This has not been a slow news week so I’ll get started with all the news that fits.
First up, the teachers and students in Tucson. If you haven’t been following this story, I would recommend that you begin by watching Debating Tucson School District’s Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program on Democracy Now.
This story has a history to it. To read about it in detail, check out Save Ethnic Studies.org and read about an action that was taken last year by students at a school board meeting when the board members were to vote on making the ethnic studies classes basically non-credit courses.
The powers that be thought that all they had to do was ban a few books and close the Ethnic Studies program in Tucson and that would be the end of it. They just dusted their hands off and went home. Because of their actions, which were so severe, the story has gained national attention. They have found themselves in the eye of the storm and they’re not handling things very well.
In this clip, Cholla High School students staged a walkout to protest the Mexican American Studies (MAS) ban. As they arrived at Tucson Unified School District headquarters this is what the Ethnic Studies supervisor Lupita Garcia had to say:
For the most recent information on this struggle for a people to maintain their ethnic identity, check out the Common Dreams article Students Step Up Tucson Walkouts. Here is an excerpt:
In recent days, administrators and board members have issued a series of conflicting and inaccurate statements and carried out the extreme actions of confiscating books in front of children. Last week, a recently hired assistant superintendent from Texas made a troubling call for the deeply rooted Tucson students–many of whom trace their ancestors to the town founders– to “go to Mexico” to study their history.
To find out about actions around the country regarding the banishment of the Ethnic Studies program in Tucson, see Arizona Unbound: National Actions on Mexican American Studies Banishment.
Never a dull moment in the world of education.
Now on to Chicago. In the last Weekly Update I had mentioned Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s rent a preacher scam. Well that story got legs as well.
As I like to say, Rahm got bus(ted) on this one. There’s even a photo of the bus that was used to take the hired “counter-protestors” to a hearing regarding a school closing from the St. Stephens church in Chicago!
From Mike Klonsky’s post Rahm’s Army:
Scott and other recruits say they didn’t realize until the last minute that they were supposed to support school closings. One said he was promised $50 to speak at a rally “for schools,” but was stiffed $25 after Watkins complained he had publicly revealed at the hearing he was “compensated” for speaking. Many of the recruits end up switching sides and join the community protests in speaking out against the closings. Others earn their money by trying to start a brawl and disrupt the legitimate protests.
And from WGN TV a great film clip Paid to Protest?
And now there is to be a probe regarding this action. According to the Chicago Sun Times:
The Chicago Public Schools inspector general said Wednesday he is investigating reports that bused protesters were paid to carry signs or read scripts at school closing hearings.
News of the probe came as Mayor Rahm Emanuel sloughed off questions about whether the practice was appropriate.
Meanwhile, Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) blasted “paid protesters” he said showed up on three buses at Jan. 6 hearings on whether to phase out Crane High School. He urged Chicago Public School officials to omit their comments from the hearing’s record.
Their appearance was “embarrassing” and “subverts our public process … wherever the money came from,” Fioretti said during the school board’s monthly meeting.
We’ll see where that goes. Stay tuned.
It reminds me of last year when the Seattle school board was to vote on an ed-reform issue and the League of Education Voters (LEV) or was it (Stand for Children?) brought over students from Bellevue, Youth Ambassadors, donned them in orange shirts and had them waving signs during the hearing. I asked one of the students after the hearing what school he was from and why he was there. He told me that some LEV reps (not his words) had brought over students from Bellevue. He was there to support education. He had no idea what the issue was about. His heart was in the right place but LEV’s wasn’t. That they used children to further their cause is reprehensible and speaks volumes to where that organization has gone in our state.
Speaking of Stand for Children, check out Education Radio for an in-depth look at the organization, Stand for Children or Stand for Profit. Here is a description of this broadcast:
We hear stories from two Massachusetts school committee members who were former Stand members, but who left when they saw a significant shift in Stand’s approach: Roger Garberg (Gloucester) and Tracy O’Connell Novick (Worcester). We hear from the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Paul Toner, on a controversial ballot initiative that Stand is pushing in the state. We also share a clip of Jonah Edelman, Stand co-founder and CEO, candidly speaking at the Aspen Institute about Stand’s true agenda to destroy the power of teachers unions. Then, we talked with the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis, about her reaction to this clip and to Stand for Children.
Speaking of organizations, I discovered what looks to be a great one, ParentPrep. It was developed by the Washington State Office of the Education Ombudsman (OEO), a small office that does a lot for so many students and parents in need, to assist parents in finding their voice when advocating for their children. And no, it does not receive Gates, Broad or Walton money. Just taxpayer dollars.
Again, I will leave you with Chris Hedges, a person who always helps me take a step back to see the big picture. This is a three-hour interview with the author and activist on BookTV where he discusses his nine books that have been published as well as a brief description of his tenth book. This is a good weekend watch.
Dora I was at that school board meeting and two boys in orange shirts behind me said that they had been handed the shirts to wear when they came in and had no clue what it meant. They were actually quite embarrassed talking to me and took the shirts off during the meeting. I did note a lack of ethnicity in the orange shirt crowd but it didn’t dawn on me they weren’t from Seattle.
There was also a young female student at the mike just trashing the teachers she had in Seattle, it was really in poor taste and obviously contrived. These thieves hide behind free speech and the constitution but don’t want us to have those protections.
The question begs. Can anyone trust LEV, SFC and others who operate irregardless of ethics, morals, or laws, to do the right thing when it comes to public education.
David
David,
What concerned me the most about that episode is how easy it was for these people to use children for their own agenda, an agenda that, as it has unfolded and been made clear, has nothing to do with “the children” and more to do with their own political and professional gain.
To have such little regard and respect for others, particularly the most vulnerable and naive, sickens me.
Dora
David,
I did a post about that school board hearing. I’ll see if I can find it. Do you remember when it was? Or the topic? It was either about TFA or the Community Value Statement thing that the unholy triumvirate, LEV/SFC/PTA, put together trying to tie test scores to teacher evaluations.
I do remember that LEV hired a professional photographer who took photo’s of the people in their orange shirts during the school board meeting. The following day a parent told me that she had seen that same photographer with a student in the same logo’d orange t-shirt in front of a school with a sign.
How low will they go?
I should write a post with that as the title and have people leave comments on what they’ve seen these types of people in these sorts of organizations do starting with Michelle Rhee’s org.
Dora
Dora I can’t recall the date, maybe spring of 2010, but I believe it was a push by Charles Rolland and his group to inject themselves into the teachers bargaining contract. There was also testimony from the workers who do the moving for the District remodeling programs in which workers stated that the District was replacing them with a corporate company that charged well over a $ million when they did the work for a fraction of that amount.
David
Yes I remember that. They were wearing orange also but those were their working vests I believe. There was orange everywhere that night.
Dora
Dora, you are right, its typical of these corporate/non-profit business people to exploit the very people they are claiming to help. How can we trust ethically and morally challenged ed reformers like LEV, SFC, Gates, Broad, etc. to educate our children when their promotion tactics are modeled on deceit, exploitation, and ignorance. Is this the education we want for future generations. The means doesn’t justify the end, it is the end.
For example, Bill Gates so-called fight to eliminate hunger through chemical and GMO farming methods (which Gates is heavily invested in) is destroying the small farmers in countries like Africa and elsewhere. You have to be a corporate entity to really benefit from the mislabeled high-tech farming industry. Gates is actually destroying the very people he claims to be saving, the small farmer. World hunger is the result of politics not lack of resources. In fact hunger is a weapon of war.
The corporate ed-reform movement operates in the same vein. Gates and company are dismantling public education as we know it. In fact they would like to have children spend more and more time in front of a computer screen instead of interacting with the teacher and other students. An example of where they’re headed can be found in ” Dream Box Learning” a PNW beltway-connected computer learning corporation specializing in Pre-K education and up.
http://www.dreambox.com/math-adds-up
David