately 45% leave within five years. This is significantly higher than the student fail rate. Of Florida's 2,280 public elementary and middle schools, only 17 scored an "F" on the FCAT. Of the state's 270 Charter elementary and middle schools, 15 flunked. In Ohio, in one year the state's school report card gave more than half of Ohio's 328 charter schools a D or an F. Many charter schools themselves fail under their own weight; 15% of those established since 1995 have gone bust. In Florida, which does no significant monitoring of charter schools, the failure rate is double that. 17 charter schools in Columbus closed in one year - 2013. Nine of the 17 schools that closed lasted only a few months this past fall. When they closed, more than 250 students had to find new schools. The state spent more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money to keep the nine schools open only from August through October or November.
Where are the students thereby abandoned shunted to - with what disruption in their
studies?
To round out this picture, the White House hypes opening pre-college education to the money and influence of business. President Obama in recent months has been touring the country to tout these partnerships wherein curriculum, teaching methods, and materials are designed in part by the businesses who may hire these vocationally trained graduates. Vocational training does have a long history in the United States at the secondary level and it is not entirely a bad thing; we need highly skilled machinists. What we do not need are students siphoned away from a liberal education to be molded into drones to serve the corporate machine. Can we trust business interests with the main responsibility for structuring, and partly financing such programs - at a time when austerity policies continue to cut back public spending and local school boards are under immense pressure to privatize?
The distressing truth of the matter is that, in most states, any group of guys able to present what looks like a "sound business plan" can obtain a certificate to set up a charter school. The most worrying phenomenon is the manipulation of charter school curriculum to serve the ideological interests of the groups that run them. In Texas, Indiana, Ohio and other states, "creationism" and related Bible based 'science' has replaced standard approaches. (Slate Jan 16) A Right- wing interpretation of American history that, among other things, casts the New Deal as the workings of "un-American" spirit in the land is becoming commonplace. The businessman's view as to government's role in regulation also is gaining authority and prominence. In short, the charter school way is entrenching the ideas and attitudes of a sectarian element in American society whose ascendance already has wrought enormous damage. That a Democratic president should be the agent of this transformation is a telling commentary on where this White House and those who back him to the bitter end have gone wrong.
Of all the institutions that made the United States into a coherent society, none made a greater contribution than our public schools. It was they that fashioned a loyal citizenry bound by a core of civic values and a collective identity -- regardless of creed, national origin, religion or political preference. It was they that molded a disparate population into a unified nation. That may not be the case in the future.

* The relatively poor performance of students in the United States on standardized tests compared to students in other developed countries is misleading. When allowance is made for those from non-English speaking homes and disadvantaged racial communities, American students score close to the top of the table. (Education Law Center)
**The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found in a 2009 report that 17% of charter schools outperformed their public school equivalents, while 37% of charter schools performed worse than regular local schools, and the rest were about the same.
m

Newark: 700 teachers may be laid off, many replaced by TFA - Is it Time for Teachers to Strike?


http://bobbraunsledger.com/newark-700-teachers-may-be-laid-off-many-replaced-by-tfa/

Newark: 700 teachers may be laid off, many replaced by TFA

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camichristieThe state administration of the Newark Public Schools (NPS) is expected to lay off hundreds of experienced city teachers and replace many  with new hires, including more than 300 members of Teach for America (TFA).  The report comes from union sources but is supported both by the latest version of the state’s “One Newark” plan and by the Walton Family Foundation website. The foundation is expected to subsidize the hiring of the new teachers.

The NPS has not responded to requests for information or confirmation or denial of previous reports that Cami Anderson, the state-appointed superintendent of Newark schools, will ask outgoing state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf to waive seniority rights of hundreds of Newark teachers. This would permit their firing without resort to the detenuring process. Members of the Newark school board, however, confirmed Anderson’s plans to “right-size” the teaching staff.
The Waltons will do to Newark teachers what they do to Wal-Mart workers
The Waltons will do to Newark teachers what they do to Wal-Mart workers
The Walton Family Foundation website posted this note:  “Due to the impact of Teach For America’s corps members and alumni in the region, the Walton Family Foundation announced that they will support the recruitment, training and support of nearly 370 Newark area teachers over the next two years. This will undoubtedly mean great things for Newark’s students, parents and communities.”
According to the union sources, Anderson will attempt to fire some 700 teachers and replace about half with new hires, including the TFA members. According to the TFA regional website, Newark schools already have hired some 200 members.  They are usually graduates of liberal art programs who sign up for two years to teach in low-income areas and then leave.
Anderson herself is both a TFA graduate and an executive with the  foundation-financed TFA, an organization that also receives federal subsidies.
The Walton family owns and operates Wal-Mart stores. Their website indicates the foundation has “invested” more than $1 billion to promote “reforms” of its own liking—including the vast expansion of charter and other privatized schools and the hiring of TFA  members over conventionally trained ublic school teachers.
The mass layoff of experienced teachers and their replacement by new and untrained college graduates is part of Anderson’s “One Newark” plan that seeks to expand charter school enrollments, close conventional neighborhood public schools, and sell off school property.”Right-sizing” staff and hiring “quality” teachers also are mentioned in the latest version of the plan.
“One Newark” echoes the goals of the Walton Family Foundation which describes its role this way:
“The Walton Family Foundation invests in districts and organizations that improve the way teachers are selected, trained and compensated; close and replace low-performing schools with high-quality autonomous schools; and address weaknesses in the governance, management and instructional performance of public charter and private schools.”
Anderson is expected to announce her plans at the next school board meeting Tuesday. To fire tenured teachers, she must gain state approval of a “waiver” of seniority rules. Cerf, a strong backer of Anderson’s actions, is expected to grant the waiver.
Newark Teachers Union president Joseph Del Grosso said he expects the dismissed teachers to be drawn from the so-called “Educators without placement,” or EWPS, hundreds of teachers who, for a variety of reasons, have been reassigned to central office but not regular classrooms. Anderson also may seek to dismiss regularly working teachers in her efforts to break both seniority and tenure in the city.
Del Grosso said he expects the union to seek an injunction to block Anderson’s plans.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

'Conceptual agreement' reached in Portland teacher contract talks


'Conceptual agreement' reached in Portland teacher contract talks
By Max Barr, KATU.com Published: Feb 18, 2014 at 6:17 AM PST Last Updated: Feb 18, 2014 at 1:26 PM PST
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'Conceptual agreement' reached in Portland teacher contract talks
This photo, posted on the Portland Association of Teachers Facebook page, shows the union bargaining team at work during Monday's 23-hour negotiation session.
PORTLAND, Ore. – Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers reached a "conceptual agreement" on a new teacher contract after a 23-hour bargaining session that lasted until early Tuesday morning.
Both sides agreed to meet again later Tuesday to put the agreement in writing in the form of a tentative agreement. When the tentative agreement is signed, the teachers union will suspend the strike planned for Thursday.
The school board told its bargaining staff to put the agreement in writing after a two-hour executive session Tuesday morning.
PPS spokeswoman Christine Miles said both sides were "very focused on an outcome that's best for our students."
"We're building the foundation for both sides for a good future and a good education for our students, so I think we should all be very proud that both sides stayed at the table," Miles said. "They could have walked away at any time but they didn't."
Superintendent Carole Smith said she looked forward to finalizing the tentative agreement later Tuesday.
"After 10 months of difficult negotiations and hard work by both sides, I am very pleased that PPS and PAT have reached a conceptual agreement," said Smith.
The teachers union announced the agreement Tuesday morning on its Facebook page:
"Your bargaining team has reached a conceptual agreement with the district!" the post read. "Given that the teams have been bargaining for 23 straight hours, we will come back together later today to iron out the details and put it in writing in the form of a Tentative Agreement. When we have a signed Tentative Agreement, the strike will be suspended pending ratification by PAT membership and the Board."
Details of the agreement will not be released until the PAT approves the contract.
The school district also announced school will begin at the regular time Wednesday, but will release two-and-a-half hours early.
An agreement to suspend the strike would avoid the first teacher walkout in Oregon's largest school district. Portland Public Schools has 48,000 students and 2,900 teachers.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales said Tuesday's agreement was great news.
"Today’s tentative agreement is an example of the union and the district putting the students first. My staff and I were in near-constant communication with both sides over the past several weeks, and throughout it all, I believed cooler heads would prevail," Hales said in a statement to KATU on Tuesday morning.
"This is great news, and I remain as hopeful as ever that this will lead to a lasting agreement and a contract."
The district planned to cancel classes through Monday for replacement staff training. Some schools were set to reopen Tuesday with substitute teachers.
Marathon bargaining session
The agreement came after the two sides worked through the night Monday hoping to avoid the first-ever teacher strike in Oregon's largest school district.
The two sides negotiated at an undisclosed location from 9 a.m. Monday to around 8 a.m. Tuesday.
The PAT submitted its latest proposal to the district just after 11 p.m. Monday, Miles told KATU.
Both sides were “focused on trying to hammer out some kind of agreement,” Miles said.
Both PPS and the PAT were posting updates on the negotiations on their Facebook pages.
The two sides had been negotiating a new contract for months. The main sticking points included class sizes, teacher workload, health benefits and number of school days.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available. Stay with KATU News all day for updates on FacebookTwitter and our evening newscasts starting at 4 p.m.
KATU's Valerie Hurst and Dan Cassuto contributed to this story

Notes on a Staggering ISO


The Slow Death of "Leninism"

Notes on a Staggering ISO

by LOUIS PROYECT
It might be obvious from articles appearing on CounterPunch (“A Response to Our Socialist Worker Critics”, to name just one) that former members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) have decided to subject the self-described “Leninist” group to a withering critique.
In a recent development, current members constituted as the Renewal Faction have joined the chorus of critics as well, something that will obviously irk a leadership accustomed to fawning approval from the ranks. Indicating the general movement toward web-based debate and discussion and away from the print-based medium favored by small propaganda groups operating in the “Leninist” tradition, the faction launched a website titled “External Bulletin”, a term that very likely challenges the notion of the “Internal Bulletin”, the members-only medium that allows such groups to conduct their discussions without the prying eyes of non-members.
Unfortunately for the ISO, the internal bulletin might have become a relic of the Leninist past after a disgruntled member or members decided to forward PDF’s of 30 (at last count) documents to selected critics of the ISO, including me. Over the past few days, I have read maybe 100 pages worth of internal discussion articles and want to offer my analysis of what is happening with the largest “Leninist” organization in the United States (I exclude the CP, which operates more as a wing of the Democratic Party.) As someone who spent nearly 12 years in the American Socialist Workers Party from 1967 to 1978 (now there’s a screenplay begging to be written: “12 Years a Sectarian”), I can recognize the pressures operating on the ISO that will inevitably generate discontent.
One wonders if the ISO leaders might have anticipated the “security breach” that allowed the documents to become public. After all, in the electronic age, what’s to prevent a Marxist version of Edward Snowden from cropping up? This is especially true given the leaks that took place in the British SWP, the group that spawned the ISO. Those leaks were focused primarily on the British SWP’s refusal to punish a top leader who had allegedly raped a young female member. As is the case with bureaucratic institutions in general such as the Catholic Church and the military, there is a tendency to defend those in power, no matter what they do. If you’ve reached the point where you’ve become tired of bureaucratic abuse from the ISO leadership, why not let the rest of the left know what’s going on behind closed doors?
I want to address the question of the “right” of a Leninist organization to keep its discussions shielded from public view at the end of this article, but will start with an evaluation of the ISO’s current woes, which according to both sides in the dispute is very real.
The best place to start is with an article titled “Why have we stagnated?” written by someone who appears to be supporter of the leadership. He writes:
We Have a Problem 
Frustration and disorientation are prevalent throughout the ISO right now and have been for a few years. There are multiple symptoms – the persistent difficulties maintaining SW tablings or a host of other routines (treasury, ISR, publicity); the need to repeatedly push for regular public meetings, many of which aren’t all that “public”; the greater number and length of extended breaks or leaves taken by experienced members (particularly over summer). Much of our leadership spends much of its time propping up basic aspects of branch activity or trying to win frustrated members back to activity. These are the signs of malaise, not of vitality.
When I read this, everything fell into place. This sounds exactly like what happens in all “Leninist” groups during the “mature” phase of their life cycle. Unless a group becomes a full-blown cult, as was the case with the American SWP, there are centripetal forces that operate on the rank-and-file as they begin to reach their thirties and discover that a socialist revolution is not on the immediate agenda. “A host of other routines” begins to compete with raising kids, shopping, working overtime, and just generally doing what it takes to survive life in capitalist America. Like most groups that operate in the name of the proletariat, the plain fact is that the ISO recruited most of its members from college campuses rather than the factory. After they graduated, they probably took whatever jobs were available in a declining economy: public schoolteachers (a strategically important job for leftists), web developers, social workers, librarians, etc. As far as I can tell, the ISO never carried out a “turn” toward the proletariat that would have forced its members to work in a slaughterhouse or textile mill. That would have only accelerated the phenomenon of “extended breaks”. Trust me on that one.
As might be expected, ISO leaders took the opportunity to rally the troops but without the piss and vinegar that such occasions demand. In a key document titled “Perspectives”, the tone was one of “hang in there, comrades”. This was written in the name of The Steering Committee, a body that is all-knowing and all-powerful:
No one really believes that it’s going to be “onward and upward” from the first protest or movement planning meeting. That caricature defies even a few days’ experience as a socialist. But it’s sometimes hard to shake the sense that a period of political unrest and polarization ought to have at least a general upward trend. The reality, though, based on the experiences of the past, is more complicated. Sometimes there are sharp and sustained breakthroughs, and sometimes there are a steady stream of advances. But there are also ups and downs in a struggle or movement, and in the midst of a down phase, it’s not clear if or when the next up is coming.
If it is difficult to predict when “the next up is coming”, what do we do in the meantime? A large part of this boils down to “keeping the powder dry”, going out on training exercises, and doing all the things a “cadre” is expected to do until the next war began. I remember when I first heard the term cadre from a veteran SWP’er in 1968—he pronounced it “codder”. It came from the military and meant “officer corps” basically. When a war broke out, the officers were expected to lead enlisted men. The left adopted the term to mean those people with an advanced understanding of Marxism who would be the natural leadership of the proletarian masses. Since the Trotskyist movement is the Oxford/Harvard of the left—at least in the eyes of its adherents—you would expect it to be the main supplier of cadre. For obvious reasons, the proletariat found it quite easy to ignore such self-designated leaders in large-scale revolutionary struggles.
In an article titled “Theory, cadre, and continuity: Building revolutionary organization today”, a long-time leader speaking for The Steering Committee made the case for the Marxist version of Officers Candidate School:
But regardless of the period, the state of the class struggle, and the size of the revolutionary left, what is absolutely essential is the training of cadres capable of thinking and applying Marxism creatively and able to both learn from and provide leadership in struggle.
Unfortunately what is missing from this calculation is any understanding that “training” is inimical to the development of Marxist thinkers and activists. Whether or not these people are consciously making a parallel with the military, the fact is that “training” in small propaganda groups inevitably turns out people who imitate the party leaders, just as a West Point freshman would emulate a General Petraeus. This is in the nature of all institutions, Leninist, military, or clerical. A revolutionary movement is strongest when it can rely on the talents of people who have learned to think and act for themselves. While revolutions are a product of collective action, they only succeed when strong-minded and strong-willed people come together to change society—not sycophants. Leninist groups unfortunately are schools for sycophancy.
A large part of the article is directed against Shaun Joseph, a former member who is sensitive to the question of developing true cadre. In other words people who have the backbone to tell an Ahmed Shawki that he is full of beans when the occasion demands it. Joseph wrote an article titled “Valences of the united front (III): The struggle for culture” that did not mince words:
The common view in the ISO, I think, is that the comrades at the Center are the “top cadre” of the group. Actually they are not cadre at all. That’s not to say they’re unimportant: a centralist organization needs national leadership just like an army needs generals. However, a cadre that identifies itself with the national leadership, that does not see itself as an independent and irreverent layer, is not fulfilling its function as a cadre–just like an army full of sycophantic captains is doomed to fail in battle.
Although I would prefer that the term cadre go into the ashbin of history, Joseph’s notion of “an army full of sycophantic captains” pretty much sums up the secondary leadership of all Leninist organizations. How can it be otherwise? When I joined the SWP in 1967, I was told that Leon Trotsky, who was Lenin’s choice for assuming leadership of the Communist movement after he passed on, trained the leaders. I told myself , these people must really be something special. Who am I to question them? I can’t say that my experience is at all typical of those who have “graduated” from such sects, but being forced to think and act for myself was the only way I could truly develop politically.
The peer pressure in groups like the ISO is enormous. Although their constitution is filled with guarantees of the right to criticize the party line, they are beside the point. For the average member of such groups, you tend to parrot what is in the party press and look for reassurance from those around you. Shunning or even the threat of shunning is the main instrument of ideological conformity in Leninist groups, when all is said and done.
Try as they may, there is no way that the ISO can break through the glass ceiling that is keeping them at their current levels of membership and political influence. It is their very nature that condemns them to “stagnation”. It is their “Leninism” that works against them since it is a barrier reef that separates them from the tens of thousands of people anxious to resist the capitalist system but not ready to hook up with a small propaganda group that puts onerous restrictions on their ability to live a normal life. Not everybody is a footloose rebel with an Ivy League degree or in some cases a trust fund after all.
All such groups have a natural life cycle, just like a plant or animal. They usually start out with a charismatic leader—usually a man but not exclusively–in his 20s or 30s who has both the time and the energy to build up a following, generally from the middle-class. Within a year or so, depending on the proximity of their ideology to the actual political conditions, they can build up to several dozen members. And then if the stars align themselves correctly, they can become an organization of a thousand or more. When the ISO was riding high in the saddle ten years ago, I am sure it projected unlimited growth. I attended an evening session of a conference they hosted in 2004, mostly in order to hear my old friend and comrade Peter Camejo. It was like attending a pep rally with the speakers leading the audience in chants as a warm-up for Peter.
Ten years can be an eternity for members of such groups. So many pep rallies, so many newspaper sales, and so many singings of the Internationale but capitalism keeps rolling along. Was this what I signed up for, many members must ask. Thus we see the “the greater number and length of extended breaks or leaves taken by experienced members”, a prelude to the inevitable resignation for “personal reasons”.
All in all, another approach is not only possible but also desperately needed. To put it in shorthand, we need something like an American Syriza—a broad left-of-center party that can accept people on their own terms ideologically as long as they adhere to key programmatic demands such as:
–Run election campaigns opposed to corporate rule, against both Republicans and Democrats.
–Organize campaigns against environmental despoliation from fracking to mountaintop removal.
–Strengthen the trade unions through organizing drives aimed at the most exploited workers.
In reality, these sorts of demands are not that different from those of the Communist Manifesto that calls, for example, for “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax” and “Free education for all children in public schools.”
Once you dump overboard all the ideological baggage that comes with groups posturing as a latter-day Bolshevik Party and stick to basic demands that lend themselves to independent mass political action, recruitment is no longer a big problem. Nor is burnout, a function of small groups trying to substitute themselves for the muscle of a large party that can attract real-life workers, something that is simply beyond the means of small propaganda groups trafficking in the iconography of the Russian Revolution. We need our own political symbols and language; let’s consign the hammer and sickle and the red star to the museum or mausoleum where they belong.
Finally, on the question of “security”, as if putting the ISO documents on the Internet is going to jeopardize their members. Does anybody in their right mind not understand that the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and local red squads know exactly what every single ISO member is up to? Mike Ely, the leader of an Internet sect called the Kasama Project, has been raising hell over the publication of the documents but that’s what spending too much time in Bob Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party can do to a person.
The real issue is not security, but the right of a sect to keep its deliberations a secret. When you stop and think about it, all of these “Leninist” groups operate on a mercantile basis that is concerned with maximizing market share. Their internal bulletins are analogous to reports discussed by the board of directors leading up to a sales campaign. What business is it of Pepsi to know what Coca-Cola is up to? How can we let Socialist Alternative know what we have planned for 2014? Hush now, comrades. Mum’s the word.
While I will not be around fifty years from now, I am convinced that “Leninism” will be long dead. If we are fortunate enough to be capable of rallying the forces needed to transform American society, it will be on a basis that has little to do with the imagery associated with the Smolny Institute and the Winter Palace. We will write our own future based on the living struggle that we surely have in front of us. Every effort has to be bent toward uniting the greatest number of people on a principled class basis. In a way it is too bad that ISO cannot understand the role it can play in helping to catalyze such a movement. One hopes that they can figure out a way to emerge out of the existing stagnation and rise to the occasion.
Louis Proyect blogs at http://louisproyect.org and is the moderator of the Marxism mailing list. In his spare time, he reviews films for CounterPunch.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

After Historic UAW Defeat at Tennessee Volkswagen Plant, Theories Abound


http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/after_uaw_defeat_at_volkswagen_in_tennessee_theories_abound

BY Mike Elk

On February 14, United Auto Workers President Bob King (L) and Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams (R) prepare to respond to the union's election loss at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., which the UAW blames on interference from right-wing politicians.   (Mike Elk)
Workers and organizers cite outside interference, management collusion, union missteps, two-tier agreements and Neil Young
“I am excited,” auto worker Justin King told me as he put on his cowboy boots to get ready for the victory party planned for late Friday night. At approximately 10 p.m., the United Auto Workers union and Volkswagen would announce the results of a three-day union election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.
King had reason to be excited. For nearly three years he had campaigned to get the union into his plant. As one of the leaders of the drive, his sense was that the UAW had the support of the majority of the plant’s 1,550 hourly workers. Unlike in most union drives, organizers didn’t have to worry about the company threatening workers’ job, because Volkwagen had agreed to remain neutral in the process, so King felt cautiously optimistic that the support would hold.
But Justin King never got to enjoy his victory party. An hour after we spoke, retired Circuit Court Judge Samuel H. Payne announced to a roomful of reporters assembled in a Volkswagen training facility that the UAW had lost the campaign, with 626 workers voting in favor of the union and 712 voting against. To the labor reporters, who had seen many union election results, it was jaw-dropping news. How could a union lose an unopposed campaign?
Volkswagen signed a 22-page neutrality agreement pledging not to interfere in the union election at the Chattanooga plant. The company even let the union onto the shop floor in early February to give a presentation on the merits of organizing.
It is impossible to say why each of those 712 workers voted against the union and what the UAW could have done differently to win them over one by one. However, In These Times’ interviews with both pro-union and anti-union workers—as well as low-level Volkswagen supervisors, top UAW officials and community activists—point to a confluence of factors, including outside interference by GOP politicians and unsanctioned anti-union activity by low-level supervisors. Some questioned, too, whether missteps by the UAW and concerns about its prior bargaining agreements played a role.
GOP influence
The UAW was quick to blame the loss on public anti-union threats by right-wing politicians. Immediately following the election results, UAW President Bob King informed reporters, “We are obviously deeply disappointed. We're also outraged by the outside interference in this election. Never before in this country have we seen a U.S. senator, a governor and a leader of the Legislature threaten the company with incentives and threaten workers with a loss of product. That's outrageous.”
Last week, Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam told the Tennessean, “I think that there are some ramifications to the vote in terms of our ability to attract other suppliers. When we recruit other companies, that comes up every time.”
On Monday, two days before the election began, Republican State Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Bo Watson and Republican House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick  suggested that Volkswagen might not receive future state subsidies if the plant unionized.
Then on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)—the former mayor of Chattanooga—who had pledged the previous week not to comment publicly about the ongoing election, waded back into the debate to declare, "I've had conversations today and based on those am assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga.”
When Volkswagen Chattanooga Chairman and CEO Frank Fischer refuted Corker, saying the union election would have no effect on the SUV decision, Corker doubled down. "Believe me, the decisions regarding the Volkswagen expansion are not being made by anyone in management at the Chattanooga plant, and we are also very aware Frank Fischer is having to use old talking points when he responds to press inquiries," Corker said in a statement on Thursday. "After all these years and my involvement with Volkswagen, I would not have made the statement I made yesterday without being confident it was true and factual."
At a press conference following the vote announcement, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams echoed union president Bob King in blaming the loss of support for the union on the Republican politicians’ statements.
“When the governor made his comments, we saw some movement at that time,” said Williams. “When Sen. Corker said he was not going to be involved and then he came back from Washington, D.C., we had a feeling that something was happening. Forty-three votes was the difference, so it’s very disturbing when this happens in the United States of America when a company and a union come together and have a fair election process.”
The UAW also announced shortly after the election that it was exploring legal options and might petition the National Labor Relations Board to order a new election because of the threats issued by Corker, the governor and the leaders of the Tennessee State House and Senate.
Opposition at the plant
However, threats of workers losing their jobs are routine during union elections—though they usually come from management, not outside forces—and unions still often prevail. Both pro-union workers and anti-union activists said that other factors played key roles in derailing the union drive.
While the neutrality agreement forbade Volkswagen from campaigning against the drive, plant worker and union activist Byron Spencer says that low-level supervisors and salaried employees—who were not eligible for the union—ignored the directive and actively opposed the drive. He also reports seeing multiple low-level supervisors and salaried employees at the plant wearing “Vote No” T-shirts in the days leading up to the union election.
Pro-UAW worker Wayne Cliett says there is no doubt in his mind that the opposition by salaried employees hurt the campaign. “The salaried people from Pilot Hall [the prestigious research and development center at the plant] stood out front every day this past week with [anti-UAW] shirts on, and I truly believe they swayed the votes their way,” says Cliett.
Indeed, In These Times interviewed one salaried employee, Mary Fiorello, who actively participated in the No 2 UAW committee, an anti-union effort organized by a group of hourly workers, who were eligible for the union.
“You have to look at from the point of view of a salaried support person,” says Fiorello. “My job here is to help them do their job. I don’t get paid if they don’t make cars, and the union makes it all that harder. If they want to ask me for help on something and its a union facility, they can’t even come up and ask me for help. And it makes it so much tougher for us here to be a team—and we are a team, and it’s upsetting when a group comes down from Detroit and tells us how we should be.”
Criticisms of the UAW
The No 2 UAW campaign used the very neutrality agreement that the UAW signed to argue that the union was making corrupt deals with management without worker input. The anti-union campaign argued that the neutrality agreement seemed to indicate that UAW would not bargain for wages above what was offered by Volkswagen’s competitors in the United States. UAW and Volkswagen agreed to "maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages that [Volkswagen] enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America."
"We got people to realize they had already negotiated a deal behind their backs—[workers] didn't get to have a say-so," hourly plant worker Mike Jarvis of No 2 UAW told reporters outside of the plant last night.
Fiorello also cited the UAW’s past concessions in bargaining with other automakers as another example of why she opposed the union. In a series of contract negotiations in the late 1990s and 2000s, the UAW agreed to a two-tier wage system at Volkswagen’s competitors at the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Two-tier agreements specify that new hires will earn significantly less than existing workers. Fiorello notes that currently, new non-union assembly line workers at Volkswagen start at $14.50 an hour—which, with cost-of-living differences between Tennessee and the Midwest factored in, is arguably slightly higher than the just-under-$16-an-hour starting pay under the UAW two-tier contracts at the Big Three.
“See, that’s the kind of problem. Our guys are being paid more than the union [workers at the Big Three],” says Fiorello.
“What the UAW is offering, we can already do without them,” says hourly worker Mike Burton, who created the website for the No 2 UAW campaign. “We were only given one choice [of a union]. When you are only given one choice, it’s BS. It would be nice if we had a union that came in here and forthright said, “Here is what we can offer.”
“I am not anti-union, I am anti-UAW,” Burton continues. “There are great unions out there, and we just weren’t offered any of them.”
Burton’s argument seemed to mirror that of Sen. Bob Corker, who routinely made statements such as, “"It's not about union or anti-union, it's about the way the UAW conducts business."
When asked by In These Times if the UAW’s history of two-tier contracts hurt the unions’ ability to win over skeptical workers, UAW President Bob King responded, “I don’t know. I am not going to speculate because I wasn’t in the plant.”
Questioned by Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post about why the union had agreed to cost-containment measures as part of the collective bargaining agreement, King responded, “Our philosophy is, we want to work in partnership with companies to succeed. Nobody has more at stake in the long-term success of the company than the workers on the shop floor, both blue collar and white collar. With every company that we work with, we're concerned about competitiveness.”
Some labor observers have questioned whether provisions in the neutrality agreement may have also hampered the UAW’s ability to make its case. “Though neutrality agreements often help avoid vociferous employer opposition, unions also have to give up powerful organizing or negotiating tools,” says Moshe Marvit, a labor lawyer and fellow at the Century Foundation. In the case of the Chattanooga drive, the neutrality agreement barred the UAW from making negative comments about Volkswagen. It also specifically prevented the UAW from holding one-on-one meetings with workers at their homes except at the worker’s express request. House visits are a common tactic used by union organizers to build trust with workers and answer questions about individual needs and concerns. One American Federation of Teachers union organizer, Peter Hogness, was so shocked that the UAW didn’t do house visits that he sent me a message today to ask me if it was true.
When asked by In These Times if the inability to make house visits hurt the union drive, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams simply responded, “No.”
Also, pro-union community activists, who spoke with In These Times on condition of anonymity out of fear of hurting their relationships with the UAW, spoke about difficulties in getting the UAW to help them engage the broader Chattanooga community. Many activists I spoke with during my two trips to Chattanooga said that when they saw the UAW being continually blasted on local talk radio, newspapers and billboards, they wanted to get involved to help build community support.
However, they say that the UAW was lukewarm in partnering with them. Indeed, when I attended a forum in December organized by Chattanooga for Workers, a community group designed to build local support for the organizing drive, more than 150 community activists attended—many from different area unions—but I encountered only three UAW members. Community activists said they had a hard time finding ways to coordinate solidarity efforts with the UAW, whose campaign they saw as insular rather than community-based.
“There’s no way to win in the South without everyone that supports you fighting with you,” said one Chattanooga community organizer, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Because the South is one giant anti-union campaign.”
A harsh Southern climate
Still, at the end of the day, unions make missteps in union elections all the time and often face opposition from management, and the workers still sometimes win. Indeed, the NLRB reports that unions won 60 percent of elections conducted in fiscal year 2013. So why didn’t the UAW win in Chattanooga?
“We thought we had the number we needed,” says Cliett. “We could analyze for days and not really know for sure, but I do think the last minute blitz of negative campaigning from our politicians turned some votes to no. What is going on with these people? Lynyrd Skynyrd may not have liked the song written by Neil Young, ‘Southern Man,’ but Neil had a point.”
In the 1974 song “Sweet Home Alabama,” Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd sings, “Well I hope Neil Young will remember: A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.” The lyric is a reference to Canadian singer Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” which criticized Southerners for being opposed to social change.
But for one Southern man, progress still feels achievable.  “I'm a stubborn man,” says Cliett. “Some are talking about quitting. I will be walking into the plant on Monday with my head held high and preaching the message of solidarity.”
Full disclosure: The author’s mother worked on an auto assembly line at a VW plant in Westmoreland County, Pa., until it closed in 1988, and was a member of UAW. UAW is a website sponsor of In These Times. Sponsors have no role in editorial content.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Fate of Public Schools in the Face of a Concerted Attack



Published on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 by Education Opportunity Network

Why False Compromises Won’t Resolve The Education Debate

Legend has, political disputes are supposed to be resolvable only when parties “meet in the middle” and shake hands on points of agreement that are possible.
But in the much-contested issue of “education reform,” only one of the disputing parties in the debate tends to be implored to seek compromise.
The latest example of this came from conservative commentator Juan Williams. Writing for The Hill, Williams claimed differing opinions of how to improve the nation’s schools are “stuck in partisan paralysis.” He beseeched “two of the nation’s most politically powerful black men,” President Obama and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to make a “deal” on “hotly debated education reforms” and embrace the cause of charter schools.
Such a “grand bargain,” Williams assured, would “deliver on the promise of equal opportunity and solve this generation’s top civil rights problem.”
Similarly, in the same week, liberal columnist Jonathan Chait wrote for New York Magazine that the fate of the nation’s schools was caught up in a “weird ideological divide” between people who promote charter schools as a solution for the nation’s education problems and those who have doubts about that.
Chait blamed that “divide” on education historian Diane Ravitch who, according to Chait, “portrays charter schools as a corporate plot.” What’s necessary, Chait maintained, is the “Ravitch and union view of the world” to give up “a nostalgic embrace of the old-fashioned organization of public school” and accept “attempts to apply empirical metrics” that apparently characterize charter schools.
First, set aside how each of these popular columnists jumps to sweeping conclusions without citing any evidence.
(Williams claimed schools are “failing to do their part” to address under achievement of black and Latino students. Yet, results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that these students have made great strides in improving performance. Chait claimed neighborhood schools in Washington DC and New York City “are open to children who live close by and restricted to everybody else” – which is not true – and “charter schools are more aggressive about creating accountability standards” – when actually, charter proponents often do all they can to help charters evade accountability measures.)
What’s most troubling about both of these columns – and the loads of others that repeat these themes – is that neither author seems to be aware that maybe what “traditional public schools” face is not so much a gentleman’s dispute as it is an existential threat.
Signs abound that public schools increasingly find themselves pressed to the ropes by opposing forces fed by an extremist ideology bent on privatizing the system.
What doesn’t help at all is the seemingly compliant leadership currently in power in many places and the throngs of Very Serious People on the sidelines who scold public school supporters for not making nice with their determined and uncompromising opponents.
A Battle Plan Long In Making
For quite some time, there has been a well-orchestrated, well funded, and extremely influential movement to literally get rid of public schools.
Writing for Rethinking Schools, Barbara Miner warned, over a decade ago, “Eliminating public education may seem unAmerican. But a growing number of movement conservatives have signed a proclamation from the Alliance for the Separation of School and State that favors ‘ending government involvement in education.’”
Miner quoted powerful conservatives such as Grover Norquist who “view [school] vouchers as a key ingredient in their effort to ‘downsize’ government services.” In an interview in a libertarian website, Norquist compared taxpayer funds for public institutions like schools to “a big cake” that needed to be “thrown in the trash so that the cockroaches don’t have something to come for.”
Flash forward to just last month, we now see school vouchers being promoted on Capitol Hill by a Senator often viewed as being a mainstream education advocate.
With the rise of the Tea Party faction in the Republican Party, we’ve witnessed the growing influence of those who advocate ending public school. In 2011, a faction of the Tea Party that operates in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania openly declared its intention to get rid of public schools. In a recent article in TruthOut, Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate of passage of school voucher bills, stated flat-out, “We think public schools should go away,” and, “Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only.”
In the most recent presidential election, there was a legitimate candidate, Rick Santorum, in the Republican party what advocated ending public education.
The role charter schools play in this debate is that they inhabit an extremely slippery space where, although they receive public funds, they more often act like private institutions that take away desperately needed funding from traditional public schools.
In that respect, the cause of charter school expansion is increasingly viewed as in league with mounting efforts to abandon traditional public education.
For a close up view of that assault, look what’s happening in  the state of North Carolina.
Anatomy Of An Attack On Public Schools
When Tea Party factions rose to a level of super majority in both chambers of the North Carolina state legislature, it brought into power an ideology with a declared animosity to public schools.
A key component of that agenda was to lift the cap on charter schools and reduce the restrictions on their governance, so that many charters now resemble private schools that receive public money.
The result has been a steady, multiyear eroding of the state’s public education system. Nearly a year ago, Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch wrote, “North Carolina is now virtually last in the county in how much we invest in educating our kids and how much we pay the teachers who we demand work harder and harder to improve student achievement.”
Teacher pay “is simply a scandal,” he declared. “A starting teacher must work 15 years before earning a $40,000 salary.” And the state’ per-pupil expenditure for public education has now “fallen to 48th in the country.”
Some more recent numbers Fitzsimon offered: Last year’s state budget cut $286.4 million in funding for classroom teachers by increasing student to teacher ratios. This was accompanied by a 20 percent reduction in the number of teacher assistants. The state now provides $15 in state funding per student for textbooks although state funding per student for textbooks was $68 in 2007-2008.
The state now sends $653 less per student on K-12 education than it budgeted in 2007-2008. And for Pre-K, the number of available slots has fallen from 34,876 to 27,500.
With average teacher compensation now ranking 46th nationally, “North Carolina’s teacher pipeline is leaking at both ends,” reported the Raleigh News and Observer. “Public school teachers are leaving in bigger numbers, while fewer people are pursuing education degrees at the state’s universities.”
A recent letter to the editor by a classroom teacher explained, “Right now there is no reason why I should want to be a teacher, considering the sad state of public education in North Carolina.
Legislation has been put in place to eliminate teacher tenure and instead give the top 25 percent of teachers in each district an extra $500 a year for four years. The North Carolina legislature is completely demoralizing public education with this ridiculous notion; good teachers cannot be quantified solely by test scores.”
A recent announcement by state Governor Pat McCrory to propose a new teacher salary plan was derided by watchdogs at NC Policy Watch as “shallow,” confining raises to “starting teachers and those who have spent only a few years in the classroom.”
In a recent editorial for the Raleigh News and Observer, education policy experts Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd noted that teacher salaries are so bad, “teachers in our state routinely take second jobs. Some even qualify for Medicaid and food assistance … Perhaps most humiliating, teachers must now compete against one another for yearly $500 pay raises, undermining the collaborative climate that marks successful schools.
Topping it off, a small tax-credit subsidy passed in 2011, for parents of special-needs kids to transfer their children from public to private schools has now morphed into a multi-million dollar give-away of tax payer money to vouchers that can be used for parents to send their children to private schools, even those that are religiously based.
As Fiske and Ladd concluded, “If one were to devise a strategy for destroying public education in North Carolina, it might look like” what the state is actually doing – “starving schools of funds, undermining teachers and badmouthing their profession,” and “putting public funds in the hands of unaccountable private interests.”
These actions “look a lot like a systematic effort to destroy a public education system that took more than a century to build and that, once destroyed, could take decades to restore.”
Rather than compromising with forces determined to undo the state’s system of public schools, tens of thousands of the state’s citizens took to the streets in Raleigh recently in a Moral March to oppose these and other actions of the state legislature.
Attacks Proliferate
Existential threats to public education aren’t limited to right wing rabble rousing in Southern states. Actions by what’s commonly viewed as “mainstream government” have been especially hostile to public schools as well.
Government funding for public schools has been cut so dramatically that now most states are funding schools less than before the recession.
What this looks like in one of the nation’s largest school district, Los Angeles, came to the attention of many recently when a Facebook campaign led by a local teacher provided a cavalcade of photographs showing the deplorable conditions of that city’s public schools. “The images,” reported the Los Angeles Times, include missing ceiling tiles, broken sinks and water fountains, ant invasions, dead roaches and rat droppings.”
Another understandable outcome from lack of funding is that schools become so dysfunctional they’re abandoned by their constituents or declared worthy of being abandoned. Historic school closures that have taken place in Chicago and Philadelphia – which prompted NBC’s Chris Hayes to question if this what “a strategy to … kill public education” – are signs of a growing belief that these public institutions are expendable.
In October, Reuters reported that the credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Services warned that public schools “face financial stress due to the movement of students to charters … Another major credit agency, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service warned the rise of charter schools could pose credit risks to districts, too.”
While schools have been enduring these hardships, they’ve also been beset by a raft of new accountability mandates that continue to sap their funding and occupy more and more of teachers’ time and energy. Just one of those mandates – to implement new Common Core State Standards – will cost schools an estimated $10 billion up front and many hundreds of millions more over the next several years.
In the meantime, the student population schools serve grows more and more challenging. As last month’s release of annual report by The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) called The State of America’s Children found, childhood poverty has reached record levels – one in five children in the country is poor. The number of homeless children has increased 73 percent since 2007. One in nine children lacks access to adequate food.
Another report, this one from the Southern Education Foundation, found “a majority of students in public schools throughout the American South and West are low-income for the first time in at least four decades,” reported The Washington Post. The Post reporter quoted Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University, who observed that “the rapid spike in poverty” helped explain, “why the United States is lagging in comparison with other countries in international tests.”
All these factors – the deliberate assault on public schools and the declining resources, despite growing challenges – never seem to be considered in arguments by a pundit class that continues to rebuke public school supporters for being strident and uncompromising.
Not many of us have had actual experiences with having our very lives threatened – which is as it should be. But it’s not hard to imagine that when that does happen, your first instinct is not to reach out and shake your assailant’s hand.
Until critics of public education supporters recognize and understand that, their calls for compromise will ring hollow in the increasingly desperate hallways of our nation’s endangered public schools.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Jeff Bryant
Jeff Bryant is an associate fellow at Campaign for America's Future and editor of the recently launched Education Opportunity Network, a project of the Institute for America’s Future, in partnership with the Opportunity to Learn Campaign.

Monday, February 03, 2014

Everything you need to know about Common Core — Ravitch



http://secondcityteachers.blogspot.com/2014/01/ravitch-common-core.html

Everything you need to know about Common Core — Ravitch

Diane Ravitch (Network for Public Education)
Diane Ravitch
(Network for Public Education)
Diane Ravitch, the education historian who has become the leader of the movement against corporate-influenced school reform, gave this speech to the Modern Language Association on Jan. 11 about the past, present and future of the Common Core State Standards.
Here’s her speech:

Lois Weiner: Duking it out with Weingarten on Common Core

http://newpol.org/content/duking-it-out-weingarten-common-core

Duking it out with Weingarten on Common Core


Lois Weiner December 25, 2013
            ImageOne of the most confusing aspects of the last decade’s education reforms is that a reform that will do great harm often contains an element that’s useful, even progressive.  The reforms are crafted to seduce liberals with this combination of a carrot and grand rhetoric about the intention of increasing educational opportunity.  Testing was sold to liberals as a way to hold schools accountable.  Now a national curriculum, the Common Core, is being peddled as essential to give all students the rigorous education (they love that word “rigorous”) they need to compete in a global economy in the 21st century.
            We should have learned by now that we can't be seduced by the carrots or the rhetoric.  Yet, here goes Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, doing exactly that.  Weingarten is being battered on social media for allying with the Business Roundtable to urge acceptance of the Common Core, which is opposed by activist teachers and parents on the Left as well as by elements of the far-right, in particular the Heritage Foundation.
            The Washington Post article practically chortled about Weingarten's jump into bed with the union's foes: “The head of the country’s second-largest teachers union and a business leader who tried to weaken unions as a onetime governor of Michigan have made a joint plea to the nation’s governors to stand by the controversial Common Core academic standards.” 
            Weingarten has endorsed the Common Core in her capacity as union president, speaking on behalf  ofAFT members without this issue having been given the vigorous debate and vote it needs. She has no right to do that and should be called on it.  In allying the union with the forces who aim to destroy public education and teachers unions, she is strengthening them and weakening us.  She is betraying the union’s democratic ideals - and no, the poll the AFT has commissioned cannot substitute for debate and votes, at the local level. Support for the Common Core is disorienting activists, teachers and parents alike, many of whom who are still not totally convinced the union is a trustworthy ally.
            At the same time, we need to acknowledge that union honchos/honchas can get away with this kind of behavior because members allow it.  We have to acknowledge that many union members, though angry, are frightened and passive. They’re waiting for “the union” to protect them. If every member of the AFT Executive Council told Weingarten they would resign unless she pulled back on the Common Core and repudiated linking teacher evaluations to students’ standardized test scores, she would retract her positions.  But AFT Executive Committee members, who are presidents of key locals, don’t do that.  They too are frightened and are used to being told what’s possible for the union to do.
            The AFT and NEA will be as democratic and militant in defense of public education, the profession of teaching, and our students as we make it.  By all means,  duel with Weingarten on twitter for her perfidy. But don’t let this replace organizing in the schools, talking with colleagues about what we can do, together, to make our unions live up to their responsibility.