=DeeperChalk= Where teachers can tell the truth about Public Ed.

Was the KATRINA disaster a BLESSING for those who want to PRIVATIZE Public Education?

GET YOUR BRAIN AROUND THIS:

Powerful politicians and wealthy corporate interests are apparently combining their forces and connections to exploit one of the greatest disasters in American history, in order to transfer (read: STEAL) Americans' tax dollars and hand them over to private concerns. WHY?
In order to, ultimately, on the pretense of educating children,
enrich stockholders and CEOs (which is, unarguably, the primary goal of all private corporations).

Scared yet? Perhaps you should be.


Read this:

http://counterpunch.org/davis08302006.html

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Excerpt:

Within days of Katrina, Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) convened a special meeting of the state legislature to talk about a takeover
of the Orleans Parish Public School District, a district with a half-billion dollar budget serving New Orleans, the summit's keynote speaker, Nat LaCour, secretary treasurer of the
American Federation of Teachers, told the gathering.

"This meeting took place while there were still people on roofs and at the Superdome waiting to be rescued," said White.

A few months later, the state legislature passed legislation giving the state control of 107 of New Orleans' 128 public schools, by placing them under the authority of the Recovery School District (RSD).

Orleans Parish's public schools have now been divided into three categories: public, (privately run) charter, and the Recovery School District. A school receives the RSD designation if it is categorized as "failing", in some cases receiving the label only after a change in criteria since the hurricane. RSD schools are then managed by the state, not the local school board, and may be turned over to private foundations or other groups to be run as charter schools. Of the 57 public schools set to operate in New Orleans this school year, more than 30 are charter schools.
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Is Public Education HELPLESS in the face of a POWER-POLITICS/CORPORATE NEXUS?
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posted by Da Manijment @ 5:32 PM 28 comments

ARE WE FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLES IN EDUCATION REFORM?

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Here is a very timely article from the TRUTHDIG site:

Paul Cummins: Fighting the Wrong Battles in Education Reform

EXCERPTS:

"For too many years now, we have allowed the wrong issues to dominate the debate over the reform of public education.

We are too caught up in questions of who will control the schools and how we implement our obsession with testing; we pay far too little attention to improving the content of what we teach and finding new ways to fund that teaching."

AND...

"Whether the mayor or the superintendent has the ultimate authority is less important, I believe, than the conditions in which teachers teach and the content of what their students are asked to learn: It is possible, in overcrowded classes, to force-feed students enough regurgitable information and to administer enough practice tests to raise test scores some. But it is not possible, in overcrowded conditions, to really teach—to have dialogues; to attend to individual differences; to carefully read, correct and return essays; to get to know your students. For an English teacher who has five or six classes a day of 35 to 50 students per class, it matters not a whit whether the mayor, superintendent or board is calling the shots.

Furthermore, if the classroom teachers are so bound to teaching-to-tests, then the real values and critical issues of our time will go unattended."

LINK:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060905_education_reform/

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posted by Da Manijment @ 10:05 PM 0 comments