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July 22nd, 2014

7/22/2014

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Now that universities are corporations we need to get rid of all that public protection stuff that will keep them from being profitable.  Forget all that silly stuff about educating Americans to be citizens and leaders......forget equal opportunity and access for the disabled......you cannot maximize profits that way.  Let's open our universities to the world's rich and let them attend simply because they can pay higher and higher tuition.  THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON FOR YOU.....IT'S ALL ABOUT PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

As you can see it is Maryland behind this deregulation attempt just as it leads in corporatization of universities into global systems. 


LOOK----THERE'S MIKULSKI -----MISS NEO-LIBERAL HERSELF.  SHE HANDED A COOL TRILLION OF TAXPAYERS MONEY OVER TWO DECADES TO MAKE JOHNS HOPKINS A GLOBAL CORPORATION AFTER ALL.

Also at the lead is University of Maryland Chancellor Kirwan-----you know----the one Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland is taking to court for rigging the elections for governor by choosing which candidates were heard on public university campuses across the state-----all of which is illegal.  Sure, we solve this corruption by fewer regulations!


WE WILL SELECT ANY CANDIDATE WE CHOSE FOR THESE ELECTION FORUMS FOR GOVERNOR SAYS CHANCELLOR KIRWAN.


Oh, that's how you keep installing legislation no one wants ----you rig the system so we cannot get people in office that will reverse these policies!  THAT'S KIRWAN FOR YOU-----A TRUE GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL/NEOCON.  Public universities as the hotbed of democratic political debate?  That's no way to maximize corporate profits!

A New Deregulatory Push

February 13, 2014
By Michael Stratford  Inside Higher Education

WASHINGTON -- The last time the Higher Education Act came up for a vote in Congress in 2008, Senator Lamar Alexander trotted out a five-foot stack of cartons onto the Senate floor to show the enormity of existing regulations governing higher education.

Now that lawmakers are once again contemplating how to rewrite that massive piece of legislation -- which authorizes, among other things, the $150 billion-a-year federal student aid program -- Alexander is returning to his props.

Speaking to a group of community college leaders Wednesday, Alexander unfolded the full paper version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which was taller than he is, to underscore his distaste for the federal government’s bureaucratic reach onto college campuses. And last week he made the same demonstration before a group of private college presidents.

Alexander said Wednesday that his goal is to “simplify and deregulate” higher education in the upcoming renewal of the Higher Education Act -- a process he has said should “start from scratch.”

“What we’re trying to do is establish a continuous process for deregulation to overcome the continuous momentum for overregulation,” he said, noting that the “inertia” for creating new regulations comes from across the political spectrum.

“The conservative senators, from my party, they’re sometimes the worst,” he said, describing how he has to remind his colleagues that they are “the party of federalism, the 10th amendment” when they want to impose conservative ideas on how colleges should be run across the country.

All of their ideas “sound good, but you know what happens when you have to comply with it: it takes time and money away from your mission,” he told a group of community college trustees and presidents.

Alexander has formed, along with three other senators, a task force to recommend ways to reduce federal regulations on colleges and universities.  

That group of higher education leaders gathered behind closed doors at the offices of the American Council on Education on Wednesday to begin producing recommendations on how to deregulate the industry. The panel consists of college presidents from a range of sectors and higher education associations.

Reducing or eliminating regulations on colleges has long been a goal of the higher education lobby in Washington, though previous efforts have largely been unsuccessful.

William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland and co-chair of the task force, said he was encouraged by the Congressional interest in reducing regulations.

“What seems different this time is the very strong commitment of these four senators,” Kirwan said. “They are determined to address this issue and get our help in finding some meaningful reforms.”


Alexander and Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, attended Wednesday’s meeting, and two other lawmakers -- Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, a Democrat, and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, a Republican -- are also on board.

The panel will focus on identifying “the most egregious, excessive regulations," but will also make recommendations on the Education Department’s rule making process in general, Kirwan said.

“The hope is that we can make some suggestions that will enable us to meet our obligations and be accountable to the federal government but to do so in a way that is cost effective and not excessively bureaucratic,” he said.

Kirwan said that one example of the type of regulations that his task force would be targeting is a campus safety rule that requires colleges to collect crime information from local police jurisdictions when students study abroad or when athletes travel to an out-of-town hotel.

The task force hopes to produce a report on its recommendations within the next 12 months, Kirwan said. The group will also be coordinating with the National Research Council, which was directed by Congressional appropriators last month to conduct a $1 million study of the cost of regulations on higher education.

Kirwan, who also chairs the subcommittee at the NRC that will oversee the study, said that work would be focused on all federal regulations that affect higher education, while the Congressional task force would focus only on Education Department regulations.

_______________________________________
This is what Kirwan and his group of global corporate bosses think they are going to do with our universities and deregulating gets rid of all that public justice and civil rights stuff....you know----THE US CONSTITUTION AND OUR STATUS AS AN EQUAL PROTECTION DEMOCRACY.  Who in the world wants people like this deciding what is good.


That is what testing from K onward is about----the state determining how a child will be tracked and into what vocation from elementary school on. Remember, school privatization means the entity deciding will be corporations. This is already happening in Baltimore and it is nothing but autocratic.

O'Malley has made his career as Governor of Maryland building these tracking systems into our schools at every level......it is failing miserably although spin will make it sound a great success.


It is the for-profit colleges AND THAT DEREGULATION that distorted who and how students went to college last decade and it is infused with fraud and corruption so it is not our decades-old system of allowing families to decide where and what that child will pursue that failed----

IT IS THE SAME PEOPLE WRITING THESE PRIVATIZATION POLICIES THAT DISTORTED A GOOD SYSTEM.


This article is long but please glance through!


College material or not: who should decide?


By Valerie Strauss March 26 (The Washington Post)

College, of course, isn’t for everybody, but who should decide — and how and when — which students should go and shouldn’t? In this post, Kevin Welner and Carol Burris ask whether the decision should be made by policy makers and school officials or parents and students after young people have had equitable opportunities to learn in elementary and secondary school.

Welner is the director of the National Education Policy Center, located at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. He is the author of the 2008 book, “NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling.” Burris is the award-winning principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.


By Kevin Welner and Carol Burris

Robin should become a printer. That’s what Robin Calitri’s school counselor told his dad in 1965. Robin thought his counselor’s advice was just swell. He wasn’t a motivated high school student. But his dad, who was a professor of English Literature at Hofstra University, made it clear to the counselor that his son was going to college.

Robin later became the principal of Long Island’s South Side High School and was a finalist for the national principal of the year in 1999. He would tell that story about the counselor whenever he explained the harm done by tracking—the sorting of some students into classes that are not designed to prepare those children for post-secondary education.

If his dad had gone along with the counselor’s recommendation, his son would likely have ended up in a trade that was becoming obsolete. To his credit, Robin understood that this was precisely the situation faced by children in working-class and poor families. Research on tracking and choice confirms this; working-class and poor families, as well as parents without a college education, are more deferential to the advice of school authorities and less willing to push back on the system. Robin also understood that a young person’s future hangs in the balance when school authorities are making rules that will cut off college as an option.


Yes, we can all agree: college is not for everybody. But should school officials and top-down policy makers decide based, for example, on Common Core college readiness test scores, or should the decision be left to parents and students after schools have given them meaningful, enriching, equitable opportunities to learn?


While college is not for everybody, opportunities to be prepared for college definitely should be.
When college-educated parents have the capacity to secure the college advantage, they certainly seize it for their own children. It is not unusual, for example, to see upper middle class parents spend thousands on tutoring—including tutors for the SAT and the college essay. College-educated parents understand that a four-year diploma is key to securing financial success.

That’s just one reality that Mike Petrilli, the executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, refuses to confront in his article in Slate, with the man-bites-dog title, “Kid, I’m Sorry, but You’re Just Not College Material” Is exactly what we should be telling a lot of high school students.”

The “we” who are the deciders is left somewhat undefined, but it’s safe to assume that the use of “we” does not give power and capacity to the students themselves.

Before continuing, this is a good spot to pause and acknowledge when we are talking about other people’s children. The two of us, like Mr. Petrilli, represent families where post-secondary education is a given. Accordingly, we’re essentially debating what’s best for those “other” families. As we contemplate tinkering with their fate, it is wise to remember John Dewey’s axiom:

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.”

Perhaps we are unwise in working our tails off for our children to go to college. But unless and until we acknowledge this, we should be wary of sending other families down a different path.


The vocational education push isn’t coming from just Mr. Petrilli. As he notes, it’s also coming from a project headquartered at Harvard University (apparently with no irony intended) as well as from policymakers throughout the nation. The Education Commission of the States recently studied the “State of the State” addresses from the nation’s governors and found that “at least 13 governors and the D.C. mayor outlined proposals improving or expanding CTE [career and technical education, aka vocational education] options for students.”

Mr. Petrilli and the governors are correct to the extent that they are simply acknowledging that not all children will go to college and that those who do not should nonetheless have opportunities to thrive. It is also true that the decision to forgo or delay college should be made before graduation day.

From that point on, however, the “sort and select” advocates get almost everything wrong. Their fundamental two-part assumption is, first, that they can and should identify children who are beyond academic hope. Second, they believe that it is possible and beneficial to identify these children early, separate them from their academically oriented peers, and put them on a track that hopefully prepares them for post-secondary employment but does not prepare them for college.


Equitable schools reject such tracking policies because they believe in the American Dream and because they have learned from past mistakes.
History tells us that schools should not be in the business of foreclosing children’s options. At the start of the 20th century, schools faced an influx of immigrants, and policymakers responded by creating programs for those who were called the “great army of incapables.” Vocational tracks prepared immigrants to be factory workers, while the children of well-off parents were given a college preparatory education. This pattern of separating students into different classes was repeated during the era of racial desegregation as a way to maintain segregated classrooms—and then again in the 1970s when students with special needs were increasingly enrolled in mainstream schools.

History and research show that when schools sort in this way, it is the disadvantaged children who are directed toward lower-tier tracks. No matter what criteria are used—scores, recommendations or even choice—the same patterns of stratification occur. Accordingly, when lawmakers adopt these misguided policies, they open up opportunity gaps that inevitably lead to the achievement gaps that these same lawmakers then decry.

Mr. Petrilli concedes that he understands the danger. Describing the bad old days, he writes, “Those high school ‘tracks’ were immutable, and those who wound up in ‘voc-ed’ (or, at least as bad, the ‘general’ track) were those for whom secondary schooling, in society’s eyes, was mostly a custodial function.” Yet he turns back to voc-ed because, as he contends, the odds are otherwise too long for disadvantaged students.

Beginning with the statistic that only 10 percent of these disadvantaged students earn a four-year degree, Mr. Petrilli asserts that if we work really hard as a society maybe this number would rise to 30 percent, which for Mr. Petrilli is not good enough. Since recent data show that 33.5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 29 have at least a bachelor’s degree, that sounds like a pretty good outcome to us. By the way, that’s the highest percentage ever for Americans, and it doesn’t include those who earn two-year degrees as well as certificates in our community colleges and post-secondary technical schools.


The “You’re Not College Material” approach is the same one we use far too often in schools.  Too many kids hear--You’re not ‘honors’ material, or Challenging science and math isn’t for you. And every time that strategy is used, we see the same results—classes that are stratified by social class and race. It’s an approach that reinforces existing inequalities. To say in a supposedly neutral way that not all students will go to college is disingenuous without first acknowledging something else: that what’s really being said is that we should accept that college is for the already advantaged.

On some level, Mr. Petrilli grasps these concerns—when he acknowledges the past harms of tracking and that “when judgments were made on the basis of ZIP code or skin color, the old system was [deterministic, racist, and classist].” What he doesn’t acknowledge is that his new system would be the old system.

It’s interesting to us that the Petrilli article’s argument relies in part on the German system of tiered schooling, where college-bound students head to the Gymnasium while vocation-bound students head to the Hauptschule or Realschule. Yes, it’s true that students attending the German vocational schools do better than voc-ed students here, in part because of a more equitable job sector following graduation. But a team of German psychologists recently published an article in The Journal of Educational Psychology on the effects of the German vocational track on the development of student intelligence—and they found that students in the academic track experienced substantial IQ gains as compared to those voc-ed students. Not only did the learning gap grow, so did the very capacity to learn between German academic and vocational students. That outcome should give us pause.

Our quarrel is not with offering vocational opportunities in high schools. Rather, we favor a smart and fair approach that works for children and families who, at the right time and place, make the choice for a career after high school.
We might, for example, retool our two-year colleges so that they offer more programs in technology and other marketable areas, without making students jump through remedial hoops to stay. We might also follow the lead of Finland and prepare students with a strong and equitable academic education without tracking until age 16, and then allow them to make meaningful career and life choices. We may even look at promising models, such as California’s Linked Learning schools, which integrate career preparation while still preparing students for college. High schools have an obligation to do their best to prepare students for college and career; preparation for both has more overlap than often assumed.


We reject, however, No College for You! proposals that sort  14 year olds into vocational high schools. South Side High School, one of the best in the nation, would likely be a very different place if co-author Carol Burris’ predecessor, Robin Calitri, had obliged his counselor when he was told “Kid, you are not college material.”  That counselor did not have the right to make that decision—and neither does Mike Petrilli.



___________________________________________

Neo-liberals installed the education policy in South Korea after the Korean war that it is trying to install in the US today.  The difference is that the US has a history of public education and people as citizens with the rights to legislate and equal protection laws.  From Korea this policy traveled to China and Singapore and involves very autocratic and pedantic learning where parents in these countries have been fighting for decades to get rid of it.  NO ONE LIKES THESE NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION POLICIES.  Look below and you see the AFT union leader Weingarten with Arne Duncan praising this neo-liberal model.  Weingarten allowed the AFT to support these Race to the Top and Common Core policies for the first years of Obama's terms but the public outcry and teachers grew too large for Weingarten to follow the neo-liberal lead and as you see in the article after this one-----the AFT is now fighting Obama's and Wall Street's education reform.

IT WAS THE PUBLIC OUTCRY THAT FORCED THIS UNION LEADER TO STOP FOLLOWING NEO-LIBERALS.  WE MUST HAVE THE PUBLIC PROTESTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN KILLING THIS VERY BAD EDUCATION REFORM.  NEITHER REPUBLICANS NOR DEMOCRATS WANT THIS REFORM.  IT IS ONLY ABOUT MAKING EDUCATION INTO GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.



I spoke at great length about the Finland model for education that has made Finland number 1 in education.  Finland embraced the American model of the 1950s and 1960s while the US was dismantling the best in the world public education to make this corporatized model they are pushing today. 

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE GOING BACK TO THE PUBLIC EDUCATION BUILT FOR DEMOCRACY AND AWAY FROM THIS AUTOCRATIC CORPORATE MODEL.




Which winning ideas could the U.S. steal from Singapore?


Singapore has one of the best education systems in the world, according to international assessments. President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talk about its performance. United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten visited in 2012 and her counterpart at the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, has praised its teacher training. And in 2012, Singapore was featured in the first-ever International Summit on the Teaching Profession as a country that many places – including America – could learn from.



In light of all this hype, I spent the past week in Singapore visiting schools to find out why they are so successful. But, not surprisingly, there’s no big secret or magic trick that the United States could simply copy tomorrow. Rather, my impressions were of a nation where education is respected, where educators and administrators think critically about their jobs and the qualities they want their students to develop and where self-reflection is ingrained. Those are qualities already found in many American schools, and that reformers are trying to spur in others.

But some of Singapore’s latest strategies go beyond or challenge some of the most popular ideas right now for improving American schools. At the same time, it’s important to remember the vast differences between the two countries that make it difficult to transfer ideas. Here are my main takeaways from my conversations with educators, students and education officials:

- Singapore is looking to revamp their standards. As most states in America continue the rollout of the Common Core State Standards, an internationally benchmarked guide laying out what students are supposed to learn in each grade in math and English, Singapore also has changes planned. But education officials there are more concerned about some less tangible skills, like collaboration and creativity, and coming up with ways to systematically introduce those into the curriculum. In theory, the end goals of Common Core and Singapore’s newest push are similar. They both aim to create individuals with critical thinking skills who can thrive in a modern economy. But as we try to copy Singapore’s methods, like their math sequencing, educators there are already moving on to new ideas.

- Lots of Singaporean students are stressed. The country is looking for ways to reduce this and trying to decrease the emphasis on grades and test scores. The Ministry of Education is trying to reduce the emphasis on the primary school exit exam, which all students have to take to determine which secondary school they will attend, for instance. But many people told me one of the biggest challenges will be changing the mindset of parents. Not all students in Singapore worry endlessly about exams, but several people said that for those that do, parents are a primary source of their anxiety.

- Singapore is small. As several people pointed out to me, if you drive for an hour in any direction, you arrive at the water. While some people told me the small size of the country has disadvantages for education – it severely limits options for field trips for instance – it also has its benefits. Most notably, the country’s size, along with the fact that the schools are run by a centralized authority, allows the Ministry of Education, the National Institute of Education – which trains every teacher in the country – and the schools to be in close communication about research and new strategies. New programs can be implemented quicker and the National Institute for Education can easily keep track of what is actually happening in classrooms to tweak its offerings when needed.

- The schools are big. Half a million students are enrolled in the island’s schools, but most schools have student populations of more than a thousand – even at the primary level. With that many students, classes of 35 to 40 are typical, but nothing seemed disorderly. The atmosphere in the classrooms that I visited switched between formal and relaxed. Students bowed to greet visitors and again to thank them for coming. They stood up to speak whenever called upon, and chatter while a teacher was talking was almost nonexistent. At the same time, though, laughter was common. Teachers would gently tease students and discussion was highly encouraged.

Not everything Singapore does would apply to our much larger, decentralized education system and not everything they do should be emulated. But there are some inspirations we could draw from the country, such as trying to get more high-performing students into the classroom as teachers or being more explicit in the character qualities we want students to develop – without obsessing over how to measure them.

__________________________________________

As a social democrat I do not want to break from the Democratic Party-----I want to take the Democratic Party back from corporate neo-liberals.  The important thing is that more and more people are understanding where this is going and know we can stop and reverse this no matter what political stance you take.  We need Republicans pushing against this as these policies are written by neo-conservative and neo-liberal think tanks.

'The way forward for teachers requires a complete break with the pro-corporate trade unions and Democratic Party.


.......calling for Duncan’s resignation, saying he had championed a “failed education agenda” consisting of policies that “undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”




Seeking to regain credibility, US teachers unions criticize Obama’s education secretary
By Phyllis Scherrer
22 July 2014


After spending the last five-and-a-half years collaborating with the Obama administration’s attack on teachers’ jobs and conditions, the two teachers’ unions in the US recently passed resolutions seeking to distance themselves from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his anti-public education policies.

The National Education Association (NEA) passed a resolution at its national convention in Denver, Colorado, on July 4, calling for Duncan’s resignation, saying he had championed a “failed education agenda” consisting of policies that “undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”

This was followed by a July 13 resolution at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conference in Los Angeles, California, which called on President Obama “to implement a secretary improvement plan” for Duncan, modeled on the punitive testing measures used to fire “failing” teachers. “If Secretary Duncan does not improve, and given that he has been treated fairly and his due process rights have been upheld, the secretary of education must resign,” the statement read.

The conventions were held just weeks after Duncan’s enthusiastic support for the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Vergara v. California case, which attacks tenure and another job protections won by teachers over decades of struggle. At the time Duncan hailed the right-wing forces behind the lawsuit, saying, “millions of young people in America” are “disadvantaged by laws, practices, and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students.”

The NEA and AFT resolutions, however, were nothing more than an exercise in damage control by the unions, aimed at reviving the credibility of both unions, which have been undermined by their collaboration with Duncan and the administration’s pro-corporate “school reform” agenda. The resolutions will have no affect whatsoever on the continued collaboration of the teachers’ unions with the Obama administration.

In fact, the day the NEA convention passed its resolution, officials from the rival AFT were at the White House meeting with Duncan to collaborate on the implementation of a new “teacher equity plan,” another teachers “evaluation” plan to rid poor school districts, with the assistance of the unions, of higher paid, more senior teachers.

Duncan dismissed the NEA resolution with the contempt it deserves, saying, had NEA officials not been at their convention, “I think they would have stood with us on this” today, too. He congratulated new NEA President-elect Lily Eskelsen Garcia and added, “We’ve had a very good working relationship with the NEA in the past.”

In addition to concealing their own role, by presenting Duncan as the author of this anti-teacher agenda, the unions are seeking to protect President Obama and the Democratic Party. The teachers unions promoted the lie that Obama would reverse the attacks of his Republican predecessor. In fact, the Democratic president has gone well beyond the attacks associated with Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001.

Under Obama’s Race to the Top (RTTT) the administration allocated $4.35 billion to fund a “competition” designed by the Bill & Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Boeing, Walton Family and other Foundations. School districts were forced to vie against each other for funds already severely reduced under Bush’s NCLB—federal funds that under the War on Poverty reforms of the 1960s were allotted directly to districts serving high percentages of students in poverty.

Under RTTT “winning” districts are those who agree to fire teachers and close or privatize schools based on poor standardized test scores, which are chiefly the result of poverty and decades of budget cutting, not bad teachers. Since the implementation of RTTT, public schools have been starved of funding, 330,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs, at least 4,000 public schools have been closed, and the number of students enrolled in charter schools has doubled.

Obama and the Democratic Party have embraced the anti-teacher nostrums long associated with the most right-wing sections of the Republican Party. This is underscored by the fact that former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and several other former Obama aides are spearheading a national public relations drive to support lawsuits in New York and other states, modeled on Vergara, to overturn teacher tenure, seniority and other job protections.

On the local level, Democratic mayors and school officials from Chicago, Philadelphia and New York to Detroit, New Orleans and Washington, DC, have spearheaded the attack on public education and expansion of for-profit charters.

The well-heeled executives who run the teachers’ unions--including AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel who received salaries of $543,150 and $306,286 respectively in the last year alone—are not opposed to the pro-corporate school “reform.” On the contrary, they are only looking to be partners in this process, as the AFT slogan, “School reform with us, not against us,” makes clear.

Both the NEA and the AFT were direct recipients of Gates’ money for the implementation of the so-called Common Core curriculum, which will be used to further attack teachers, while subordinating public education to the needs of profit-making technology and publishing companies. In 2012, the AFT accepted $4.4 million in order to “work on teacher development and Common Core Standards.” In July 2013 the NEA endorsed the Common Core and was awarded $6.3 million to assist with developing the Common Core Curriculum.

As teachers became wise to the character of Common Core, and every more disdainful of the AFT’s support of it, AFT officials tried to distance themselves from Gates last March by refusing to take any additional money from the Gates Innovation Foundation Fund, only one of several conduits of the billionaire’s money to the AFT.


Part of the grandstanding against Duncan is the increasing turf war between the AFT and NEA and their competition for dues money among a shrinking number of teachers. The AFT convention passed a dues increase by 45 cents per month this year and 55 cents per month next year, for a total monthly dues bill of $18.78 for each member by September 2015—largely to offset the loss of Gates money—and is increasingly seeking to get a foothold among low-paid charter teachers, as well as non-teaching members like nurses.

The NEA, the nation’s largest union, with just over three million members, including teachers, paraprofessionals and higher education instructors, has seen a significant drop in membership. Since the 2010-2011 school year, which coincides with the recession and the election of Obama, union membership for the NEA is down by 201,000 of its teacher members.

Under conditions in which more states are enacting Republican-backed “right-to-work” laws, which end automatic dues deduction from teachers’ paychecks, and sections of the Democratic Party are openly discussing dispensing with the services of the unions altogether, the AFT and NEA are doubling down to ensure state and local officials that they can be relied on to slash costs, destroy teachers’ conditions and suppress opposition to the closing of schools and the attack on education.

Over the last five years there have been growing struggles of teachers—in Wisconsin, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, St. Paul, Minnesota, and other cities—which have led to a direct clash between teachers on the one hand and the Democratic Party and their servants in the trade unions on the other.

Well aware of the growing anger of rank-and-file teachers, a section of trade union bureaucracy and its supporters in pseudo-left movements like the International Socialist Organization, whose supporters have gained union positions in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and other districts, are doing everything they can to refurbish the image of the teachers’ unions.

Their model of “social justice unionism” has proven to be a dead end as the betrayal of the 2012 teachers strike, by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and Vice President Jesse Sharkey, a supporter of the ISO, showed. The CTU shut down the nine-day strike by 26,000 Chicago teachers before it could develop into a direct political confrontation with Mayor Rahm Emanuel—Obama’s former White House Chief of Staff—and the White House.

This betrayal gave Emanuel the green light to close 50 schools and lay off 3,500 teachers and school workers. As a reward, an AFT-affiliated union was given the franchise to “organize” low-paid teachers at the Chicago United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) charter schools run by one of Emanuel’s closest supporters.

Lewis and the CTU are now promoting the idea of running “independent” political campaigns in Chicago. Far from challenging the Democratic Party and advancing any independent political strategy for the working class, these campaigns fully accept the domination of society by the corporate and financial elite and are solely aimed at pressuring the Democrats to more effectively use the unions as partners in the dismantling of public education.


The way forward for teachers requires a complete break with the pro-corporate trade unions and Democratic Party and the fight to mobilize the working class as a whole against the profit system and to defend all of the democratic and social rights of the working class, including access to high quality public education.


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Below you see how other states still have democratic debates and open elections while in Maryland any politician that speaks against neo-liberals and neo-cons are censured.  We must fight for free and fair elections to make sure we can vote these neo-liberals out of office.

Remember, Common Core is not about quality education.....it is about controlling what is taught.  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math are already standardized and we do not want our humanities and liberal arts standardized because that is what makes the US a plurality and democracy-----differing points of view.  So this is simply a policy meant to give global corporations control of what our children learn in classrooms.

We have the AFT, the CTU, and it looks like the UFT moving against these education reforms and now we need parents and communities fighting with them.  It does not matter your political stance----these policies hurt all Americans.


New York Now Leads the Way in the Movement Against Common Core- At The Polls | With A Brooklyn Accent
20 Jul 2014   | Common Core · New York Share NPE News Briefs

Something truly extraordinary has happened in the New York State Gubernatorial race-something with broad national implications.  A big money Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who thought he was going to make himself a front runner in the 2016 Presidential Race by ramming through legislation requiring teacher evaluations based on Common Core aligned tests, has generated so much opposition among teachers and parents that there are now three different Gubernatorial candidates who oppose Common Core- the Republican candidate, Rob Astorino, the Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, and the new and quite formidable challenger in the Democratic Primary, Zephyr Teachout.

There are two reasons this situation is “game changer”

First, it shows how much opposition to Common Core is emerging  across the political spectrum.  For the last year, Common Core supporters in the media, the corporate world, and the US Department of Education have tried to portray Common Core opponents as extremists whose views should be rejected out of hand, but the what we have in New York is a mainstream Republican, a strong candidate on the left, and a liberal Democrat all saying that Common Core is untested, undemocratic and a threat to strong, locally controlled public schools.  And this position is going to be put forward strongly from now until election day. Even if Andrew Cuomo wins the Democratic primary, he will be facing two strong anti-Common Core voices in the general election.

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July 15th, 2014

7/15/2014

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I spend time talking about labor and unions in a State of Maryland that is not union-friendly because whether Republican or Democratic voter-----it is unions that will be able to counter the power of global corporations.  Republican Party used to be a supporter of unions and needs to come back to this.  I qualify my support with the fact that we need to rebuild our union leadership and models as they are currently often tying themselves to what neo-liberal politicians tell them to do.

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO CONSIDER THESE LABOR ISSUES NO MATTER THE SUPPORT OF UNIONS.  CITIZENS CAN SUPPORT UNIONS WITHOUT BEING A UNION MEMBER AS THE WORKPLACE LAWS WON BY THE UNIONS OF LAST CENTURY BENEFIT ALL!

Check out this Facebook page:   the movement is growing!

US Uncut
June 30 ·


The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a corporate trade deal that places profits over everything and would affect half of humanity, but the mainstream media refuses to cover it at all.

Share to break corporate media's censorship.


I want to make clear, it is not only the working class and poor being driven deeper into poverty.  The middle-class employee is feeling it as well.  I spoke of public universities now filled with part-time adjuncts and we are watching as nursing staff and other medical employees with strong middle-class salaries feeling the cuts of Affordable Care Act reform.  Post Office employees were strongly middle-class as were MTA bus drivers and all are under attack from privatization.  Doctors know they are next as their profession becomes a cog in a profit-driven system.  The problem is global corporations having complete control of our US and state economies.  Ending that power is the solution to protecting all US workers AND IT CAN BE DONE! 

WE NEED EVERYONE ENGAGED IN POLITICS----RUN OR ADVOCATE!

It is a bad sign for democracy when US universities attack the very professors who for centuries were the ones charged with holding power accountable.  Taking away tenure and making professors predominately adjunct was meant to kill political activism on US university campuses.....and is why there is silence today.  I am glad to see the movement below.






Wednesday, Feb 19, 2014, 3:10 pm

UIC Faculty Rekindle Fight for Public Education With Historic Strike

BY Rebecca Burns

University of Illinois----Chicago



As a tenured professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), Josh Radinsky never expected to participate in a strike—or to see so many of his colleagues ready to do the same. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like a ghost town today,” Radinsky marveled as he and a group of colleagues picketed outside an empty academic building yesterday morning.

Tuesday marked the start of an unprecedented two-day walkout staged by UIC United Faculty (UICUF), the union that represents more than 1,100 tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty members at the state university. Strikes by university professors are a rare occurrence: The first of its kind at UIC, the faculty strike is also one of only a handful at U.S. colleges and universities during the past five years. Since gaining recognition in 2012, though, UICUF has been locked in a stalemate with university administrators over its first contract. In December, faculty members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if progress wasn’t made at the negotiating table.

This week, the union made good on its threat: Faculty members walked out of their offices on Tuesday morning, fanning out into picket lines across campus. 

Though the sight of picketing professors may be novel, it’s become increasingly evident to many that the union and administration were coming to loggerheads. As Radinsky, who’s taught for 14 years in the university’s College of Education, says about the strike, “This needed to happen—I think it’s about time.” 

As it’s geared up for a strike, UICUF’s central contention has been that the university is not as cash-strapped as it claims to be. The union argues, based on reports of auditors and bond ratings, that UIC has more than $500 million in unrestricted reserves. And during the past five years, according to UICUF, even while the school has deferred faculty raises and withheld other benefits in the name of tough fiscal times, it has also increased the number of administrators by 10 percent.

Though the union says that some progress has been made during negotiations on non-economic issues such as academic freedom, the two sides are still sorely at odds about pay and benefits. Specifically, UICUF has put the penurious conditions of non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty at the center of its struggle: NTT faculty members currently make a minimum of $30,000 annually, and the union is demanding a $45,000 wage floor. Though the university offered $36,000 in its most recent counter-proposal, union negotiators say this does not constitute a good-faith negotiation.

“We don’t see that as an actual compromise,” says John Casey, a non-tenure-track lecturer who is a member of the union’s bargaining team. Casey teaches a freshman writing course and says his low wages impact his ability to give his students the attention they deserve. He says he’s had to take a string of outside jobs, including a recent one as a bicycle tour guide, to make ends meet while teaching at UIC.

For its part, UIC maintains the union’s proposals for tenure-track faculty would lead to a 23 percent hike in costs for the university; its proposals for non-tenure-track faculty would increase costs by 27 percent. “A work stoppage or strike is not in the best interest of the faculty, the University, or our students,” the university said in a statement issued last week on its website. “However, under Illinois law, educational employees in a bargaining unit without an applicable no-strike clause in a contract have a right to strike. Each professor or instructor has the right to strike, or to work.”

The UIC strike represents a new height of coordination between tenured and non-tenure-track faculty, who often bargain contracts separately and sometimes see their interests as divergent. As I’ve reported previously, UICUF has found a unique way to maintain solidarity between the two groups. In 2011, the university successfully blocked tenure-track and NTT faculty members from forming a single bargaining unit—a move union activists say was an attempt to “divide and conquer.” But the two groups have maintained the same core demands and the same bargaining team, operating as a unified group even though they must ultimately bargain two separate contracts.

Though the last major wave of faculty unionization took place in the 1970s, labor organizing in the academy is on the rise again. A surge of organizing among adjunct professors during the past year has won new, adjunct-only unions at several private universities, including Tufts University in Massachusetts. This resurgence is “a direct outgrowth of the large increase in the use of low-paid contingent faculty,” says William A. Herbert, a distinguished lecturer at CUNY and executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.

However, he notes that the labor action at UIC is fairly unique because of the “apparent [tenure-track and NTT] faculty unity and prioritization for improving the working conditions of contingent faculty.”

Casey, who was an adjunct activist even before UIC unionized, tells In These Times that he was initially uncertain whether working with tenured professors would be the best path to improvements in his own conditions.

“I was skeptical when we first started about how the relationship would work,” says Casey. “[But] our tenure-track faculty have been amazing allies.” Among the benefits of working in conjunction with tenured faculty, he says, is that the most vulnerable faculty members may be shielded from retaliation. “I mean, my boss was out here today on the picket line,” Casey notes. “That’s pretty remarkable.” (Department heads at UIC are not included in the union, but many have expressed support for the strike.)

Many labor activists are hailing today’s walkout as a historic development whose impact could extend beyond Chicago. For example, faculty members at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the flagship campus in the state system, are currently in the midst of their own union drive. And many of those professors have their eyes on UIC as a bellwether for the rest of the state.

Given the expanding ranks of NTT faculty at Urbana-Champaign, UICUF’s ability to secure a higher wage floor for equivalent positions at UIC “would be a huge boost for us here,” Susan Davis, a professor in the Department of Communication at Urbana-Champaign and a member of the pro-union Campus Faculty Association, tells In These Times via e-mail. 

Davis also points out UIC higher-ups could be taking a hard line in contract negotiations with UICUF in an attempt to stem the tide toward faculty unionization at other campuses.  “We think the administration is playing hardball with UICUF in part because they could set a dramatic precedent for the University of Illinois as a whole,” she continues.

Spokespeople for UICUF estimate more than 1,000 faculty members participated in the first day of the strike and that about half of all classes were cancelled. More than 200 people, including students, attended a midday rally on Tuesday. The group chanted, “Chop from the Top!” and “No Contract, No Peace!” while many marched with distinctly professorial picket signs, such as “I Teach, Therefore I Am (Exploited)” and “The Inductive Method: No Contract, No Work!” 

Campus service and maintenance workers represented by SEIU Local 73, who are in the midst of their own contentious contract negotiations and could strike in March, also came out to demonstrate solidarity.

“We’re hoping that this will show us a way towards a stronger contract,” says Michael Schmitt, a member of the union’s bargaining team, who says the $13 to $17 an hour wages in Campus Parking Services aren’t enough for him and his co-workers to make ends meet. Though other campus unions have clauses in their contracts that prohibit them from striking in solidarity with faculty, many still attended pickets during their free time on Tuesday.

Faculty strikes are distinct from those at other workplaces in that they don’t actually cut into the university’s bottom line—though they can disrupt day-to-day business on campus, students have already paid tuition for the classes being cancelled. Therefore, faculty strikes are most often a short-term, symbolic tactic aimed at gaining public attention and support, says Herbert.

UIC faculty members insist, however, that their two-day walkout is a warning to the university before bargaining sessions resume again on Friday. “We’re out here today to show urgency,” says Casey. “If we don’t see any progress ... we will go out on indefinite strike.”




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Wednesday, Apr 30, 2014, 8:10 pm

College Adjuncts Union Scores Victory at Maryland Institute College of Art

BY Bruce Vail Email Print MICA adjuncts celebrate after filing their petition to unionize.   (SEIU 500)

BALTIMORE—Part-time college faculty members at the historic Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) scored an impressive win on Tuesday when they voted overwhelmingly to bring a labor union on campus for the first time since MICA’s opening in 1826.


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When I speak of shareholder class this article does a good job showing what this means.  You and I may have pension funds but with boom and bust of bubbles lose most of what we gain every five years.  This is not really being a shareholder.  Neo-liberals and neo-cons work for the shareholder class and that is at most 5% of the US population.  Also, you can see how the people controlling these global corporations are increasingly becoming the same 1% and-----the banks.

So, labor has to fight across industry and not only for one corporation.  I shout out that we do not want labor unions taking the structure of global corporations as they expand overseas to organize and that is what we are seeing.  Demand your labor union works locally and remains controlled locally.  It is this International status of unions like the AFL-CIO and SEIU that has them paired to neo-liberal pols.


UPS, FedEx owned by most of the same monopoly banks


Highlights the need for industry-wide organizing, unionizing FedEx workers
By Dave Schneider and Dustin Ponder

Jacksonville, FL – Despite ‘competing’ as the world's two largest parcel delivery and shipping companies, UPS and FedEx are owned by many of the same banks. According to NASDAQ's ownership summary of both companies, 12 of the top 20 owners of UPS and FedEx are the same banks, investment groups and financial institutions.

Both multi-billion dollar corporations are under 'institutional ownership', which means that a majority of their shares are owned by financial institutions, banks and other large monopoly corporations. According to NASDAQ's ownership summary of UPS on April 11, nearly 71% of UPS shares are owned by institutions. FedEx, a smaller company than UPS, actually had greater institutional ownership, with 83.94% of the company's shares owned by institutions, according to NASDAQ.

However, most of the largest institutional owners of both UPS and FedEx have substantial interests in both companies. For instance, Vanguard Group Inc., a Pennsylvania-based investment bank that manages nearly $2 trillion in assets, is the single-largest owner of UPS and the third largest owner of FedEx. Vanguard Group is a massive financial institution that boasts the largest ownership in many other large, well-known corporations including Apple, Exxon Mobil and Microsoft.

Primecap Management Company, based in Pasadena, California, is the largest owner of FedEx, holding nearly 19 million shares of the shipping company, according to NASDAQ. However, Primecap is also the 16th largest owner of UPS stock, holding more than 6.3 million shares, also according to NASDAQ.

In all, 60% of the top 20 owners of both UPS and FedEx are the same banks, investment groups and financial institutions.

Institutional ownership is incredibly common among the largest 500 publicly traded companies.

Despite this fact, companies like UPS stress to workers the need to “compete” against rival workers in their industry, like those at FedEx. UPS's collective bargaining agreement includes an entire article on competition that states: “The Union recognizes that the Employer is in direct competition with…other firms engaging in the distribution of express letter, parcel express, parcel delivery, and freight, both air and surface.”

The company leverages this poison pill of competition to justify subcontracting union work and undermining union standards. It creates an adversarial relationship between workers of UPS and FedEx, when in reality the owners at the top are united in extracting the most profit possible from workers at both companies. When the owners of UPS and FedEx are one in the same, ‘competition’ means which management team can exploit their workers the most and extract the most profit for the banks that own the whole industry.

A prominent argument used by UPS claims that workers must accept concessionary contracts to remain ‘competitive.’ They argue that employing tried-and-true militant tactics, like striking as the Teamsters did successfully in 1997, will result in FedEx stealing UPS’s customers. Historically, the union movement addressed this by organizing entire industries, instead of single worksites or employers. This meant one industry, one union, and at times - one contract. At its best, this method of organizing and bargaining takes wages out of competition and sets industry-wide standards to prevent subcontracting and a race to the bottom through ‘competition.’ Tactically, if the 1% owners of both brands are united, then to combat them and win, workers across the entire industry must also unite.

The attempts of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to organize FedEx have been foiled by U.S. labor law, which misclassifies workers and stifles their ability to unionize. FedEx Ground drivers are misclassified as independent contractors and are legally barred from union representation, even though in practice, they are effectively workers directly employed by the company. FedEx Express drivers are also misclassified under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), as opposed to the National Labor Relations Act. The company claims their employees are ‘airline’ workers, and thus would need to unionize nationally all at once. The RLA also places many more restrictions on workers’ rights, including the ability to strike. It also forces the workers into binding arbitration, which often serve the interest of the boss instead of the workers.

The banks and financial institutions that own both UPS and FedEx are united in their push for lower wages, part-time poverty jobs, fewer benefits and weaker contracts. To effectively fight their race to the bottom, union workers at UPS must organize FedEx workers, regardless of the legal fictions created by politicians in Washington.

Dave Schneider and Dustin Ponder are both rank-and-file Teamsters and members of Part-Time Power at UPS, which is a national group for UPS part-timers.


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All across the nation nurses have been out protesting the most of any union.  They are on the front-lines of the Affordable Care Act and the Obama/neo-liberal cuts of almost $1 trillion from Medicare.  We all know those cuts were allowed to be designed by health corporations and hit the patient access and health industry labor.....nurses for one.  If health industry and education industry are going to be drivers of the 21st century economy then driving these groups to poverty is not a solution for a healthy economy or quality health service.  It's not meant to be say neo-liberals----it's all about the corporate profits!

Did you know there is actually growing unemployment for nursing after decades of being told there were shortages?  So much for this 'growth' industry.  It is a combination of staff layoffs and importing immigrant labor to work in the health field that has this strong middle-class employment under attack.

In Baltimore, it is Johns Hopkins who makes a living recruiting foreign health care workers to the US to replace US workers and they do it to exploit these immigrant workers.  I have a friend who works in Hopkins' research labs from the Middle East who says she is simply used to do the most mundane of lab work-----the assembly line of lab research and has no chance of anything better.  She will leave to return home after being assured a good life in America.  Meanwhile, Baltimore has 50% unemployment in the black community and 36% in the general community.  It is these policies that have to go and these situations permeate the health industry.

We thank the nurses unions for shouting out for patients rights and fighting for labor justice!


Private equity firms are being handed all public health especially in Maryland and not coincidentally fraud and corruption is soaring!

Using the excuse of  Medicare budget cuts was the plan for dismissing staff and creating a structure for maximizing profits.  Remember, the Medicare Trust is low because these same health institutions spent a few decades robbing it through fraud.

' at a time when more health care is shifting from in-patient to outpatient services'.

The Affordable Care Act is about denying most people the ability to access the most basic of medical procedures and private equity firms say----get used to it because people will be getting the only care they can afford at home.


Nurses walk out at Quincy Medical Center

By Robert Weisman and Jessica Bartlett  | Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent   April 12, 2013


QUINCY — Hundreds of nurses marched in a drizzly chill Thursday, carrying signs, waving union flags, and drumming on plastic bins in a 24-hour strike to dramatize their complaints about staffing levels they say compromise patient safety at Quincy Medical Center.

They called in big political guns, notably US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, the South Boston Democrat who is running for US Senate, at a noon rally. They even rolled out an inflatable Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld. The private equity firm that owns the hospital’s parent, Steward Health Care System, is named after the mythical creature.

“The dog came out of retirement,” said David Schildmeier, spokesman for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, who said the hellhound’s only previous appearance was at a protest last year outside the New York headquarters of Cerberus Capital Management, which formed the Steward hospital and doctors group in 2010.

Inside the hospital, doctors and administrators said it was largely business as usual — except that they canceled elective surgeries for the day and brought in about 60 replacement nurses. They also hired trucks with billboards proclaiming the union was living in the past. Nurses stood in the street trying to block the trucks and attach their own signs to the vehicles.

“In today’s economy, nurses sitting by empty beds making $52 an hour is not feasible,” said Daniel Knell, who took over in 2011 as president of Quincy Medical Center.

Barry Chin/Globe Staff

Dr. Nissage Cadet (left) and hospital president Daniel Knell discussed the strike.

At the end of the day, nothing was resolved. Nurses were set to return to their jobs Friday morning without a contract. And there was no agreement between the two sides on the basic facts of what prompted the unusual one-day strike. While the nurses cited inadequate staffing, management insisted the union was pushing for higher wages and benefits.

The walkout took place against a backdrop of looming cuts in government funding for Medicare and Medicaid, the public insurance programs for older and low-income people.

“There is a lot of pressure being put on the hospitals,” Lynch told more than 200 nurses and their supporters. “The reimbursement rates are not there. They are being put under pressure to reduce costs, and they are looking at making nurses work longer hours with fewer nurses on staff. That’s not the way we need to be going.”

The strike got underway at 6 a.m., when unionized nurses walked out of the hospital to join nurses from Norwood Hospital, Morton Hospital in Taunton, and other Steward-owned and nonprofit hospitals who came to show their support.

“We need to bring it to the community to support the issues,” said Paula Ryan, a recovery room nurse at Quincy Medical who chairs the union local. “It’s been a long time coming. It’s been a struggle every day, nurses trying to provide the better care.”

Regulators from the state Department of Public Health showed up before dawn to make sure replacement nurses were certified and had been trained by hospital officials. A contingent of Quincy police officers — paid for by Steward — kept watch at the protest. “The financial impact for today alone is exceptional,” Knell said. He warned the hospital could be hurt further if patients chose to go to competing hospitals in Boston, Milton, or Weymouth because of what he said were false charges of safety problems.

“If the community doesn’t support the facility because of the rhetoric, it could do financial damage to us,” Knell said.

Nurses authorized the strike last month after their negotiators failed to reach agreement with Steward on a new contract. Their last contract expired before Steward acquired the bankrupt hospital in October 2011. Through an understanding between labor and management, they have been working under the terms of a separate Steward contract with union nurses at Steward-owned Carney Hospital in Dorchester.

Barry Chin/Globe Staff

A nurse from another Steward hospital waved a sign outside Quincy Medical Center to drum up support.

The union was notified in February that the hospital will close a 40-bed medical surgical floor and lay off 30 nurses who worked there along with 40 technicians, orderlies, and laborers, though the cuts have yet to take effect. Union officials contend that will aggravate already overcrowded conditions, but hospital officials insist there are often empty beds.

Steward and Cerberus executives are more interested in making money from their for-profit community hospitals than caring for patients, union members said. But hospital officials said the Quincy strike was part of a national union effort to inflate wages and keep staffing unnecessarily high at a time when more health care is shifting from in-patient to outpatient services.

“I consider nurses as our colleagues, and I value the work they do for patients,” said Dr. Nissage Cadet, chief of surgery at Quincy Medical Center. “But health care is changing, and that’s the right thing for patients. Steward came in and bailed out a hospital that was about to close in months. The quality of the institution has never been this good.”

On the picket line, however, nurses said conditions have gotten so bad that patients are being “boarded” in the emergency department for long periods while waiting to see a doctor. Department nurse Kathleen LeBretton said such episodes happen two to three times a week.

Hospital officials insisted they only board psychiatric patients in a section of the emergency room while they await transfer to other hospitals because Quincy Medical does not have psychiatric beds.

The nurses were supported by Dr. Robert Noonan, a private practice physician who sometimes works with Quincy Medical Center. “There was a patient last month who was a patient of mine in her 80s,” he said. “The closed surgical floor was full, and she was boarded in the emergency room for 18 hours.”

Hospital officials contended the nurses and their backers were making false claims in an effort to get more money.

“I’ve been a nurse myself,” Knell said. “And when I took my oath to take care of my patients, I meant it. I don’t know that I would ever walk away from the bedside of my patient for financial reasons.”


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These agreements are often small gains for the union members but what is most important is the citizens of the state and communities coming out to say enough is enough.  The workers cannot bear any more of the cuts designed to save money to be sent to corporate subsidy rather than people's paychecks.

For those not liking unions we need to remember everyone benefited from the policies built on union activism.  It is the only organized group which advocates for workers and I would suggest that what most people do not like about unions has more to do with bad union leaders and not the mission.  We need strong labor policy and law enforcement to reverse this wealth inequity and rebuild a healthy economy so everyone should be fighting for these issues.


We do need to see these unions fighting for the losses of the economic crash and fraud----we do not want to simply pretend we are starting again in the 1960s as union members lose these decades of accumulated wealth to corporate fraud and public malfeasance.  It is not public sector benefits and wages emptying government coffers---it is the corporate fraud and government corruption.

PROTECTING UNION MEMBER'S WEALTH IS AS IMPORTANT.   

Maryland is privatizing its Maryland Transportation Authority piece by piece and are now handing buses to VEOLA----busting wages,  benefits and unions themselves all under neo-liberal control of government.

Friday, Apr 11, 2014, 1:01 pm

With Solidarity in Spades, Vermont Bus Drivers’ 18-Day Strike Results in Big Win


BY Jonathan Leavitt

An outpouring of students, community members and allies from other unions turned out to support the strike. (All photographs by Jonathan Leavitt.)  

At 6am on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 40 bus drivers and a dozen community members defied negative-10-degree weather to picket outside the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) bus garage in Burlington, Vt. The action marked the beginning of nearly three-week-long transit strike over concessionary contract demands that would capture the imagination of much of Vermont and culminate in victory.

“Management misjudged us,” said CCTA driver Jim Fouts, speaking to In These Times from the impromptu victory rally on April 3. “We don’t drive together, we don’t have a lunch room to eat together,” said Fouts. But on the picket line, he says, “we turned into icicles together and we started to get to know one another.”



Traven Leyshon of the Vermont AFL-CIO leading Teamsters 597 members and supporters in chants on a negative 10 degree picket line. (Full disclosure: The author was part of the strike's solidarity committee and is a member of the Vermont Workers' Center, which supported the strike.)

After months of failed negotiations and working without a contract since June 30 of last year, drivers voted 54-0 on March 12th to reject CCTA management’s final contract offer. Drivers could not stomach monitoring disciplinary procedures that they saw as “abusive," such as being tailed by supervisors, reviewed via bus videotapes, and suspensions of as long as a month. The added demand that drivers work eight hours over the course of an exhausting 13.5-hour “split shift,” which could be extended through forced overtime to 15 hours, sparked concerns among bus drivers and community members that CCTA management’s demands risked “community safety.” 

A new generation of strikers St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Monday, a school day, and the temperature was negative 5 degrees, but at 7a.m., a steady stream of parents dropped off their students to march the picket line. Seventy-one Burlington High School (BHS) students walked the proverbial mile in another’s shoes, shoulder to shoulder with their bus drivers in a show of solidarity that harkens back to a much older, bolder labor movement. The students accompanied the bus drivers every foot of the circuitous 2.3-mile bus route from the Cherry Street picket line to the front office of the high school, where administrators greeted the students with applause and excused absences. The handmade signs students carried would paper the lobby for the duration of the strike.

“This is Vermont, and even record cold temperatures cannot keep us away from supporting the workers of our state,” says Sabine Rogers, a senior at BHS. “Students showed how much they support fair working conditions and how much they support the work that you bus drivers do each and every day.” 

“As we started to walk, we went from a fairly quiet group to chanting with a bullhorn and really getting into it,” says BHS senior Henry Prine. “One quiet student told me he doesn’t like loud noises or large crowd, but it was such an incredible experience. He fell in love with organizing in that moment.”



BHS Students on the picket line beside their CCTA drivers.

Prine detailed the prefigurative movement-building BHS students did before the strike. Through his student delegate position on the school board, Prine convinced the body to pass a resolution stating the school district would not hire scab bus drivers to cross picket lines. Prine says that as negotiations broke down and a strike appeared imminent, he began talking with other seniors ("and underclassmen too") about ways BHS students could take an even more powerful public stand. The students drafted a petition calling on CCTA management to meet the drivers’ demands, and Mayor Weinberger and the Burlington City Council to support the bus drivers.” According to Prine, the petition drew more than 500 signatures in one day’s time. “That’s more signatures than people get to keep the hockey program,” he says.

This petition would be presented to Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger in a March 10 City Council meeting by ten BHS student organizers. Weinberger and his City Council allies had earned a reputation as anti-labor for gutting Burlington’s Livable Wage Ordinance despite popular support for policies to reduce the growing disparity of wealth.

Rogers, motivated by her experience on the strike line, would build out a student carpool in solidarity with drivers, using some dusty ward maps to collectivize students’ overlapping routes to school. In the strike’s final week, students organized teachers to host bus drivers in their classes. Striking drivers presented labor history and origin story of their job action to 80 students in four classes in the three days leading up to the strike settlement.

Rogers believes the experience transformed a culture of alienation at her school. “The solidarity and community and sense of activism that has been such a big player in this whole past few weeks—I definitely see that continuing as part of the atmosphere at BHS,” she says. 

‘This is the movement of the people’  Nine days into the strike, the drivers would face a massively heavy lift. With the backing of Mayor Weinberger, eight of the 14 members of Burlington's City Council co-sponsored a resolution calling for the contract negotiations to enter “binding arbitration.”


According to a statement in responde to the resolution by the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals (a local of AFT Vermont), binding arbitration decreases the likelihood of a favorable outcome for workers and communities by placing “all decision-making in the hands of a third party, someone with no relationship to the workplace or community directly affected by his or her decision” and who is not accountable for the results.

To speak against binding arbitration, 150 drivers and supporters marched upon the City Council's March 26 meeting, chanting “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union!" After they filed into the chamber, City Council President Joan Shannon informed the crowd that the customary public comment period at the beginning of the meeting would be delayed by a special executive session. At that point, the entire driver solidarity march assembled outside the chamber door and unleashed perhaps the most boisterous rally City Hall has ever seen.



Bus drivers, other unions and community solidarity activists lead a speak-out in Burlington City Hall on March 26.

The hallway and steps leading to City Hall’s second floor and the Mayor’s office were suffused with swelling throng of students, members of United Electric (UE), the Vermont Workers’ Center, the Vermont State Employees Association, Vermont National Education Assocaition (Vermont NEA), the newly formed Vermont Homecare United (a local of ASFCME) and many bus drivers. Loud applause and chants of "What do we want? Fair Contract! When do we want it? Now!" resounded in hallway’s marble and into the City Council chamber in a scene many would compare to the 2011 occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol by pro-union protesters.

"Where is the freedom? Where is the chance?” bus driver Noor Ibrahim, an immigrant from Somalia, asked the impromptu rally. “I was told there is a chance here in this country. Where is the right of the poor people? [CCTA management] are misusing the money of the taxpayers. From now on we have this strike as experience, we don’t need to back down.”

Noor detailed how three years ago his wife was pregnant and “the doctor said the baby wasn’t moving.” He set up an appointment on his day off so he could support his wife, even filling out the vacation paperwork as an extra precaution. Less than 24 hours before the appointment, he said, CCTA’s management told him he would have to work. “When I asked them, they said ‘We don’t care about you, we don’t care about your family all we care about is the bus moving,’ " said Noor.

As drivers continued telling personal stories like these and the raucous rally spilled over into public comment, two of the eight resolution sponsors, Karen Paul and Tom Ayers, pulled their names off. Councilor Paul was evidently moved by the driver’s stories; she introduced a successful amendment to “remove the resolution from the agenda” entirely, adding, “I’ve learned a great deal tonight. If we go forward with the agenda, I’ll remove my name from the resolution.” By the council meeting’s denouement, the focus had shifted from binding arbitration to a discussion led by progressive councilors of whether or not to sanction CCTA management.

“This is the movement of the people,” Nigerian CCTA driver Ade Fajobi told In These Times. “The voice of everybody changed the votes of City Council.”

‘Every step you take on your picket line is our step’ On Saturday, March 29, the 12th day of the strike, an all-night, 18-hour negotiation session broke down, yet again, over CCTA management’s demand to increase drivers’ split-shifts 12.5 to 13.5 hours. “They basically tossed the same pile of dung back in our faces,” said Jim Fouts. In response, hundreds of supporters gathered at Burlington City Hall, beneath a 12-foot wide bright blue banner reading “Work With Dignity” and “Fair Contract Now.” A massive University of Vermont (UVM) feeder march and brass band joined, and Vermont residents lent their voices to the drivers’ cause.



A brass band joins the picket line on the second day of the strike.

“By using your right to strike, you're creating a stronger movement of workers,” said Amy Lester, a member of Vermont NEA and the vice-president of the Vermont Workers’ Center. “Your strength is our strength. Your courage is our courage. Your momentum is our momentum. Every step you take on your picket line is our step. We all have your back, keep fighting and don’t give up.” 

To loud applause, FaRied Munarsyah, a Workers’ Center member and 20-year CCTA rider, called for “temporary replacement managers.” Michelle Gałecki of UVM’s Student Climate Culture said, “Livable jobs and public transportation is a green issue, but it’s also a human rights issue.” 

“We have been swallowing this pain for the last ten years,” said Noor Ibrahim, from the steps of City Hall, with dozens of CCTA bus drivers behind him. “We cannot live in this hostile environment. We deserve respect.” 



Chief Steward Mike Walker, driver Noor Ibrahim, and many more drivers leading the March 29 march.

Just days later, after threatening picket line-crossing scab drivers, CCTA management would finally capitulate. CCTA agreed to a contract with language limiting monitoring and discipline, reducing "forced overtime" to 13.5 hours a day instead of 15, and maintaining drivers’ split shifts at the current 12.5 hours. Though drivers conceded an increase from 13 to 15 part-time drivers, the union was able to win language preventing CCTA from using retirement or termination to reduce the entire bargaining unit slowly to part-time status. On April 3, inside the local VFW’s Eddie Laplant ballroom, drivers voted 53-6 to adopt the new contract.

 A growing movement for work with dignity According to James Haslam, director of the Vermont Workers Center, "In the current context of the attack on public transit, the public sector and the labor movement nationally, this is a tremendous victory for work with dignity that benefits all working people in the long haul.”

Indeed, the solidarity unionism that blossomed in Vermont’s late-winter snow could be—like the Chicago Teachers Union, Portland Teachers Union or Boeing Machinists—another harbinger of rebirth for rank-and-file reform movements buttressed by community solidarity.


The successful 18-day job action “really shows what happens when a few people speak out and continue to speak out towards a common goal of having a strong union,” said driver Jim Fouts in the bus terminal, in the afterglow of the victory celebration. “When I first came here the union was weak, because it was a business-as-usual union. Then some activists started saying, ‘This is wrong. We can vote on things. This is supposed to be a democracy.’ And really it was a bottom up movement to change our union.” 

According to former drivers Chuck Norris-Brown and Scott Ranney, a reform caucus with the local solidified over breakfasts in local restaurants in the spring of 2009, around a petition circulated amongst drivers that helped win stewards elected by drivers, not merely appointed by Teamsters higher-ups. The caucus, nicknamed the Sunday Breakfast Club, soon began coordinating with Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a national, independent rank-and-file movement within the Teamsters. In 2011 contract negotiations, Breakfast Club members did the shopfloor organizing and the local outreach to community members and other unions to build public support. "A seed was sown which kept the Teamster Local to the grindstone, and almost all of the community action that resulted in major support for the recent drivers strike was based on earlier Sunday Breakfast Club contacts and strategies," says Ranney, who also believes the caucus empowered rank-and-file members and paved the way for the unanimous rejection of the concessionary contract.

Tearing up, Fouts describes how Local 597 followed the advice of a Labor Notes organizer Ellen David Freidman, to build power and beat back concessions: “ ‘Turn enemies into neutrals, you turn neutrals into activists and you turn activists into leaders,’ ” he quotes. “That’s what we did.”

"We won this fair contract because of our unity and the tremendous support from our community,” says Rob Slingerland, CCTA bus driver and spokesperson for the drivers.

Many drivers, even in the midst of the victory party, said they’d already begun reciprocating the solidarity unionism they experienced from other unions during their strikes. “We were talking about solidarity with other unions before we even went over our contract today,” says Slingerland. He says that drivers have already volunteered to join marches on the boss at Vermont's HowardCenter, a counseling and medical-services center where workers are in the process of unionizing with AFSCME. “We got the help and now we’ve got to give the help," he says. "Vermont is so small, but this movement is so big."

Slingerland described an “umbrella of fear,” his co-workers used to work under and how the victorious strike changed workplace power relations and gave drivers a sense of dignity. “A lot of drivers have discovered the power that they have within as a person,” said Slingerland, “you put that together as a group and you end where we are today, with a victory.”

AFSCME is a sponsor of In These Times. Sponsors have no role in editorial content.



Striking bus drivers lead the March 29th community solidarity march with hundreds of supporters. .

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July 04th, 2014

7/4/2014

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As I listen to republican voters in Maryland shout out against Race to the Top and Common Core I have to remind them that both are republican education policies written mostly in the Bush/Cheney Administration by US corporations.  These are corporate policies and neo-conservatives are behind them.  Neo-liberals are pushing the implementation of these corporate policies.  THE PROBLEM IS CORPORATE POLS.


'but as Timothy Noah of the New Republic points out—in this case about Maryland’s Prince George County—“When 10 percent of a school district’s teachers are foreign migrants, that isn’t cultural exchange. It’s sweatshop labor—and a depressing indicator of how low a priority public education has become.”'

That sounds pretty different than what Anthony Brown and O'Malley say out on the campaign trail.  Indeed, I have spent years outing the lies regarding education achievement in Maryland as pure propaganda used to pretend these education privatization policies are providing quality.  THESE EDUCATION REFORMS LOWER QUALITY AND ACCESS THEY DO NOT RAISE THEM!  The intent is to eliminate access to strong humanities and democratic education for 90% of the US population......the entire middle/working class and poor.  That means Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland, coming from a middle-class family would not have the multiple degrees I have and the career opportunities that I have had.

Below you see how spin occurs.  Education Week places Maryland as tops on a few issues and O'Malley and neo-liberals milk those rankings for all their worth.  Look at the overall record and Maryland is ranked at the bottom for most measures in education policy and achievement.  That is because neo-liberals do not care about achievement and quality for 90% of Marylanders.  They are working only for those they deem the 'best' students......and that is 10% of Maryland citizens. 

WALL STREET'S MEDIA 'MARKETPLACE MONEY' LAUGHED THAT MOST US STUDENTS ATTENDING PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE POOR BECAUSE THE MIDDLE-CLASS HAS BEEN LOOTED OF ITS WEALTH BY MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD.
  INDEED, THE ATTACK CONTINUES AND IF YOU THINK YOUR UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS STATUS IS SAFE YOU DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THE COMING ECONOMIC CRASH!

What we see is a funding level for K-12
that appears at higher levels than in the past.  Look at the distribution-----most of that funding is going to the schools having students that are scoring the best on tests----they are identified in elementary school as the 'best' students and receive a bulk of that education funding.  Again, these students are only 10% of the population so 90% of students are receiving far less.  In Baltimore, neo-liberals and neo-cons have built a system that is far more repressive in that the tiered funding is tied to decentralizing the city's school system into 'schools as businesses' and has created individual schools most of which receive so little funding as to barely pay for toilet paper and a few that receive enough to create the best of programs within the schools.  Add to that the practice of charter schools receiving private donations and the entire public school system and equal opportunity and access is thrown out the door.  Remember, over 70% of Americans are at or near poverty and growing fast so 90% of people will be exposed to this education funding scheme.  Mike Miller of the Maryland Assembly says that state funding of public schools will stop altogether so that 90% will be thrown into the hands of private corporations for support----national charter chains.


Maryland has a second problem with funding in that with no oversight and accountability we do not know that money actually ends up where it is supposed to go.

Take a look at these charts----I am not going to post them in this blog.....just note that what looks to be good is not good for 90% of Marylanders and it is reflected with actual achievement stats which again are skewed by elected officials and the media.  Achievement in Maryland was low to begin with because of poor standards of funding and resourcing schools....it is now only slightly better and that may simply be a statistical error.

State-By-State Report Card Unearths Inequities In School Funding
Education Week

“Is school funding fair"?


A report by that name was released this week. And it answered its own question with a resounding ‘no’ … The authors find that school funding was flat between 2010 and 2011, with about half the states making cuts and 14 spending less in 2011 than in 2007, even without adjusting for inflation … Most states did not allot more money for high-poverty districts, where report authors contend that students have higher needs … All but three states spent a smaller percentage of their GDP on education in 2011.”

Table 2. Fairness Measure #1: Funding Level

Maryland ranked 8th in funding level

Maryland$11,41711
$13,1109
$1,694
$13,4858
$375$12,971

Table 3. Fairness Measure #2: Funding Distribution

Maryland ranked at the bottom for distribution

Maryland89%D
94%D
99%C
93%D
$13,656 $13,167 $12,695 $12,240
90%F

I am not bragging but I would have fallen into this high achieving category and as a student having the skills to achieve early on----I did not need the resources other children needed because I was able to find what I needed and I excelled.  That is what high-achieving students do. 

THEY DO NOT NEED THE BULK OF SPENDING.

It is those children not having the benefit of learning skills that need the funding to allow them the opportunity to achieve in later grades.  So, this funding leaves the children needing that development most without the funding and resources to reach this goal.


Let's not forget that this dynamic moved more children from poverty to graduating with high achievement in the 1950s - 1970s than in any period in history----IT WORKS AND THERE IS NO REASON TO STOP THIS FUNDING EQUITY.

Note as well that Maryland has placed so much emphasis on reading and math to the exclusion of all other courses that children are graduating today with little or no background in humanities and liberal arts----which is what neo-liberals and neo-cons want----children in Baltimore in schools deemed low performance are sitting in front of Rupert Murdoch online lessons for goodness sake.  In Baltimore this is driven by Johns Hopkins.

THIS IGNORES ALL OF THE EQUAL PROTECTION LAWS REGARDING ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITY IN EDUCATION.

Consequently, students are graduating not knowing anything about history, civics, social studies, and culture and I dare say that the methods of instruction are so bad in Maryland that even the constant emphasis on math and reading are achieving little.  Again, it is Johns Hopkin infusing the Baltimore education system with methods that do not work and that looks to be the goal.

This is what happens when a state is captured by neo-liberal and neo-con politicians-----the policy is all about corporate profit and benefit and not people's rights and what is best for them.  This is not a black, brown, or white issue.  It is not even a class issue because middle-class is facing the same discrimination.  It is a complete dismantling of a public education system for 90
% of Americans that allows for the movement of students into higher achievement and ability to access the best schools.

Funding Student Needs: Per Pupil Weights

How are schools funded under Student Based Budgeting (SBB)?

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS14201 SCHOOL LANE, UPPER MARLBORO, MD 20772



High Performance.

Students in grades 3 to 8 receiving the “High Academic Performance” weight have scored advanced in both Reading and Math tests, while students in high school receive the weight if they have passed all HSA exams by the 10th grade.

Low Performance.Students in grades 3 to 8 receiving the “Low Academic Performance” weight have scored basic in both Reading and Math tests, while students in high school receive the weight if they have failed all HSA exams.

________________________________________

As Maryland citizens know our schools were allowed to crumble as the heyday of market boom and bust brought plenty of money to government coffers but all that money went to expand corporations like Johns Hopkins----now a global corporation and its Baltimore headquarters----and to rebuild downtown into global corporate meccas.  So, there is no excuse for crumbling school infrastructure except that neo-liberals and neo-cons do not value public education.  Remember, this happened from the Reagan/Clinton years forward----neo-liberalism took hold of the Democratic Party.

We have the bulk of public schools not receiving the funding they need and these schools are being rebuilt with a funding scheme designed specifically to hand huge profits to Wall Street along with the deed to the school building itself as the coming economic crash will cause the state and city to default on these building funds.

THE ENTIRE FUNDING SCHEME SURROUNDING PUBLIC EDUCATION IS DESIGNED TO HAND OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM TO PRIVATE CORPORATIONS WITH A DISMANTLING OF THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION 90% OF PEOPLE RECEIVE.  THERE GOES OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS!


This is another reason for public banks -----another issue Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland supports!  Boy, no wonder corporate Maryland censured my campaign!

People were brought out to support this scheme not knowing the implications-----
and this happens because there is NO CONVERSATIONS ABOUT PUBLIC POLICY IN MARYLAND!

School districts pay dearly for bonds…ANOTHER reason for publicly-owned banks!

by Administrator Trey Bundy and Shane Shifflett, California Watch • http://www.sfgate.com • January 31, 2013

The Napa Valley Unified School District had a quandary: The district needed a new high school in American Canyon, but taxpayers appeared unwilling to take the financial hit required to build it.

So in 2009, the district took out an unusual loan: $22 million with no payments due for 21 years. By 2049, when the debt is paid, it will have cost taxpayers $154 million - seven times the amount borrowed.

...This form of borrowing has created billions of dollars in debt for taxpayers and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for financial advisers and underwriters. Voters are usually unaware of the bonds' high interest. At least one state, Michigan, has banned their use.


_________________________________________

Each year we listen to O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly tout their funding levels in Maryland and each year they fail to provide close to what is required according to legislation...the Thornton formula.  Each year they pretend to have met or exceeded a goal and that does not even bring them to what they should be doing. 
The Maryland Education Coalition works hard to demand these Thornton requirements are met, but the problem with lobbying is that a group becomes afraid to alienate pols----this makes citizens beggars for policy and not drivers of policy. The reason an education coalition has become a beggar of policy is that the entire Maryland Assembly are neo-liberals and neo-cons---not a democrat to be found. Yet every election labor and justice back the same incumbents killing their membership.  Now, how can politicians act as though they make education in Maryland a priority when all of the education advocacy groups are pushing just to get funding up to where it should have been a decade ago?  The media selects stats and makes it appear that pols are doing something when they are not.
Remember, Maryland has a record amount of money going to corporate subsidy and tax breaks......there is no shortage of revenue.....



'We are currently $700 million per year behind the original Thornton formula for state aid to public schools, and our bill is designed to prevent the State from falling further behind the funding levels necessary to achieve these goals'. 


Maryland Education CoalitionMEC Newsletter
April 1, 2013 


The 430th Maryland General Assembly Legislative Session is drawing towards an end.  This is our second newsletter, and we will publish a Session wrap-up edition in April. Please feel free to email David Beard at dbeard@acy.org if you have any questions, thoughts, or concerns.    MEC Priorities 


We worked hard on MEC’s main policy initiative for the 2013 session – to make the State actually protect public school funding. House Bill 1474 and Senate Bill 958 would directly advance our mission and our current priorities
Directly countering a very serious threat to learning – the eroding power of school funding under the current inflation  cap on State aid;  Protecting the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) so that children in higher-cost jurisdictions have fair funding.  Setting a goal for State capital aid that updates the target– set by the Kopp Commission nine years ago - to reflect current construction costs.  In the Thornton Commission process, the State very carefully considered the cost of providing an adequate education and closing achievement gaps.  We are currently $700 million per year behind the original Thornton formula for state aid to public schools, and our bill is designed to prevent the State from falling further behind the funding levels necessary to achieve these goals.  Considering the past five years of structural deficits, it was an accomplishment to win the support of well-positioned sponsors: Sen. Madaleno of the Budget and Taxation Committee and Del. Luedtke of the Ways and Means Committee, but we missed the filing deadline.  The Ways and Means Committee heard HB 1474 on March 19th.  The local school boards, the State teachers’ union, and the Budget and Tax Policy Institute provided strong support and testimony.  Baltimore City English teacher Iris Kirsch told her compelling story of how less funding in the classroom is affecting students.  To date, however, the bill has not been brought to a vote.  


_______________________________________

This is a message from a teacher to a parent in Chicago----we know this is happening in Maryland.  Teachers are so pressed to have students appear to be improving under an education regime that is the worst of possible approaches to educating students----that they will naturally look for any means possible to raise scores.  This is what pushes the best teachers out of the teaching profession and it pushes education right into the same corruption that has our corporations and government---

FORCING TEACHERS TO REACH GOALS THAT ARE UNATTAINABLE IN THE CURRENT CLIMATE WILL CREATE A CORRUPT EDUCATION SYSTEM.  WHEN THE GOAL IS SIMPLY SKEWED DATA---THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM.



CPS test cheating – focus on “bubble” kids From a parent who received this message from a teacher:

This kind of thing is happening all over, and it’s awful. This idea of concentrating on kids “on the bubble” is terrible educational practice (or malpractice…)

Begin forwarded message:

From: (teacher wishes to remain anonymous)
Date: February 12, 2014 at 9:39:42 AM CST
To: ******
Subject: NWEA

Today we had a grade level meeting about the NWEA scores for the fourth grade students at my school. We teachers were all given printouts of our students’ most recent scores: RIT bands, percentiles, the whole shebang.

Then we were instructed to highlight the students in our classes who had scored between the 37th and 50th percentile. These students, the admin informed us, are the most important students in the class; they are the ones most likely to reach the 51st percentile when students take the NWEA again in May.

Making the 51st percentile is VERY important to CPS, and thus to principals, literacy coordinators, test specialists and teachers-who-don’t-want-to-lose-their-jobs.

It might not be important to individual students, their parents or anyone else, but it is life or death in Chicago Public Schools.

We nodded, wide-eyed.  These students, our guide continued, should be your primary focus.  Make sure they get whatever they need to bring them up to that percentile. Sign them up for any and all academic programs, meet with them daily in small groups, give them extra homework, have them work with available tutors…whatever it takes.

What about the kids at the very bottom, one teacher wondered, the kids under the 20th percentile…shouldn’t they be offered more support too?  The admin squirmed a bit. Well, they don’t really have any chance of hitting the goal, so for right now, no.  There was silence.

Left unsaid was what might, could, will happen to any school that does NOT have enough students meet that magic number. No one really needs to say it. We all saw the 50 schools that got closed down last year.  We see the charters multiplying around us.  We’ve also seen the steady stream of displaced teachers come through our school doors as substitutes.  We know that we could be next.

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21149#sthash.KYq3Vl6C.dpuf

_______________________________________
I use reports from other cities and states because there is no education activism in Maryland....there is only collected voices by private non-profits aligned with the education privatization groups.  In Baltimore, that is the Baltimore Education Coalition----BEC, a Johns Hopkins organization of charter school, Teach for America, and Michelle Rhee supporters.  They, like this article below are the ones who bring bus loads of citizens from Baltimore to support policy that works against the interest of the communities where the policy is being implemented.  Charter and Teach for America advocates seem less worried about the tiered funding and closing of schools then they are about the right to have charters used in Baltimore as development tools.  If you think using  schools as development tools is OK since you are in the midst of needing better schools----please look at the longer term implication of these policies----they do not stop with moving the poor out of neighborhoods----these policies will effect your schools as well!

All across the country we know the stats on charters are largely fictional and skewed.  Yet, we are subjected to these reports because we have pols simply moving these privatization policies forward with no regard to citizens and the quality of education children will receive.

PLEASE STOP RE-ELECTING THESE VERY INCUMBENTS EACH ELECTION CYCLE.  IF THEY ARE NOT SHOUTING THESE EDUCATION POLICIES ARE BAD FOR EVERYONE-----THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS OR NEO-CONS AND NEED TO GO.


In Baltimore, the stats on charters are not online and when you call Baltimore School Board they pretend they do not have a problem.  All of this is illegal and has nothing to do with public education.



PSAT for 4-8-14: Let Springfield know the truth about charter schools Today, charter school advocates will be taking out their checkbooks to fund Springfield trips for folks to lobby for less oversight of and more money for charter schools.

Mayor Emanuel says that the truth about charter schools’ mediocre performance compared with regular schools is “yesterday’s debate.”

Not really. The truth always matters, and the truth about charter schools is only beginning to get front page coverage.

So, while Bill Gates’ and the Walton’s minions are trudging down to Springfield to echo the Mayor’s efforts to brush off the truth about charters, please call, fax, or e-mail your state representative and senator with the truth.

Here’s what I faxed to every member of the Illinois House:

Look at charter school evidence, not expensive PR


Yesterday, Chicago’s two major newspapers made it very clear that charter schools can be very problematic and DO NOT provide better academic results.

But today you will be approached by busloads of well-financed charter school advocates trying to spin the facts while they ask you to ignore the truth and pave the way for more money and  “freedom” for charters.

Here’s the truth about charter schools:

The Chicago Tribune reported on the drastic, regressive discipline policy of one of the largest of these charter franchises, the Noble Network of Charter Schools. Even as the Chicago Public Schools is working toward more effective, positive discipline policies that keep students in school and learning, Noble is suspending and expelling students at a vastly greater rate than the district, and making their families pay significant dollars in the process.

The Sun-Times reported that Chicago’s charter school achievement rates are no better than that of the district overall, and far worse than the more comparable district magnet schools which have similar non-selective lottery enrollment systems. This confirms years of research which has been largely ignored as corporate reformers demand an ever-expanding “marketplace” for privately-run charter schools.

PURE ASKS YOU TO :

  • Pay attention to the research, not the rhetoric about charter schools.
  • Support HB3937, (HCA1) which extends the moratorium on virtual charter schools.
  • Support HB4591, which would require charter schools to return pro-rated funds for the kids they “counsel out.
  • Support HB5328, LSCs and other accountability for charter schools.
  • Support HB5887, which puts reasonable financial accountability on virtual charter schools.
  • Support HB6005, a major charter school accountability act.
Thank you!

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21237#sthash.6dWJajMn.dpuf

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July 03rd, 2014

7/3/2014

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THESE ARE NEO-CON AND NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES SO TO ESCAPE BAD POLICY---DO NOT SIMPLY VOTE THE OTHER PARTY-----CLEAN UP THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley announced that shortfalls in the 2014 state budget due to a complete stagnation of Maryland's economy and high unemployment  created by control of Maryland's economy by global corporations will focus on programs and services valuable to the citizens of Maryland but not affect the massive giveaway of revenue in the guise of corporate subsidy, tax breaks, or any effort to reign in billions of dollars in corporate fraud. 

O'Malley as a neo-liberal calls this FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY


So, $10 million will be taken from higher education and that includes grants, financial aid, and scholarships to Maryland citizens and employment to 4 public universities essential to middle-class/working class/poor families.

Below you see how a neo-liberals systematically eliminate all public sector employment by saying it is not firing anyone but eliminating positions not filled.  Maryland has had its entire oversight and accountability sectors eliminated in this way.  What I want to focus on today is higher education and the outsourcing of public university jobs to such an extent that the state spends money to support an education system that does not even operate in the US or benefit the citizens of Maryland.  O'Malley spent his 8 years developing the structures for overseas education and made marketing and recruiting foreign students a priority.  This is where our higher education money is spent and media states that never has there been fewer citizens of Maryland unable to attend Maryland universities.  It is not only high tuition----it is the elimination of financial aid, grants, and scholarships.  It hurts the economy in that people are not hired to these state positions to earn the money needed for consumption of goods and this creates a stagnant economy.  O'Malley does this because he works for global corporations that want all state and local revenue spent expanding their businesses overseas,  promoting exports, and bringing foreign students to Maryland to graduate and be sent back overseas to work for US global corporations in other nations.  This entire process leaves out the families in Maryland and their children's ability to attend the best public universities in the state.  Don't worry.....O'Malley and neo-liberals spent hundreds of millions building a separate system of higher education for the citizens of Maryland that cheapen and track all into vocational training programs.  This also increases the number of foreign graduates that are not citizens ready to take high level jobs thanks to Obama's executive order to allow the high-skilled green card worker quotas to rise.  So, Maryland citizens are not able to access the higher education venues that lead to the best jobs.  When people who are not citizens are given these jobs they have no workplace rights and are not free to report abuse or illegal activity within the corporations for which they work.  In these times of systemic corporate fraud and corruption----this is critical.

So, an election year budget that protected labor positions is followed by budget cuts eliminating jobs right after the primary for Governor of Maryland.  Union leaders knew this would happen-----it happens all the time.  Neo-cons would be worse.
  Neo-liberals only pretend to be progressive labor and justice!

Remember, I have for years been explaining that the state was giving a rosy economic picture that was not real and I stated why the economy was indeed stagnant and unemployment high.  Below you see Franchot being the spoiler but the Comptroller's Office is ground zero for corporate tax fraud and the wrongful designation of corporations as non-profits and therefor losses in the hundreds of millions in state tax revenue each year which would happen with a republican in office as well.


State approves O'Malley's $84 million in budget cuts Poor economy prompts spending reductions


By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun 1:19 p.m. EDT, July 2, 2014



The lackluster economy prompted Gov. Martin O'Malley to propose erasing $84 million in planned spending for next year.

Just a day after the new state budget took effect, O'Malley persuaded the Board of Public Works unanimously to approve a modest set of cuts to Maryland's $16.1 billion general fund.

About $10 million in cuts come from the state's higher-education institutions, although O'Malley aides said it would not affect tuition rates.

The cuts would not cause any layoffs but would trim 61 vacant jobs from the state's workforce of about 80,000 people, aides said. More than half of those jobs will come from higher education, including 36 vacant posts in the University of Maryland system.

Even though the official estimate of how far revenue lags behind state spending will not be ready until September, the administration chose to begin budget cuts now — before agencies started spending this year's cash. Together, the cuts represent less than half a percent of the state's general fund.

O'Malley said that the cuts "build upon a tradition, a culture of fiscal responsibility." He pointed out the belt-tightening was much smaller than cuts the state took during the recession.

Comptroller Peter A. Franchot voted for the cuts, but said that state leaders need to drop the "political spin" about the state's improving economy and "stop pretending that we made it through the thicket."

"Our citizens don't want to hear the spin anymore, and they're not falling for it," Franchot said.

A federal economic report released last week showed that the U.S. economy contracted more during the first quarter of 2014 than in any quarter during the previous five years. That followed another U.S. Department of Commerce report showing that Maryland's economy had stagnated in 2013.

The sluggish growth means state revenues have fallen lower than officials estimated earlier this year.

O'Malley defended the state's financial health by citing its AAA bond rating and comparing Maryland's relatively small budget shortfall to larger looming problems in other states on the Eastern seaboard, some of which have shortfalls in the hundreds of millions.

"We are coming through this recession faster than a lot of other states," O'Malley said. He added, "there's a lot that is going right, and of course, still, a lot of work to do. In that spirit, I agree with the comptroller that we should have an honest conversation."

In January, O'Malley proposed a $39 billion state budget that increased spending by 4.9 percent and took effect Tuesday, the final state spending plan of his eight years in office.

T. Eloise Foster, O'Malley's budget secretary, said Wednesday's cuts are designed to resolve the shortfall for the entire year. "My plan is not having to do this again," she said.

While O'Malley's staff declined to offer a list of all the $84 million in specific cuts, they said they include $56 million to various government agencies, with some asked to eliminate vacant jobs, forgo software upgrades or pare back other expenses.

In addition to the $10 million cut from higher education, another $10 million will be shaved from the state budget by spending federal cash already in state coffers. And budget experts said they expect $7 million of anticipated expenses to not materialize.

The cuts would not affect the struggling Maryland Health Benefit Exchange insurance website or a series of new economic development programs to expand cybersecurity and biotechnology sectors in Maryland.

All cuts must be approved by at least two members on the state's three-person Board of Public Works, on which O'Malley, Franchot and State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp sit.

The cuts pale in comparison to the big spending reductions the board approved during the recession. In 2010, O'Malley went to the board three times for a total of $614 million in spending cuts from the general fund. In 2009, he asked for a total of $429 million in cuts over three requests. And in 2008, O'Malley requested a single $213 million spending cut.

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Below you see where all the money for higher education has gone during the neo-liberal O'Malley's terms in office-----building this network of global PhDs and it has nothing to do with the citizens of Maryland!  This is what the US Senate based their immigration reform bill ------the bringing of foreign students and grads to America and then allowing them to take these US corporate positions often the best positions.  We are not anti-immigrant nor do we want to exclude foreign students from our universities-----quite the opposite, this should be robust.  We are against the simultaneous defunding of higher education for the bulk of Maryland citizens and it is deliberate.

WE CAN FUND HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ALL THAT WANT TO ATTEND OUR MARYLAND UNIVERSITIES BY ENDING CORPORATE SUBSIDIES AND TAX BREAKS AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD.

All this is happening because of global corporate control of the Maryland economy.  We do not need these global connections for a healthy economy------it does just the opposite----it stagnates the economy.

The Global Ph.D.
July 3, 2014 By Holly Else
for Times Higher Education



Internationalizing the doctoral training process could help to overcome negative perceptions about the employability of Ph.D. students outside academia, said participants at a recent conference.

Universities in several countries are beginning to think of new ways to cater for the rising number of overseas doctoral students, speakers at the European University Association’s annual meeting on doctoral education told delegates in Liverpool.

International doctoral students offer a “cost-effective” way for institutions to build international links. But problems surrounding complex visa rules, falling domestic student numbers and the cost of running international joint doctoral programs remain.


The number of domestic doctoral candidates at Australia’s University of Queensland started dwindling in 2008, according to the head of its graduate school, Alastair McEwan. To compensate, the university has enrolled international students, who now make up about 40 percent of the doctoral student body.

The shift is “most dramatic” in engineering, architecture and IT, where departments are “heavily reliant” on overseas students, he said. He added that the university is investing in this area because Ph.D. students “are absolutely critical” to research output and are “a very cost-effective way to promote international linkages.”

McEwan said that the benefits international doctoral candidates bring to the institution “cannot be overestimated”. Their presence offers students a “breadth of knowledge about other cultures.”

“That is an important transferable skill that should be part of a student’s employability development. Internationalization of the Ph.D., or international interactions, could help us overcome some of the negative perceptions about the employability of Ph.D. students outside academia,” he added.

But he said that having overseas students enrolled on doctoral programs was a one-dimensional method of internationalization. “The next stage is to start thinking about other ways,” he said, adding that the answer did not lie in Ph.D.s that are run jointly with overseas institutions.

“These come with a high overhead as they are very hard to manage.... I’m not convinced that this is the most efficient or effective way to manage things in the long run,” he added.


American institutions are also seeing a rise in the number of overseas doctoral candidates in science, technology and engineering subjects. The vice provost and dean of Cornell University, Barbara Knuth, said: “We should be concerned in the U.S. in terms of [what] our doctoral pool will be for economic development purposes.”

She said that the nation’s immigration policies are “complex and quite limiting.”

“Doctoral students are eager to come to the U.S. to study, but we are not very good at encouraging them to stay after their degrees,” she added.

Cornell is now working to internationalize the doctoral experience for all students. Internationalizing the Ph.D. process would help to expand a graduate’s professional networks and employability, she said.

At the institutional level, it will broaden intellectual discoveries, help academics to address complex global problems and increase the visibility and exposure of the institution globally, she said.

Jean Chambaz, president of the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in France, said that universities needed to move beyond memoranda of understanding when it comes to working together internationally.

“We need focused, balanced programs on questions of common interest that include multilateral doctoral candidates and staff circulation,” he told delegates.


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Below you see why more and more staff are being cut from our public universities-----all the jobs are being outsourced to global corporations that are doing the work overseas that people right here in Maryland should be doing and these citizens of Maryland would do a better job.  It is done simply to reduce labor costs as pay is lower overseas and we wouldn't want all of those pesky public sector benefits providing the citizens of Maryland a first world quality of life say neo-liberals.


Is a global corporation needed to process college applications charging fees for doing so -----money which could hire a local person with a public university to do this job?  We all know massive corporate fraud is infused in all these business arrangements so universities are losing far more money by outsourcing these jobs than saving.  So, fighting fraud in court is worth eliminating staff at a university who could be held accountable to do the work right?

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU---WORKING FOR
WEALTH AND PROFIT SENDING ALL PUBLIC ASSETS TO CORPORATIONS WHILE IMPOVERISHING THE CITIZENS OF AMERICA.


IT IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD THAT AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IS INVOLVED IN ALL THIS INTRIGUE------JUST EDUCATE THE US CITIZENS!


Troubles at Embark

July 3, 2014 By Ry Rivard  Inside Higher Education

Embark, whose software helps colleges to process online applications, has owed graduate and professional schools millions of dollars and misled university officials about why it wasn’t quickly paying up, a former executive of the company is alleging amid an ongoing legal dispute.

In June 2013, Embark owed its clients $4.7 million from student application fees it collected, according to a filing in New York state court by lawyers for Raza Khan, a former chief technology officer and board member at Embark.

Even though payments were supposed to be made in a matter of months, $1.2 million of that had been owed to colleges for more than a year, according to a spreadsheet filed last month that is said to reflect the company’s bookkeeping as of late June 2013.

Khan, who left the company around the same time, alleges company officials improperly spent money owed to colleges in order to deal with Embark’s “cash flow problems.” The money was supposed to go to colleges directly and quickly, but, according to Khan, Embark officials intentionally delayed paying back colleges and “concocted” false stories to cover up the true reason for the delays.

Embark processes admissions applications for colleges across the world, including elite graduate programs. Colleges pay Embark for its services, but Embark is obligated to pay the institutions all or most of the application fees it collects. Khan’s allegations center on Embark’s failure to give colleges their share of those student application fees.

Embark got a judge to partially seal the documents, but they were available on the court’s website for several days last month.  The company’s lawyer declined repeated requests for comment on the merits of Khan’s claims.

Khan is engaged in a bitter legal fight with his former business partner and high school classmate, Vishal Garg.

In June 2013, Embark owed its clients $4.7 million, including student fees collected as far back as 2009, according to Khan’s filing.

The largest single unpaid amount is over $1 million, which Embark is said to owe to Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Sid Dinsay, a spokesman for the medical school in New York City, declined to comment.

When colleges asked for their money, the company sometimes “concocted” reasons that its payments were delayed, according to Khan’s filing.

In a September 2011 email also contained in Khan’s filing, Blake Avalone, then director of client relations, told another Embark official to use a “canned response” to hold off a college that was asking for money dating to the beginning of that year. The response Avalone approved blamed a “credit card processor” for the delay. Khan said in his filing that this was among the “false explanations” Embark gave colleges for payment delays.

Another Embark employee in the same email thread suggests that the email “be sent from ‘Accounting’ if that helps.” In an email chat included in the court filing, the same employee also said, “if we're going to lie, the vaguer the better no.”

Avalone, now Embark’s managing director, did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment. Emails and voicemails were not returned by anyone at Embark over the past two weeks.

Several universities, including the University of Michigan and at least one graduate program at Harvard University, have threatened legal action against Embark. Officials at both those institutions said they were paid by Embark after they made those threats.

At least one other university has recently complained to Embark. The University of California at Davis hired a lawyer to help it collect money it says Embark has owed since spring 2012, according to a letter released by the university.  In mid-May of this year, the university’s lawyer demanded that Embark pay $38,589 by June 15. That didn’t happen.

“No money was received – only a promise from the [Embark] president to follow up,” a UC Davis spokeswoman said in an email last month.

Other universities are being paid back, if only gradually.

A spokesman for Thunderbird School of Global Management said last month Embark still owes it $71,000. The school ended its relationship with Embark last fall for other reasons, the spokesman said. Khan’s filings suggest the school was owed $215,000 at one point. Thunderbird could not confirm that figure.

As of last summer, Rutgers University’s business school was owed $261,000 for fees dating as far back as April 2011, according to Khan’s filing. Much of that has been paid, the university said last month.


“Since the beginning of 2014, Embark has paid $229,260 to the Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick,” a Rutgers spokesman said in an email. “The school continues to work with Embark to collect the remaining balance.”

It’s not clear exactly how precise the spreadsheet is in Khan’s filing: It says Georgia State University is owed $81,000 for fees it collecting in 2010 and 2011, though a Georgia State official said that Embark paid it $80,000 several years ago for work done in 2009 and no longer owes the university money. UC Davis, on the other hand, is asking for more money than the spreadsheet shows it is owed.

Khan first made allegations about Embark’s repayments to colleges in July 2013, when he sued his business partner Garg. But Khan provided more details about Embark’s business last month in a separate case in which Embark is suing him.

Garg and Khan founded MyRichUncle, an upstart student loan company that made its name lending directly to students before its parent company, MRU Holdings, went bankrupt in 2009. MyRichUncle was well-known in higher ed circles in the mid-2000s for its aggressive marketing that accused college financial aid officers of engaging in “kickbacks.”

Before the bankruptcy, MRU quietly bought Embark from the Princeton Review in 2007, vowing to invigorate a company that had seen its value and reach tumble during the six years Princeton Review owned it.

Khan’s filing suggests he and Garg were unable to do so. Now, Garg’s wife, Sarita James, is president of Embark. James did not respond to multiple emails over the past two weeks seeking comment.

Khan claims Garg and others at Embark “circulated false financials” to the company’s clients and delayed payments to them because of cash flow problems.

Sometimes, even after threatening legal action, a client would stick with Embark.

In February 2013, a graduate program within Harvard Law School asked Embark for $120,000 owed to it since November and December 2012.

“Despite the promise of wire transfers by Embark (supposedly made on Feb. 1 initially and then again on Feb. 20), and despite our request for actual confirmation of the transfers, we have not received anything, not even evidence that any of the wire transfers were actually made,” Harvard assistant dean Jeanne Tai wrote in a February 2013 email, which appeared in the court filing. Harvard is not a party to the litigation.

Reached last month by phone, Tai said everything had since been squared away.

“They have since made good on everything they owed and since that period of time, we haven’t had any trouble getting what they owed us,” she said.

The Harvard graduate program remains a client.

Khan’s filing said even though Embark knew that it owed money to colleges, Garg, the former head of the company, “did not intend to cause Embark to pay such amounts owed unless and until the schools complained.”

Officials at several other institutions said to be owed money declined to comment in detail or did not return calls seeking comment about their relationship with Embark.

After the MRU bankruptcy filing, Khan and Garg quickly started another company, Education Investment and Finance Corporation, or EIFC, which manages and services private student loans and mortgage-backed securities.
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Bill and Hillary Clinton are the face of these global corporations and neo-liberalism.  They plan to win the White House in 2016 and are getting Hillary into all venues they had a hand in destroying.  High tuition and devastating student loan debt happened because the Clintons started the corporatization of US universities with the goal of creating US global corporate universities.  Bill and Hillary are the face of the 2008 economic crash that has left millions of US college grads without employment----they created these Wall Street banks by deregulating the financial industry and breaking Glass Steagall so these banks could grow to the global corporations knowing they would control the US government and economy.

PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW HILLARY AND NEO-LIBERALS TO TAKE CONTROL OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAMPAIGNING----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES AGAINST ALL NEO-LIBERALS IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES.  You can see why, here in Maryland it was critical for Anthony Brown to win-----heaven forbid the candidate wanting to dismantle all of this corporate structure win!


The Clinton's funded Anthony Brown's campaign because he will embrace this global corporate structure as O'Malley did and the marginalization of the citizens of America.
  The Clinton Foundation is a global corporate development institution so all that money she is making will be tax-free.

Scrutiny for Hillary Clinton Speaking Fees at Colleges

July 3, 2014

Inside Higher Ed

At least eight universities have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton to speak on their campuses, The Washington Post reported. Students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where she is due to be paid $225,000 to speak in the fall, have protested, and that is drawing attention to the likely presidential candidate's high fees, not all of which have been previously disclosed. Some of the payments ($200,000 is believed to be standard) have gone not to Clinton personally, but the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

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Here in Maryland, Baltimore is ground zero for the dismantling of public education from K-college.  Johns Hopkins is the driver of this policy.  They have a corporation that works to recruit overseas education labor and bring them to America to work in K-12 and in universities and colleges.  Why bring immigrant labor to teach in US schools when we have huge unemployment and plenty of teachers?  Well, Race to the Top and all of the teacher accountability that has nothing to do with quality education but everything to do with chasing current teachers out of a hostile system----- will need people to replace the US teachers that leave out of frustration and the fact that no one will want to be exposed to these kinds of working conditions.  There comes the need for foreign workers taking jobs in public schools.

Remember, the goal with K-12 is to have online classes that only need a person like an education tech in the classroom to facilitate an online presentation of material.  That education tech does not need to be a real teacher-----they only need to know how to start the online lessons and administer the tests.  So, neo-liberals have as a goal of completely dismantling our entire public education system and quality democratic education.  Think the absolutely botched rollout of Race to the Top is an accident?  This policy has been in the making since the beginning of the Bush Administration----it is a republican policy written by US corporations a decade ago----it is no accident that teachers are being subjected to the worst of conditions in this education reform rollout----neo-liberals hate labor and unions and want to get rid of public sector unions through privatization with national charter chains and global corporations specializing in education temps.


I cannot tell you how revolting it is that America is behind all of this labor abuse and it is neo-liberals controlling the people's Democratic Party leading this.

Neo-cons write the policy and neo-liberals run as Democrats to implement these policies that kill the labor that votes for them.

Monday, May 26, 2014, 1:00 pm

Trafficked Teachers: Neoliberalism’s Latest Labor Source

BY George Joseph Working In These Times


Recruiting companies in the U.S. are attracting some of Philippines' best teachers with one-year guest worker visas to teach in American public schools, saddling the teachers with hidden fees and furthering the Philippines' growing teacher shortage. (SuSanA Secretariat/ Flickr / Creative Commons)  

Between 2007 and 2009, 350 Filipino teachers arrived in Louisiana, excited for the opportunity to teach math and science in public schools throughout the state. They’d been recruited through a company called Universal Placement International Inc., which professes on its website to “successfully place teachers in different schools thru out [sic] the United States.” As a lawsuit later revealed, however, their journey through the American public school system was fraught with abuse. 

According to court documents, Lourdes Navarro, chief recruiter and head of Universal Placement, made applicants pay a whopping $12,550 in interview and “processing fees” before they’d even left the Philippines. But the exploitation didn’t stop there. After the teachers landed in LAX, they were required to sign contracts paying back 10 percent of their first and second years’’ salaries; those who refused were threatened with instant deportation.

“We were herded into a path, a slowly constricting path,” said Ingrid Cruz, one of the teachers, during the trial, “where the moment you feel the suspicion that something is not right, you're already way past the point of no return." Eventually, a Los Angeles jury awarded the teachers $4.5 million.

Similar horror stories have abounded across the country for years. Starting in 2001, the private contractor Omni Consortium promised 273 Filipino teachers jobs within the Houston, Texas school district—in reality, there were only 100 spots open. Once they arrived, the teachers were crammed into groups of 10 to 15 in unfinished housing properties. Omni Consortium kept all their documents, did not allow them their own transportation, and threatened them with deportation if they complained about their unemployment status or looked for another job. 

And it’s not always recruiting agencies that are at fault. According to an American Federation Teachers report, in 2009, Florida Atlantic University imported 16 Indian math and science teachers for the St. Lucie County School District. Labeling the immigrant teachers as “interns,” the district only spent $18,000 for each of their yearly salaries—well below a regular teacher’s rate. But because the district paid the wages to Florida Atlantic University, rather than the teachers themselves, the university pocketed most of the money, giving the teachers a mere $5,000 each.

Researchers estimate that anywhere from 14,000 to 20,000 teachers, imported on temporary guest worker visas, teach in American public schools nationwide. Such hiring practices are often framed as cultural exchange programs, but as Timothy Noah of the New Republic points out—in this case about Maryland’s Prince George County—“When 10 percent of a school district’s teachers are foreign migrants, that isn’t cultural exchange. It’s sweatshop labor—and a depressing indicator of how low a priority public education has become.”

A manufactured problem School districts frequently justify hiring lower-paid immigrants by pointing to teacher shortages in chronically underfunded rural and urban school districts. And it’s true: In poorer areas, classrooms are often overcrowded and understaffed. But this dearth of instructors did not come out of nowhere. Rather, it is an inevitable result of the austerity measures pushed through on a federal, state, and local level after the panic of the 2007 financial crisis.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, between 2008 and 2011, school districts nationwide slashed 278,000 jobs. This bleeding has not stopped: According to the Center on Education Policy, almost 84 percent of school districts in the 2011-2012 school year expected budget shortfalls, and 60 percent planned to cut staff to make up deficits.

Thus, we see a familiar pattern of neoliberal “restructuring” in American school systems: Cut public institutions to the bone, leave them to fail without adequate resources, then claim the mantle of “reform” while rebuilding the institutions with an eye towards privatization.   

In many cities, newly laid-off instructors are left to languish while their former employers employ underpaid replacements to fill the gaps. For example, the Baltimore City Public Schools district has imported more than 600 Filipino teachers; meanwhile, 100 certified local teachers make up the “surplus” workforce, serving as substitutes and co-teachers when they can. 

The manufactured labor scarcity narrative, used to justify the importation of guest worker teachers, provides districts with the opportunity to employ less costly, at-will employees, whose precarious legal status is often exploited. Such moves to pump up the workforce with workers—not here long enough to invest themselves in organizing or bargaining struggles—also serve to weaken shop-site solidarity and unions’ ability to mobilize on a larger scale.

The recruiting contactors’ advertisements to districts are particularly instructive in this regard, noting their recruits’ inability to qualify for benefits and pension contributions. In an extensive study, education professors Sue Books and Rian de Villiers found that recruiting firms tend to appeal to districts on the basis of cost-saving, rather than classroom quality. As one Georgia contractor, Global Teachers Research and Resources, advertises, “school systems pay an administrative fee [to GTRR] that is generally less than the cost of [teacher] benefits. Collaborating with GTRR means quality teachers with savings to the school systems.” Even more egregiously, a Houston based recruiting firm called Professional and Intellectual Resources exclaims that their “bargain-priced” Filipino teachers can “make the most out of the most minimal resources. 

Memorizing isn’t learning This criterion for hiring makes sense in the context of what philosopher Paulo Freire calls “the banking concept of education.” In his 1968 classic, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire critiques the pedagogical tradition of rote memorization, in which the teacher-as-narrator “leads the students to memorize … the narrated content.” Freire argues, “It turns [students] into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is.”

However, Freire’s “narrative” is no longer even in the hands of teachers, who might at least have some understanding of content relevant to students. Instead with the rise of test-based approach to education, forced through with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core, and numerous ramped-up state tests, nameless corporate and federal employees now tie teachers and students’ success to the production of higher test scores. Thus, today’s cutting-edge education reform movement has brought this “banking concept of education” back into vogue, demanding “objective measures” and “accountability” through constant standardized testing. 

The idea that new teachers should be imported from halfway around the world for yearlong stints, knowing no background about the communities they are entering and the content relevant to them, is only justified if the teacher is reduced to an instrument of standardized information transmission. And if teachers are just such instruments, why not search the global market for the cheapest, most malleable ones possible?

As Books and de Villiers point out, many recruiters’ advertisements reflect this logic: “Only two [recruiters’] websites apprise teachers of the socio-economic, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity in many U.S. schools. Only five include useful educational links, and only three provide information about school-based mentoring.” So for corporate recruiters and their district clients, finding the right match for a school is not about teacher quality or experience, but rather cost and expendability.

The phenomenon of teacher trafficking, then, doesn’t rest entirely on recruiters’ mercenary tendencies or districts’ drive to cheapen their labor. It also rests on the larger neoliberal conception of workers. In this case, teachers become moveable parts, switched out in accordance with the iron laws of supply and demand in order to more efficiently output successful test scores, whose value comes to represent students themselves. 

Colonialism in the classroom The American importation of Filipino teachers, as well as educators from other countries, has consequences beyond the United States, too. According to Books and de Villiers, several recruiting agencies only seek out teachers in the Philippines because its high poverty rates and supply of quality teachers make it, as one journalist from the Baltimore Sun put it, “fertile ground for recruits.” Meanwhile, the nation has an estimated shortage of 16,000 educators and the highest student-teacher ratio in Asia at 45:1.

As one Filipino union leader told the American Federation of Teachers, “To accommodate the students, most public schools schedule two, three and sometimes even four shifts within the entire day, with 70 to 80 students packed in a room. Usually, the first class starts as early as 6:00 a.m. to accommodate the other sessions.” And as American corporate forces have exploited the Philippines for its best teachers, pushed across the world by the beck and call of the market, agents of the nonprofit world have taken it upon themselves to send American substitutes in their place.

Launched last year, Teach for the Philippines presents itself as “the solution” to this lack of quality teachers in the country—a claim similar to those of its U.S. parent organization, Teach for America, a behemoth nonprofit that each year recruits thousands of idealistic college graduates to become (and often replace) teachers in low-income communities after a five-week training camp.

The Teach for Philippines promo video begins with black and white shots of multitudes of young Filipino schoolchildren packed into crowded classrooms, bored and on the verge of tears. A cover version of a Killers song proclaims, “When there's nowhere else to run … If you can hold on, hold on” as the video shifts to the students’ inevitable fates: scenes of tattooed gang kids smoking, an isolated girl and even a desperate man behind bars. In the midst of this grotesquely Orientalizing imagery, text declares, “Our Country Needs Guidance,” “Our Country Needs Inspiration,” and finally “Our Country Needs Teachers.”           

Teach for the Philippines recruits young Filipinos both domestically and internationally, with special outreach to Filipino Americans. Though still in its start-up phase, with only 53 teachers in 10 schools, the program presents a disturbing vision for the future of teaching in the context of a global workforce. While the Filipino teachers imported to America are not necessarily ideal fits, given their inability to remain as long-term contributors to a school community, at least they are for the most part trained, experienced instructors. Within the Teach for the Philippines paradigm, however, Filipino students, robbed of their best instructors, are forced to study under recruits, who may lack a strong understanding of the communities they are joining and have often have never even had any actual classroom experience.

But Teach For the Philippines is just one growing arm of Teach for America’s global empire, now spanning the world sites in 33 countries and enjoying millions in support from neoliberal power players like Visa and even the World Bank. So while austerity-mode Western nations may seek to cut costs by employing no-benefits guest workers, countries such as the Philippines will be forced by the unbending logic of the market to plead for international charity—summer camp volunteers looking to “give” two years of their lives to really make a difference.           

In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire argues, “It is to the reality that mediates men, and to the perception of that reality held by educators and people, that we must go to find the program content of education.” But for such a reality to be approached, teachers and communities must have the opportunity to grow together, to listen to each other, and to understand the reality that they seek to transform. By pushing teachers into a globalized pool of low-wage temp workers, teacher trafficking precludes this possibility.








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May 24th, 2014

5/24/2014

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This is not a done deal-----we can reverse this but people must become engaged in politics and stop voting the same global corporate pols into office!!!


ANTHONY BROWN, DOUG GANSLER, AND HEATHER MIZEUR WILL ALL CONTINUE THIS PRIVATIZATION AS WILL THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.


Folks, do not allow neo-liberals play on this----'we have to teach evolution in the classroom' as an excuse for standardization of all information. This is not about bringing education quality up----it is about controlling all information students receive. So, republican states will be the first to reject this-----but remember, Common Core was started in the Bush Administration and is a very neo-con policy.

Remember, in Maryland simply reinstating Rule of Law and oversight and accountability will have State Treasury flush with revenue to fully fund all public schools.


Published Online: May 23, 2014
Okla. House Votes to Repeal Common Core Standards

By The Associated Press

Oklahoma City The Oklahoma House has voted overwhelmingly to repeal standards for math and English instruction that more than 40 states have adopted and to replace them with standards developed by the state.

The House voted 71-18 Friday to reject the Common Core standards. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Supporters say it gives the state control over its education system and prohibits the federal government from having authority over state education standards. Rep. Jason Nelson of Oklahoma City says state educators want to control Oklahoma education standards regardless of whether it makes sense to the federal government.

But opponents say the standards were developed by a group of states, not the federal government. Rep. Ed Cannaday of Porum says the measure politicizes education.


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As citizens of Baltimore know, our schools are already eliminating these critical courses under the guise of integration into English Language.  We see time and again media questioning the average person on the street who doesn't know very basic history, geography, and civics. 

THIS IS HOW THIRD WORLD EDUCATION WORKS.  YOU DO NOT WANT 90% OF CITIZENS KNOWING HISTORY OR CIVICS......THAT IS FOR THE FEW SELECTED TO LEAD.

The Age of Enlightenment is a period in European history after the citizens of nations across Europe sent an aristocracy packing through revolution declaring that all people are citizens and would be educated in humanities and liberal arts so as to be well-rounded citizens.  YOU CANNOT LEAD IF YOU DO NOT HAVE PERSPECTIVE.  What neo-liberals and neo-cons are doing is trying to take the US back to the days that had 99% of people with access to only vocationally tracked education.

THIS HURTS ALL US  CITIZENS

BUT IT ESPECIALLY HURTS WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR.  Do not think this will happen to someone else----it will take all public schools.

Remember, Boston is Harvard which is Wall Street.  Baltimore is Bloomberg which is Wall Street.  We are ground zero for this Wall Street capture and we must stop it NOW.


Network H-High-S

Boston Public Schools to Eliminate History & Social Science Departments

Joseph J Ferreira, Jr.Wednesday, May 21, 2014

It was announced today that the Boston Public School department is "reorganizing" by eliminating all Departments of History & Social Sciences in all schools and folding the departments into the Department of English Language Arts as a "Humanities Department" with the currciculum determined by the ELA Common Core Standards.  Certified history department heads/chairs are being laid off and, apaprently, no certified history specialist will be hired to replace any of these teachers. This essentially eliminates history and the social sciences as one of the core academic departments in the Boston Public Schools and subordinates HSS to ELA.  This appears to be the first major metropolitan school district to reduce history and the social sciences to merely a supporting role in the education of students.

As it might appear to be a political issue, I will leave it to H-High-S network members to research this issue and the various petitions, political issues, etc. that are circulating about this matter, but as this addresses a core element of our network's raison d'etre, history education, I hope this will generate both interest and discussion.



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Baltimore and across the nation are seeing Catholic churches taking the lead in charter schools and often in urban areas where they have historically played an expanded roll.  They are doing it so their religious schools can be funded with public money.  Now, I am not against private religious schools---they often provide strong education.  I want these Catholic leaders to know that Wall Street will not be allowing religious charters-----there will be no homeschooling----everyone will be forced into this autocratic school system being built by Wall Street and pushed upon us by neo-liberals. 

REMEMBER----NEO-LIBERALS ARE NOT DEMOCRATS---THEY HAVE SIMPLY TAKEN CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.  GET RID OF THEM.


There is nothing wrong with parents of children having high learning skills wanting their children in classrooms that offer stronger learning environments.  We can have that in each school in all communities----that is how it worked for decades.  You do not have to send your child across town to find a good school because equal protection, opportunity, and access will have advanced placement classes right in your community.

So, why are these privatizers creating separate facilities?  Because they say education is wasted on 90% of students and those will only have access to vocational K-community college tracking.  You know what?  I may have fallen into this category growing up as my family was working class.  Instead, I had access to as much education I needed everywhere I moved in the country.  When the rich and corporations are not paying taxes then education must be cheapened.



THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATIC AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EDUCATION LOOKS LIKE.


Catholic Churches need to stop supporting this charter movement you know will end badly for all.

Cash-Strapped Catholic Schools Resurrect as Charters To combat declines in enrollment and tuition revenue, they close and rent properties to charters. Many Catholic schools are transforming into charters during times of financial distress.


By Allie Bidwell May 1, 2014


Niya White began her teaching career as a member of AmeriCorps – a national community service organization that in 2003 brought her to what used to be known as Assumption Catholic School in Washington, D.C. 

After serving as a fourth-grade teacher, a fifth-grade teacher and a middle school English teacher for several years, she says the school's staff – along with those from six other inner-city Catholic schools – were told a hard story about the dire financial situation of the schools. 

"We were losing families because of the economy," White says. 

[READ: Common Core: A Divisive Issue for Catholic School Parents, Too]

At that time, the executive director of what was known as the Center City Consortium suggested that rather than closing their doors for good, the schools would submit an application to transform into charter schools as a way to remain as a school choice for the same families and communities they had begun to lose. 

Now known as the Congress Heights campus of the Center City Public Charter Schools, the school is just one example of a growing trend: Catholic schools are dropping their religious affiliations and becoming charters to have a chance of survival.

Private school enrollment has been on the decline for years, and is projected to continue to do so, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the last 10 years alone, there have been almost 600,000 fewer students in Catholic schools, according to Christian Dallavis, senior director of leadership programs at the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education. 

In the same time, more than 1,800 Catholic schools have closed their doors, he says. 

"Most of those are in urban areas and serving low-income communities," Dallavis says. "It's a real challenge our schools are facing, as the cost to educate rises and our ability to collect tuition, especially in communities that serve low-income families, doesn't rise with the cost."



"We really struggle to find ways to sustain our schools," he adds. 

In a report released Monday, Andrew Kelly and Michael McShane of the American Enterprise Institute found the schools that do choose to make the switch generally see increases in enrollment and growth in the percentage of minority students served. 

While it's good for the communities, it can be a blow for the Catholic schools. Charter schools offer for no cost some of the same benefits – uniforms, discipline and a strong focus on character development – for which parents once turned to Catholic schools. 

White says she chose to stay in the same school – regardless of its secular affiliation – because she didn't want to lose the community she had built over several years. 

"No one ever wants to lose the students and parents and families they fall in love with," White says. "You don't want to look at a building that has helped you grow developmentally [as an educator] and watch the doors get closed."

White says that since she took over as principal in 2012, the students have thrived. Student test scores have risen by double-digit percentages in one year, she says. 

[ALSO: AFT, Advocacy Group Want More Accountability for Charter Schools]

"It's the best offer in education I've ever been given, as the Congress Heights campus has been able to rock and roll," White says. 

Although more schools are making the switch (there are just 18 noted in Kelly and McShane's report) the decision is often met with strong opposition among Catholic leaders, Dallavis says. 

"There's a sense in some ways that closing your school to make it a charter is … sacrificing your core identity for money," Dallavis says. "That's something that really challenges a lot of Catholic school leaders who find themselves in a difficult financial situation."


But it's not all bad news for the Catholic schools. They may lose students to the charters that take their place, but the schools that do not make the switch in dioceses where others do change over have seen a large revenue stream, Kelly and McShane write. The properties for Catholic schools are typically owned by parishes or dioceses. When Catholic schools close and charters open in their places, they rent the property to the charter operators. In the 2011 fiscal year, the Center City Public Charter Schools paid more than $3.2 million in rent, according to the AEI report. And a large portion of that money goes to fund scholarships and tuition assistance for low-income students at the remaining Catholic schools.

And in Indianapolis, where two Catholic schools closed and reopened in 2010 as Andrew Academy and Padua Academy, $1 million of annual funding from the archdiocese is split between four schools rather than six, Kelly and McShane write. 

Catholic schools are also attempting to combat declines in enrollment and revenue by supporting policies that provide incentives for families to be able to choose the schools their children attend. That can come in the form of tax credits or voucher systems, which are championed by Republicans but criticized by Democrats and teachers' unions who say they siphon money from traditional public schools.



Dallavis says his organization works with three Catholic schools on the south side of Tucson, Arizona, that were on the verge of closing a few years ago. During the last four years, he says, the schools have seen enrollment growth of more than 25 percent, largely by mobilizing the resources the tax credits make available but also focusing on the academic quality of the schools.

He says policies that allow parents, especially those below certain income thresholds, to receive funding to send their children to the school of their choice, is a continuation of the Catholic schools' legacy to serve the poor. 

"We see those policies as essential to our families' ability to choose the best school for their children," Dallavis says. "There's clearly a lot of demand among parents for their kids to be in Catholic schools. It's just a matter of whether they can afford it and whether there are policies that make it possible for them."


Charter Schools' Expulsion Rate Vastly Higher Than... As it continues to modify strict disciplinary policies in an effort to keep students in the classroom, Chicago Public Schools released data on Tuesday showing privately-run charter schools expel students at a vastly higher rate...


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All unbiased education research shows that Race to the Top is lowering achievement in great bounds.  It is not only the implementation----it is the model.  No academic in education would support this as all of the learning research over decades has been tossed out to simply push a policy with a goal of privatization and not achievement.  Foundations pushing Race to the Top will fund research to 'prove' success but parents, teachers, and communities know they are seeing achievement decline and the broad and detailed subject matter and disappearing.  AS ONE PARENT IN MARYLAND'S HOWARD COUNTY SHOUTED -----YOU ARE DUMBING DOWN OUR SCHOOLS.  Indeed, they are.

This is not a democratic or republican issue-----everyone hates this.  It is being pushed by global corporate pols working to create Wall Street businesses out of our public school system.  In Baltimore Johns Hopkins Education is pushing this and O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake are allowing our education schools in the area be taken with teaching this philosophy to our education students.  

STOP ELECTING GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS IN BOTH PARTIES FOLKS!!!
  THE GOVERNOR APPOINTS PEOPLE TO STATE EDUCATION THAT EMBRACES STRONG PUBLIC EDUCATION OR EMBRACES PRIVATIZATION AS IS THE CASE NOW.

This is why in Maryland you hear the Maryland State Education Association---MSEA backing this reform----they are appointed by O'Malley.  Meanwhile, American Federation of Teachers AFT----not supporting this reform.  Look as well at PTA/PTO organizations that are being co-opted into this reform.  You will not hear the Maryland PTA shout out against this even as parents across Maryland do.

The Maryland AFL-CIO joined the Baltimore Teachers Union to campaign for Anthony Brown------WHO WILL SHOVE THIS REFORM THROUGH NO MATTER WHAT!  Why would Baltimore's Teacher's Union support a Wall Street privatization that will kill the teaching profession, kill unions, and kill the opportunity children in these communities might have in the future?

BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS ARE BEING STACKED WITH EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS---FROM TEACH FOR AMERICA AND VISTAS----TO PRINCIPALS GRADUATING FROM THESE HOPKINS EDUCATION PROGRAMS.


This is not a done deal-----we can reverse this but people must become engaged in politics and stop voting the same global corporate pols into office!!!

News from EPI

New Report Examines Realities of Race to the Top ImplementationFailure to address root causes of achievement gaps and mismatches between states’ goals and their resources have hindered educational improvements

September 12, 2013

Race to the Top has done little to help most states close achievement gaps, and may have exacerbated them, according to a new report by Elaine Weiss, National Coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. In Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement: Lack of Time, Resources, and Tools to Address Opportunity Gaps Puts Lofty State Goals Out of Reach, Weiss takes a comprehensive look at the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, and finds a few notable successes but many more shortcomings.

Race to the Top offered federal funding to states that committed to meeting a series of goals—including developing new teacher evaluation systems that rely substantially on student achievement, identifying alternative teacher certification systems, turning around low-performing schools, and substantially boosting student achievement and closing achievement gaps. In her report, Weiss examines how much progress states have made over the first three years of the grant period. With a year to go before funding is scheduled to end, states are largely behind schedule in meeting goals for improving instruction and educational outcomes.

“This report should be a wake-up call, not only to states and districts implementing Race to the Top, but to states implementing No Child Left Behind waivers and those beginning to roll out the Common Core State Standards,” said Weiss. “Real, sustained change requires time and substantial, well-targeted resources. Raising standards in schools cannot work without accompanying supports that make attaining them possible for all students, not just the most advantaged.”

Key findings of the report include:

  • States made unrealistic promises in order to secure Race to the Top funding, and have found greater-than-expected challenges to meeting their goals.
  • The narrow policy agenda and short time frame prescribed by Race to the Top have hampered state and district abilities to improve teacher quality, while failing to address other core drivers of opportunity gaps.
  • Shortcomings in Race to the Top have spurred conflicts between states, school districts, and educators that have further hindered progress.
This report draws on studies from the U.S. Department of Education and others, state and local reporting, as well as a survey of district superintendents and interviews with parents, teachers, and state and community education leaders. The report also includes in-depth case studies of two Race to the Top states, Ohio and Tennessee. Weiss’s analysis provides the most comprehensive picture to date of the successes and challenges states have faced throughout Race to the Top and the policy implications at both the state and federal level.

“This paper details the results of careful examination of implementation of Race to the Top and whether or not it has produced the game-changing improvements proponents promised,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director, AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “The report represents the first comprehensive look at the program, the challenges states face in implementing grants and key implications for moving forward, and bolsters what AASA has long advocated—while Race to the Top has some positive impact on education, there are better alternative strategies for improving education, including prioritizing existing federal statutes like ESEA and IDEA, and ensuring that all students in all public schools benefit from limited federal funding. AASA applauds Broader, Bolder for its leadership on this report and we’re grateful for the opportunity to collaborate on the project for the past two years.”

It is especially important to look at challenges posed by Race to the Top as states adopt and implement the Department of Education’s Common Core standards. States’ struggles to reliably and productively hold schools and teachers accountable, and to raise student achievement under the current standards, are likely to grow as demands increase while time, staffing, and other resources remain flat or are further diminished.


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May 06th, 2014

5/6/2014

0 Comments

 
ALL CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR EXCEPT CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR WILL CONTINUE TO DISMANTLE ALL EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND EQUAL ACCESS AND SPECIAL NEEDS WILL BE HURT THE MOST!

I speak to teachers who are getting tired and fed up with these reforms that just throw more and more impossible work on them with negatives thrown at the profession and I tell these dedicated teachers that Race to the Top is about getting rid of dedicated and passionate teachers and replacing them with temporary Teach for America types that will have K-12 looking like university adjuncts----part time business people brought to teach university classes.  That is the goal of all of these policies implemented with no rhyme of reason. 
THEY JUST WANT TO FRUSTRATE THOSE WHO REALLY CARE ABOUT TEACHING.  WHEN YOU HAVE A GOAL OF THIRD WORLD EDUCATION YOU DO NOT WANT PASSIONATE TEACHERS----YOU WANT COGS WITH NO CONNECTION.



Maryland is dismantling all of the public sector including equal opportunity and access for people with disabilities.  Baltimore schools are no longer funded to provide for special needs children as they are now on a tiered funding placing special needs children lowest in funding.  This means that if your child is special needs you are likely not going to be able to find a school in your community that will accept him/her.  When schools operate as businesses as Johns Hopkins has pushed in Baltimore, special needs is too expensive to accept and schools find ways to reject or eject these students.  When this happens these special needs students often find there way to underserved schools and are mainstreamed into classrooms where the teachers know nothing about teaching special needs and teachers that have their hands full simply dealing with discipline and students needing learning skills development.  You see, there is no recipe for success in these schools----underfunded and having the children needing the most resources.  That is what neo-liberalism is all about-----only fund schools with children who can become productive workers.  That is how things where done in the dark ages and it is third world mentality.
  Tracking special needs children into schools where it is impossible for the teachers to provide needed attention simply warehouses children with no disability training waiting after they become adults.  In Baltimore, they are returning to having disabled doing simple manual labor and corporations are no longer required to hire disabled because----they are no longer workplace ready.


THE ENTIRE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS FOR THE DISABLED IS BEING DISMANTLED IN BALTIMORE AND SOON TO BE EXPANDED TO ALL MARYLAND.  THIS IS SUPPOSEDLY A DEMOCRATIC STATE.

This is happening because corporations and the rich are no longer paying taxes and the revenue that used to fill state coffers are now going to subsidize corporate profit.  STOP ELECTING CORPORATE POLITICIANS.  WE DO NOT WANT TO BECOME A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.


Let's see what corporate non-profits with a goal of ending special needs in all schools is doing:



Mainstreaming is good policy.....allowing special needs children to be included in regular classrooms but having special needs classes to augment education development. Consider what happens when the mainstreaming happens in already stressed underserved schools where behavior and learning skills are already the dominate issue for these teachers.  Remember, parents of special needs move to a community and the school tells them this community school does not take special needs and sends those parents to a different part of the city to a schools that does----and it is underserved and underfunded.  Tens of thousands of Maryland parents of special needs are shouting against turning the clock back to the dark ages of warehousing special needs children and adults.  A few schools in affluent communities have the successful model of mainstreaming.....and most others have the failed model. 

THIS IS RACE TO THE TOP EDUCATION REFORM-----TIERED LEVELS OF EDUCATION WITH UNDERSERVED RECEIVING LESS FUNDING AND SPECIAL NEEDS EVEN LESS.




Mainstreaming, in the context of education, is the practice of educating students with special needs in regular classes during specific time periods based on their skills.[1] This means regular education classes are combined with special education classes. Schools that practice mainstreaming believe that students with special needs who cannot function in a regular classroom to a certain extent "belong" to the special education environment.[2]

All of this is simply steps taken to end all of disability protections gained from the civil rights and liberties era of the 1960s.  Neo-liberals do not want money going to help the working and middle-class----WHO PAY ALL OF THE TAXES---- because they want to use taxes as corporate subsidy.  So, dismantling all of equal opportunity and equal access-----A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT-----brings more money back to profit.  Think about how many children are categorized as disabled---it is not only physical----it is emotional and mental disabilities and your child will be tracked into these warehoused schools if testing shows them meeting the term 'disabled'.  Remember, the US had one of the strongest programs in education and moving the disabled into the workplace providing wide opportunities in employment before Reagan/Clinton started dismantling public education.


PRE- K /ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TESTING WILL DETERMINE HOW THE STATE (IN BALTIMORE THAT WILL BE JOHNS HOPKINS) CHOOSES TO TRACK YOUR CHILD.




Are mainstream schools doing enough for special needs children? Attending mainstream schools proves to be a double-edged sword for most special needs children because they don't get enoughhelp in class,

writes Elaine Yau

PUBLISHED : Friday, 15 March, 2013, 12:00amUPDATED : Friday, 15 March, 2013, 10:05am Elaine Yau elaine.yau@scmp.com

 

ADHT sufferer Willie Lam was ignored at school. Photo: Paul Leung The numbers threaten to overwhelm. About 28,000 special needs students now attend mainstream schools, the result of an inclusive education policy introduced in 1997. The idea is to place children with learning disabilities in conventional classrooms, where they can develop alongside other youngsters. But academics and social workers working with such students find the broad range of needs in a school means many do not receive sufficient help so they struggle in class. And as the first special needs teens under this system prepare to leave school, the path ahead is murky.

Consider Willie Lam Chi-yung, who recalls secondary school as a blur of disappointments and put-downs. Many teachers found his presence disruptive - he would talk loudly and walk around the classroom at will - so they left him to his own devices. But Willie, 17, couldn't help himself: he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"I played all the time at school and the teachers just ignored me," he says. Although diagnosed at age 13, Willie attended a government school in Kowloon where he rarely received the help that he needed. As he advanced to secondary classes, where there were more rules to be followed, his behavioural problems were exacerbated.

Peggy So Sin-lee, his school social worker, says Willie did not mean to make trouble. "He couldn't control his impulses. His parents thought he was just being naughty and boisterous, and did not seek medical help. We arranged for him to visit a private psychiatrist, who made the diagnosis.

"His case was later referred to government psychiatrists, but he only got to see them once every few months, and his condition did not improve at all."

Thousands of Hong Kong students have experiences similar to Willie's.

Dr Kenneth Sin Kuen-fung, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, says more than 80 per cent of the city's 1,000 mainstream schools now include special needs students.

For every special needs pupil enrolled, schools receive between HK$10,000 and HK$20,000 in addition to annual funding to employ more staff, or pay for specialist services.

"Schools use the extra funding in different ways, with some employing outside speech or occupational therapy services for special needs students. But not all students need the same type of services. Many parents complain their children do not benefit at all, even though each of them is entitled to the extra funding.


"The government made it compulsory for schools to enrol teachers for on-the-job special needs training. But just 20 to 30 per cent of the [50,000] teachers have completed this training so far. Besides, the 30-hour programme hardly equips them to deal with the different kinds of special needs students," says Sin.

Intensive therapy from an early age can work wonders (see box) but few parents can afford frequent private sessions.

The inadequacy of special needs services starts in preschool. Social Welfare Department figures show more than 6,700 children competed last year for 6,230 places on its remedial programme, which is free to youngsters up to age six.


"The period up to six years old is considered the golden time to help special needs children catch up with their peers. Those who miss this window will be handicapped," Sin says.

So argues that with its inclusive policy, the government should make special-needs education part of undergraduate teacher training instead of the current piecemeal approach. Teachers won't be able to devote sufficient attention to special needs students in an integrated class. But the school can gather them for support sessions for help from specially trained teachers.

"The government should also set rules on how the special needs subsidy is used. Now, some schools just use the money to employ more teaching assistants, who have no special needs training and are just assigned to lessen teachers' workload."

Many wind up like Willie Lam, muddling through their school years and unsure about what to do with their future. To fill the gap for special needs assistance in schools, the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society launched a career-counselling programme last year for senior secondary students.

The series of weekly workshops, designed to identify their areas of interest as well as strengths and weaknesses, are complemented by industry visits. Jacqueline Ng Wai-ling, the society's senior manager in youth services, says the aim is to help special needs teens set their life goals.

It has been a revelation for Willie, one of 60 students who have completed the programme so far. Inspired by what he learned about graphic design, he is studying for a diploma in information technology at the Vocational Training Council.

"I like making computer graphics. After talking with the career counsellor, I decided not to go on to Form Four; all those academic lessons don't interest me anyway. I enjoy studying for the diploma," Willie says.

"After I joined the programme, I began to think about my future career. I never thought about it in the past, as no one at school told me anything about jobs."

The transition to adult life is no easier for autistic teens attending special schools. Few are able to keep a stable job after leaving school, even high-functioning autistics, says Christina Chan Ying-ha, of the Heep Hong Society's Jockey Club Parents Resource Centre.

"I have been working at the centre for over 10 years we have never had anyone earn a university degree. Of all my charges, there are not many who can get a job. Many work in sheltered workshops and others continue to receive training so that their ability to look after themselves will not deteriorate," Chan says.

Some obvious traits prevent them from holding a job for long, she says.

"Autistic people tend to have poor social skills. They often mumble to themselves and speak in a loud voice. Not many employers are patient and understanding enough to accommodate such differences."

Chan says training can help them better cope with life as adults. "Social training is crucial. The biological and mental changes that come with adolescence can be a shock. They begin to develop an interest in the opposite sex, but don't know how to deal with it. We need to help them better handle the transition to adulthood. I have seen some get married and have a family, but they are in the minority."

That's why the future is a constant worry for Wan Yan-tai, whose 24-year-old son Wong Ying-ki is autistic.

Although considered high-functioning, she says, "he doesn't know how to talk to people. He keeps talking about his favourite cartoon characters and people think he's a child.

"I am worried that he won't be able to set up a family, although he can take care of himself now. He's always eager to help people. If a person asks for directions on the street, he will go out of his way to take the person where they want to go. But I am worried that he might run into criminals."

Wong showed telltale signs of autism as a toddler - he was obsessed with moving things like wheels and he suffered speech delays.

Despite being diagnosed at age two, Wan says, there was little assistance available for her son's condition. "As a preschooler, he received speech and vocational therapy only every one or two months because places were limited and there was a long queue. I enrolled him in training classes offered by NGOs like Caritas."

He later attended a mainstream primary school, which did not provide any help, so Wan enrolled him in Heep Hong for remedial programmes.


Her son went on to Fortress Hill Methodist Secondary School, which catered to children with severe learning difficulties, but even there the reception could sometimes be unsympathetic.

"His [Form One] teacher scolded him for looking at the fan all the time. He didn't understand why he was different from the others," Wan recalls. That's when she told him about his condition.

"As he grows older, what most worries me is his failure to understand the complexities of life. He's innocent like a child," she says.

Happily, her son seems to be adapting. A hotel internship that was part of a vocational training course run by the Hong Chi Association has led to a job as housekeeper.

"It took half a year for him to relax," says Wan, recalling how his clothes were drenched with sweat when he returned from work because he was so nervous.

"Now he talks to me about his work all the time. I never get complaints from his boss and colleagues. I am glad that he loves his job."

_________________________________
Below you see a letter from a parent in Baltimore that showed how hard it is to navigate the school system and find what are fewer and fewer options for special needs children in the city.  The state funding designated as helping special needs students goes to private corporate non-profits and not the schools and these non-profits in turn often do nothing but pretend to be advocating for special needs.  Corporate 0private non-profits handling disabled adults in housing and hiring are also taking a pro-advocate stance to moving towards simple warehousing and manual employment.  We are losing the best system in the world for supporting all people to be whatever they can be.



'This is my daughter, my sacrifices, the wind beneath my wings, the whole of my heart,my one and only and the catalyst for my advocacy. 3 months ago I posted that my daughter was being bullied in school. The school did not act responsibly & I removed my daughter from school for her safety & to keep me from going to jail.
I stepped down from many of my community efforts to focus on my daughter and my family. For 3 months I studied the history of Balto City's special education & the legislation that is in place to protect our children. I can confidently say that the school system does not take our children's future seriously. My daughter has been out of school for 3 months and no one has contacted me to see if she is alive or dead. I soon realized why it's possible to have such a high percentage of special ed students go from the school system to the prison system and homelessness. It's not just the school system's fault, parents have to start showing up & representing their children. We have a small window of time to set the stage for our children's future.
  My daughter will began attending her new school on Monday for an appropriate safe education. If this could happen to us, an informed parent & special education advocate; imagine what could happen to a parent that is not showing up. The disparity and heartache I endured as a parent, brought me to my knees so many times. I was preparing to leave Maryland in order to give my child the best there was to offer. I never ask people to pray for me because I believe my relationship with God & Universe is solid, but I asked a new to pray for me because my spirit had broke. I don't want another parent's spirit to break while wanting better for their child. Though some in the community may be disappointed, my focus will remain with my daughter, my real estate business and special education. 32,000 special ed students were arrested in Maryland last year and no one cares. I believe that I can make a difference in the prison and homeless rate with our children and I'm going to try.
Thank you MH for your prayers. When much is given, much is required.'


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Baltimore special needs schools-----doesn't sound like inclusion to me!  Indeed, what Baltimore is doing is creating a policy of warehousing.  There will be a few winning schools but when you warehouse----most schools will be allowed to become substandard and neglected.  Marginalizing for profit----that's a corporate neo-liberal for you!

ALL OF MARYLAND DEMOCRATS ARE NEO-LIBERALS.  ALL OF BALTIMORE DEMOCRATS WORK FOR JOHNS HOPKINS WHICH IS THE MOST NEO-CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD.....SO BALTIMORE POLS ARE NOT DEMOCRATS FOLKS!  STOP RE-ELECTING THEM.



Jun 24, 2011, 7:05am EDT

Baltimore special needs schools looking for staff


Further Reading
  • Baltimore-area private schools are hiring
Carolyn M. ProctorResearch DirectorEmail Children with special needs require special skills from their educators, and if you’ve got them, you could do a lot of good here in Greater Baltimore. While compiling our annual List of the largest special needs schools in the area, I also asked each one whether they’re hiring in the coming months. Here are those who are looking to fill positions now:

Children’s Guild is seeking special education teachers, a teacher assistant and an IEP aide.

Good Shepherd Center is hiring more therapists, residential staff and school staff.

The Harbour School in Annapolis and Owings Mills is hiring a certified occupational therapy assistant, a speech therapist and a teacher.

Kennedy Krieger High School Program is looking to hire a new social worker.

Kennedy Krieger LEAP Program is seeking a program aide, a teaching assistant and a behavioral resource associate.

Kennedy Krieger Lower/Middle School is hiring a behavioral psychologist, a behavior resource specialist and an assistant teacher.


_______________________________________



Do not be fooled------the education reform happening in Baltimore and across Maryland is not legal.  If we had a Maryland Attorney General and a MD ACLU functioning as public justice none of these reforms would be moving forward.  You cannot pretend you are providing for special needs children and then not provide.  Sending money to private corporate non-profits handling special needs education and then not providing oversight-----PARENTS AND TEACHERS ARE SHOUTING
THAT NOTHING IS BEING DONE FOR THESE CHILDREN IN BALTIMORE!!!!!


This is just another example of public money being funneled to a private non-profit assigned the work of the public sector
but doing little if nothing in providing service.  The money is going elsewhere.




School Law in Maryland - Educational Rights of Children with Special Needs

The Maryland State Bar Association’s Public Awareness Committee and the Advocates for Children and Youth, the Maryland Disability Law Center has prepared this information. It is intended to inform the public and not serve as legal advice.

Please note that the online version contains information not available in the print edition.

Introduction

Under the federal law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and corresponding state law, a child with a disability, which affects his or her learning has a right to a free and appropriate public education. A child is entitled to a program, which is designed to meet his or her individual learning needs. This includes specially designed classroom instruction and related services needed by the child to benefit from the education program.

Who is Eligible for Special Education Services?

  • Children with disabilities from 3 to 21 years old may be eligible for special education services.
  • Infants and toddlers up to age 3 may receive early intervention services through the Infants and Toddlers Program.
  • A child is considered eligible for services if he or she is having trouble learning in school because of mental, physical and/or emotional disabilities.
Some of the disabilities that can make a child eligible for special education and related services are: mental retardation, emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, autism, deafness or hearing impairment, blindness or visual impairment, physical or orthopedic disabilities, brain injury, speech and language impairment, traumatic brain injury, multiple disabilities or other health impairments.

What is the Process for Determining Whether a Child is Eligible for Special Education Services?

A child becomes eligible for special education services when he or she is identified as disabled by the school’s Individual Education Program (IEP) team.

A parent or guardian is a member of the IEP team and has the right to participate in the IEP meetings about the child. Other members of the IEP team include a special education teacher; a regular education teacher; a school official who knows about the special education system and the general curriculum; and school personnel who can interpret evaluation results. The student may be a member of the IEP team if it is appropriate. Also, the parent may bring anyone else to the meeting, who would be helpful, such as a family friend, an advocate or other professionals who know the child.

Before the child is identified as disabled, the school system must evaluate the child. The evaluation process consists of three parts: (1) screening, (2) assessments, and (3) a review of the assessments.

The IEP team must complete the evaluation process, including the initial meeting, completion of the assessments, within 90 days of receiving the written request for an evaluation.

Screening: If a parent or guardian believes that his or her child may need special education services, the parent or guardian should make a request for an evaluation in writing and send it to the principal of the child’s school.

The IEP team will meet to determine if additional assessments are needed and decide whether the child is eligible for special education services. If the IEP team suspects that the child may have a disability and needs special education, the IEP team will order additional assessments after obtaining permission from the parent or guardian.

Assessments: During the assessment stage, the tests recommended by the IEP team are given to the child. School professionals, such as a psychologist, educator, speech pathologist, and physical or occupational therapists assess the child. The types of assessments that should be performed depend on the child’s suspected disability. Assessments determine the child’s disability and what kind of educational services he or she needs as a result of the disability. The school system is responsible for scheduling and paying for all the assessments it has recommended.

Review of the Assessments: Once the assessments are completed, the IEP team must meet to review the assessment results and determine whether the child qualifies for special education services.

The Individualized Education Plan

Within 30 days after the IEP team meets to review the assessments and determines that a student needs special education services, the IEP team meets again to develop the IEP. The IEP is a document, which sets the plan of services, and accommodations that the child will receive through the school system.

For a child who is already receiving special education services, the IEP team must meet at least once a year to review the child’s progress and revise the IEP’s accordingly.

The IEP has many requirements. For example, the IEP should describe a child’s disability, strengths, and needs and the present levels of educational performance. In addition, the IEP should set annual goals for the child and short-term objectives, all of which must be related to enabling a child to be involved in the general curriculum.

The IEP must also include any of the following that the child may need: related services, such as occupational or physical therapy, or transportation, assistive technology devices or services; behavior strategies; extended school year services, Braille; language and communication services; and/or transition services.

Once the IEP is developed, it must be implemented as soon as possible and must be in effect at the beginning of the school year.

Placement Issues

A “placement” refers to the actual class and school a child attends in order to receive his or her special educational services. The IEP team determines the placement after the IEP document has been developed.

The law requires that a child receive his or her special education services in the “least restrictive environment.” This means that an eligible child must receive special education services with non-disabled children as much as possible and preferably in the neighborhood school. This is often referred to as “inclusion.” The school system must provide extra aid or services if it would allow a child to participate in a less restrictive environment.

What Can a Parent or Guardian Do if an Agreement Cannot be Reached with the School System?

There are times when a parent or guardian may not agree with the evaluation, IEP or placement offered for his or her child. If a parent or guardian disagrees with the school system at any stage of the process, he or she has the right to request mediation or a due process hearing.

Mediation is a voluntary process in which a trained mediator tries to help the family and the school system reach an agreement. If a parent requests mediation and due process at the same time, the mediation must be held within 20 days from the date of the request.

A due process hearing is a formal way to resolve a dispute between the parent and the school system. The hearing is set up by the Office of Administrative Hearings and takes place before an administrative law judge. A parent can request a dues process hearing by submitting a request in writing to the school system. The hearing must be held within 45 days of the date the school system receives the request.

Parents have the right to bring an attorney or advocate to represent them at the hearing. There are important rules regarding due process hearings, which families should be aware of before requesting a hearing. For example, parents and school official must exchange a list of witnesses (including potential witnesses) and copies of all documents they intend to use at the hearing at least 5 business days prior to the hearing. If a party does not comply with this rule, the administrative law judge could exclude that party’s evidence.

If a parent believes that his or her child is not getting the services listed on the IEP, or if the school system does not comply with the timelines or other procedures, the parent can file a complaint with the Maryland State Department of Education. Under federal law, the state has 60 days to investigate the complaint and issue a decision.

What is Section 504?

Some children with disabilities may not qualify for special education services under the IDEA, but may still need specific adaptation to their educational program to allow them to participate fully in their classes. For example, a child who uses a wheelchair may not need special education services but may need some accommodations to access the school building. The federal law that applies to these children is referred to as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Children with disabilities who need accommodations and services under Section 504 are entitled to a Section 504 Plan. This Plan sets forth the accommodations and services that the student will receive from the school system. As with the IEP, the Section 504 Plan should be reviewed and revised regularly to ensure that the child’s needs are being met.

Suspension and Expulsion of Children with Special Needs

Schools must provide an education to all students and may not discriminate against students with disabilities. This means that the school may not suspend or expel a disabled student for behavior that results from his or her disability.

Children who are eligible for special education services or who have a 504 Plan are entitled to a manifestation meeting when the school proposes to suspend them for more than 10 days in a semester or to expel them. This meeting determines whether a child’s actions were caused by his or her disability and must be held within 10 days of the child’s removal from class. At this meeting, the IEP team must determine:

  • Was the child’s IEP appropriate?
  • Was the IEP implemented as written?
  • Is it true that the child’s disability did not impair his/her ability to control the behavior subject to disciplinary action?
If the answer is no to any of the above, then the child must be returned to class immediately, unless the charges involve weapons or drugs. If the team determines that the child’s behavior was not caused by his/her disability, then the child goes through the regular suspension/expulsion process.

What Services are Disabled Students at the College Level Entitled to?

College students with disabilities are in a slightly different position from students in elementary and high schools. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protect students at the college level, rather than IDEA.

College students with disabilities are entitled to reasonable, appropriate accommodations in the instructional process. A student is responsible for informing the college of his or her disability and needs, and for utilizing the support services provided. Accommodation plans should be written for eligible students; however, these plans will not modify the curriculum or reduce course requirements. Generally speaking, the accommodation plans will simply address the learning differences.

For more information, college students should contact their schools’ ADA Coordinators.



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May 05th, 2014

5/5/2014

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I UNDERSTAND THAT MARYLAND IS A CONSERVATIVE STATE BUT I KNOW THAT EVEN CONSERVATIVES HATE GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE AND THE LOSS OF FREE MARKETS WITH THIS CRONY NEO-LIBERALISM.  THESE EDUCATION REFORMS ARE SIMPLY AN EXTENSION OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND MARKET CONTROL THAT WILL TAKE AWAY ALL COMMUNITY CONTROL OF EVERY ASPECT OF EDUCATION AND NEITHER REPUBLICAN NOR DEMOCRAT WANTS THIS!  WAKE UP AND GET OUT TO PROTEST THESE POLICIES AS IS HAPPENING ALL ACROSS AMERICA.

CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR IS THE ONLY CANDIDATE FIGHTING AGAINST THESE REFORMS AND FOR STRONG FUNDING AND RESOURCING FOR COMMUNITY-LED PUBLIC SCHOOLS.



Today I wanted to look at the Maryland approach to education reform but also how the process of public policy debate has become so captured as to exclude any public input from the citizens of Maryland.  Remember, Maryland is moving quickly to privatizing all public agencies and this allows only the corporations tied with these partnerships writing the policy.  In this case it is education reform and Race to the Top.

I like to give people a broad history of education reform over decades because that let's us have historical perspective and as a baby boomer graduating with education degrees in early 1990, I was right at the last education reform of 1990.  Reagan/Clinton embraced neo-liberal
ism meaning they were leaving the social democratic structure of first world thriving economy and moving to empire-building global free markets and a return of wealth to the few.  This meant dismantling a strong public education system that gave highly educated citizens ready to work in leadership positions in government and business. They envisioned the middle-age structure of only the rich attaining the higher education and the 99% of people tracked into vocation.....pre-Age of Enlightenment.  To do that Reagan/Clinton with the help of the same Ivy League schools giving us Race to the Top installed an education reform that took text books out of classrooms because they 'stifled' creativity and told teachers to allow calculators in math classes at the earliest age because they said 'people are now only going to need to push a button for math'.  So, Stanford and Ivy League schools became rich selling lessons without textbooks and of course Hewlett Packard and the calculator corporations went wild.  The results for these students we know------children graduating unable to read and do math.  THEY TOOK A HIGHLY EDUCATED SOCIETY DOWN TO THE WORST OF ACHIEVEMENT WITH THIS 1990 EDUCATION REFORM.

Reagan reversed what was a progressive tax structure by lowering corporate and wealth taxes so much that education funding would not be sustained at levels that had the US ranked #1 in the world so this breakdown in education was leading to the defunding that followed.  So, from 1990 to this roll-out of Race to the Top education funding dropped considerably taking resources and opportunity from the classrooms until today......corporations paying nothing in tax but now using our tax revenue as corporate subsidy the citizens are reduced to begging for school funding. 

THIS IS WHY PUBLIC EDUCATION IS NOT DOING ITS JOB----AND IT WAS DELIBERATE.  WE WENT FROM THE MOST HIGHLY EDUCATED NATION TO THE LOWEST RANKED WITH THE REAGAN/CLINTON REFORM.

Now, the same Ivy League schools are back for round two of ending public education in America.  Citizens are desperate for good schools and now corporate education reforms pretend to give it to the people with all kinds of education businesses.  THERE GOES PUBLIC EDUCATION!  All we need to do is return to what worked before 1990 reform to return to a thriving public education system and none of it involved corporate education businesses, testing, and data.

Look below to see the players in Maryland pushing this current education reform that wants to hand all public education to businesses.  First, we need to identify Johns Hopkins as the institution behind this most severe of privatization efforts and we have this in Baltimore.  Let's start with Nancy Grasmick who as you see is now working at Johns Hopkins but she was the Maryland Education Superintendent throughout the Reagan/Clinton dumbing down of America.  When I moved to Baltimore  several years ago I interviewed parents, teachers, and administrators to get a feel of education in this area and it was very clear-----THEY ALL HATED WHAT WAS HAPPENING.  PARENTS BACK IN 2006 WERE DEMANDING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION RISE.   Nancy's job was taking a first world high quality education system and make it fail.  She did her job as Maryland's state tests are some of the weakest in the country and education stats are massaged to make performance look better than it is.  You cannot hide widespread math and reading deficiency.  Let's have Nancy on the panel about failed education policy they say!

NANCY GRASMICK IS THE FACE OF CORPORATE AMERICA'S DISMANTLING OF A STRONG PUBLIC EDUCATION AND NOW SHE WORKS AT JOHNS HOPKINS---THE INSTITUTION PUSHING THESE REFORMS.

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Sean Johnson's Overview
  • Assistant Executive Director for Political and Legislative Affairs at Maryland State Education Association
Past
  • Campaign Specialist at National Education Association
  • Deputy Political Director at Hillary Clinton for President
  • Vice President at Mack Crounse Group, LLC



The Maryland State Education Association is merely the product of who the Governor at the time appoints to head Maryland Education.  So, if Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland was elected I would appoint strong public education people to Maryland Education but O'Malley who works for Johns Hopkins appointed strong education privatizers so Sean Johnson will push these Race to the Top and Common Core policies for all he is worth.  As you see Sean is tied with the Clinton's -----the one's creating this mess in education and who better to lead the effort to fix education then the people who killed it.  Mack Crounce Group is a real estate/investment firm from Florida and has nothing to do with education.  Sean Johnson appears to have a job as top education appointee with only business/political science background and yet------Sean Johnson is on this education panel.

***************************************
Maryland CAN is a state organization that makes school privatization its goal.  My few contacts with MD CAN had this organization talking to parents with special needs and underserved schools telling them these reforms were good and all of the bad public schools in Baltimore were the result of bad teachers.  Below you see that Jason Botel is directly connected to the largest charter chain in the country----KIPP.  It also has a record as the worst in exclusion, hiding/skewing achievement data, and more talk than walk.  The Maryland Assembly wants this private charter chain to take over in Baltimore so badly it selectively assigned scholarship money to this KIPP chain only for higher education.  So, yet another education privatizer on this panel discussion on education policy in Maryland.




Jason Botel's Experience Executive Director KIPP Baltimore Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Education Management industry

July 2002 – Present (11 years 11 months)



****************************************************

Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation

Well, taking America's schools private is a republican policy and indeed much of what Obama and neo-liberals in Congress are passing as policy originates from this most conservative of foundations----the Heritage Foundation.  So, if you are going to talk about concerns over the education reform and people hating it----you would want the people responsible for writing these policies there to give unbiased discussion
.  I want to caution those conservatives out there to watch for what you wish because if you like charters and control over your schools what these people have in mind takes all control away----Wall Street charter chains will control all and will not care less about what is good for the child----only giving what the corporations need.

FREE-MARKET SCHOOLS LIKE FREE MARKET FINANCE?  YOU BETCHA!!!!!!  WE ALREADY HAVE FOR-PROFIT HIGHER EDUCATION INFUSED WITH FRAUD AND CORRUPTION.


Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.


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Nina Rees  is obviously a charter school advocate----


****************************************************
Dallas Dance straight from what is basically already a third world country----TEXAS.  Texas is one of the first to develop Teach for America and schools as businesses models as a raging corporate state. Texas wants to remove 'public' from its library system for goodness sake.   So Dance was brought to Baltimore area to install the next stage of reform----getting all students connected to online lessons and creating the cheapest education for the buck. This was Alonzo's task as education quality went nowhere but all the structures for making schools into businesses happened during Alonzo's term.  Dance has absolutely no administrative ability, he openly misleads the public and controls public discussion like any Chinese autocrat.  Dance is captured through and through to this school as business mentality.  This is a panelist on education policy in Maryland.

I encourage Maryland citizens to either attend this forum or protest outside and the most public of forums will include only people wanting these reforms to continue and the price of $35 to enter a public policy forum is ridiculous.  People can go to a national policy event at the Brookings Institution for free!



Maryland Policy Forum > Forum > Maryland Public Education: The Challenges Ahead Maryland Public Education: The Challenges Ahead

Debate summary Share: The Maryland Public Policy Institute hosts a debate on Common Core, universal Pre-K and the role of charter schools. Common Core is a subject of hot debate from all sides of the political spectrum, universal Pre-K is on the platform of a number of gubernatorial candidates as well as a topic of national discussion since President Obama noted it in his State of the Union speech, and Maryland’s charter law because it is one of the most restrictive in the nation. We think this heavy hitting group of panelists will not only draw a big crowd, but shed both light and heat on how to improve public education for all in Maryland. Join us for a reception at 6 pm, while the program begins at 7 pm. Sponsorships Available: Please contact Hillary Pennington at (240) 686-3510 or hpennington@mdpolicy.org


    

  Panel
Sean Johnson    Maryland State Education Association

Dr. Nancy Grasmick   Kennedy Krieger Institute

Jason Botel   MarylandCAN

Lindsey Burke   The Heritage Foundation

Nina Rees    National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

Dr. Dallas Dance   Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools


__________________________________________
Obama and Wall Street used Bush's No Child Left Behind and controlled Federal Education funding to force states to move these policies forward and much of these policies are not legal.  Tying Federal funding of public schools to policy not generated by Congress is unheard of.  OBAMA WAS NOT ALLOWED TO DO THIS. 

Crashing the economy with so much debt created from massive corporate fraud of government coffers set the stage for forcing these policies on states.  The first thing Maryland would have done was to take this Federal funding threat to court as it is illegal.  Maryland unfortunately had O'Malley in place as Governor and Gansler in place as Maryland Attorney General
ready to move these policies forward.  IT MATTERS WHO YOU ELECT. 

CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR WILL TAKE ALL OF THIS PROCESS TO COURT TO STOP THIS POWER GRAB.


Obama's Race to the Top Will Not Improve Education Posted: 08/ 1/10 01:27 PM ET React



President Obama spoke to the National Urban League this week and defended his "Race to the Top" program, which has become increasingly controversial. Mr. Obama insisted that it was the most important thing he had done in office, and that critics were merely clinging to the status quo.

Mr. Obama was unfazed by the scathing critique of the Race by the nation's leading civil rights organizations, who insisted that access to federal funding should be based on need, not competition.

The program contains these key elements: Teachers will be evaluated in relation to their students' test scores. Schools that continue to get low test scores will be closed or turned into charter schools or handed over to private management. In low-performing schools, principals will be fired, and all or half of the staff will be fired. States are encouraged to create many more privately managed charter schools.

All of these elements are problematic. Evaluating teachers in relation to student test scores will have many adverse consequences. It will make the current standardized tests of basic skills more important than ever, and even more time and resources will be devoted to raising scores on these tests. The curriculum will be narrowed even more than under George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind, because of the link between wages and scores. There will be even less time available for the arts, science, history, civics, foreign language, even physical education. Teachers will teach to the test. There will be more cheating, more gaming the system.

Furthermore, charter schools on average do not get better results than regular public schools, yet Obama and Duncan are pushing them hard. Duncan acknowledges that there are many mediocre or bad charter schools, but chooses to believe that in the future, the new charters will only be high performing ones. Right.

The President should re-examine his reliance on standardized testing to identify the best teachers and schools and the worst teachers and schools. The tests are simply not adequate to their expectations.

The latest example of how test results can be doctored is the New York state testing scandal, which broke open this week. The pass rates on the state tests had soared year after year, to the point where they became ridiculous to all but the credulous The whole house of cards came crashing down this week after the state raised the proficiency bar from the low point to which it had sunk. In 2009, 86.4% of the state's students were "proficient" in math, but the number in 2010 plummeted to 61%. In 2009, 77.4% were "proficient" in reading, but now it is only 53.2%.

The latest test scores were especially startling for New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg staked his reputation on their meteoric rise. He was re-elected because of the supposedly historic increase in test scores and used them to win renewal of mayoral control. But now, the city's pass rate in reading for grades 3-8 fell from 68.8% to 42.4%, and the proficiency rate in math sunk from an incredible 81.8% to a dismal 54%.

When the mayor ran for office, he said that mayoral control would mean accountability. If things went wrong, the public would know whom to blame.

But now that the truth about score inflation is out, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein steadfastly insist that the gains recorded on their watch did not go up in smoke, that progress was real, and they have reiterated this message through their intermediaries in the tabloids. In other words, they are using every possible rationalization and excuse to avoid accountability for the collapse of their "historic gains."

Meanwhile Secretary Duncan travels the country urging districts to adopt mayoral control, so they can emulate New York City. He carefully avoids mentioning Cleveland, which has had mayoral control for years and remains one of the lowest performing districts in the nation. Nor does he mention that Detroit had mayoral control and ended it. And it is hard to imagine that anyone would think of Chicago, which has been controlled by Mayor Richard Daley for many years, would serve as a national model.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan need to stop and think. They are heading in the wrong direction. On their present course, they will end up demoralizing teachers, closing schools that are struggling to improve, dismantling the teaching profession, destabilizing communities, and harming public education.


_______________________________________
There was plenty of journalism against these reforms from both sides of the political aisle.  NO ONE WANTED THIS.  As you see below the reasoning for the reforms was based purely on the ideals of free market and running schools like businesses.  That was what Alonzo's tenure in Baltimore was all about with education achievements falling even as they massage the data.  Dance will do the same in Baltimore County.

Look as well at the so-called public debate issue here in Maryland to see----THERE IS NO PUBLIC DEBATE.....ALL PUBLIC DEBATES ARE SELECTED PANELISTS WHO SIMPLY REPRESENT THE CORPORATE VIEW.  This is critical folks.  If you do not fight for your rights as citizens.....you will become third world peasants.



SADLY THINGS ARE SO CAPTURED IN MARYLAND WE HAVE THE AFL-CIO AND THE BALTIMORE TEACHER'S UNION CAMPAIGNING FOR ANTHONY BROWN-----THE VERY PERSON WHO AS GOVERNOR WILL CONTINUE THIS PRIVATIZATION.




Posted at 11:47 AM ET, 10/23/2009

Educator: 'Race to the Top's' 10 false assumptions

By Valerie Strauss My guest today is Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author. He writes about Education Secretary's Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" initiative, which is intended to be the successor to "No Child Left Behind."

By Marion Brady
"Race to the Top? National standards for math, science, and other school subjects? The high-powered push to put them in place makes it clear that the politicians, business leaders, and wealthy philanthropists who’ve run America’s education show for the last two decades are as clueless about educating as they’ve always been.

If they weren’t, they’d know that adopting national standards will be counterproductive, and that the "Race to the Top" will fail for the same reason "No Child Left Behind" failed—because it’s based on false assumptions.

False Assumption 1:
America’s teachers deserve most of the blame for decades of flat school performance. Other factors affecting learning—language problems, hunger, stress, mass media exposure, transience, cultural differences, a sense of hopelessness, and so on and on—are minor and can be overcome by well-qualified teachers. To teacher protests that they’re scapegoats taking the blame for broader social ills, the proper response is, "No excuses!" While it’s true teachers can’t choose their students, textbooks, working conditions, curricula, tests, or the bureaucracies that circumscribe and limit their autonomy, they should be held fully accountable for poor student test scores.








False Assumption 2:
Professional educators are responsible for bringing education to crisis, so they can’t be trusted. School systems should instead be headed by business CEOs, mayors, ex-military officers, and others accustomed to running a "tight ship." Their managerial expertise more than compensates for how little they know about educating.

False Assumption 3:
"Rigor"—doing longer and harder what we’ve always done—will cure education’s ills. If the young can’t clear arbitrary statistical bars put in place by politicians, it makes good sense to raise those bars. Because learning is neither natural nor a source of joy, externally imposed discipline and "tough love" are necessary.

False Assumption 4:
Teaching is just a matter of distributing information. Indeed, the process is so simple that recent college graduates, fresh from "covering" that information, should be encouraged to join "Teach For America" for a couple of years before moving on to more intellectually demanding professions. Experienced teachers may argue that, as Socrates demonstrated, nothing is more intellectually demanding than figuring out what’s going on in another person’s head, then getting that person herself or himself to examine and change it, but they’re just blowing smoke.

False Assumption 5:
Notwithstanding the failure of vast experiments such as those conducted in eastern Europe under Communism, and the evidence from ordinary experience, history proves that top-down reforms such as No Child Left Behind work well. Centralized control doesn’t stifle creativity, imply teacher incompetence, limit strategy options, discourage innovation, or block the flow of information and insight to policymakers from those actually doing the work.

False Assumption 6:
Standardized tests are free of cultural, social class, language, experiential, and other biases, so test-taker ability to infer, hypothesize, generalize, relate, synthesize, and engage in all other "higher order" thought processes can be precisely measured and meaningful numbers attached. It’s also a fact that test-prep programs don’t unfairly advantage those who can afford them, that strategies to improve the reliability of guessing correct answers can’t be taught, and that test results can’t be manipulated to support political or ideological agendas. For these reasons, test scores are reliable, and should be the primary drivers of education policy.

False Assumption 7:
Notwithstanding the evidence from research and decades of failed efforts, forcing merit pay schemes on teachers will revitalize America’s schools. This is because the desire to compete is the most powerful of all human drives (more powerful even than the satisfactions of doing work one loves). The effectiveness of, say, band directors and biology teachers, or of history teachers and math teachers, can be easily measured and dollar amounts attached to their relative skill. Merit pay also has no adverse effect on collegiality, teacher-team dynamics, morale, or school politics.

False Assumption 8:
Required courses, course distribution requirements, Carnegie Units, and other bureaucratic demands and devices that standardize the curriculum and limit teacher and learner options are products of America’s best thinkers about what the young need to know. Those requirements should, then, override individual learner interests, talents, abilities, and all other factors affecting freedom of choice.

False Assumption 9:
Notwithstanding charter schools’ present high rates of teacher turnover, their growing standardization by profit-seeking corporations, or their failure to demonstrate that they can do things all public schools couldn’t do if freed from bureaucratic constraints, charters attract the most highly qualified and experienced teachers and are hotbeds of innovation.

False Assumption 10:
The familiar, traditional "core curriculum" in near-universal use in America’s classrooms since 1893 is the best-possible tool for preparing the young for an unknown, unpredictable, increasingly complex and dangerous future.


"Human history," said H.G. Wells, "is a race between education and catastrophe."

If amateurs continue to control American education policy, put your money on catastrophe. It’s a sure thing.

















   

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May 02nd, 2014

5/2/2014

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MARYLAND ELECTIONS HAVE BECOME SO CAPTURED AND ELECTION LAWS IGNORED BECAUSE THE 1% ARE DETERMINED THESE POLICIES THAT END DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA WILL GO THROUGH. 

ANTHONY BROWN, DOUG GANSLER, AND HEATHER MIZEUR RECEIVE AIR TIME BECAUSE ALL OF THEM INTEND TO PUSH THESE REFORMS THROUGH.  CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR IS SILENCED BECAUSE SHE WILL STOP THEM.


I have had the pleasure of campaigning across Maryland in this election for Governor of Maryland and many people agree with my platform.  Whether republican or democrat the need to rebuild and strengthen democratic structures is foremost.  One of the cornerstones of democracy is public education and equal opportunity and access and this is under attack as is all public services and programs.  Race to the Top and Common Core are autocratic policies meant to dismantle public education along with Trans Pacific Trade Pact taking away our status of citizen.  Why educate 90% of the people with humanities and liberal arts -----preparing them to be citizens when TPP ends the US Constitutional rights of people as citizens the 1% says?



I'll take the next few days talking about education reform.  Common Core has become so toxic as a policy that states like Maryland trying to push these policies through no matter what are going to rename the policy to avoid citizen's anger.  All meetings and public forums are so guarded and controlled to limit the majority of citizens from having their concerns aired publicly one can see the autocratic nature of these policies simply in their implementation.

Why the concern for Common Core?  An autocratic society must control wealth, communications, information, and build structures for spying and surveillance to allow a small group of people to control hundreds of millions of people.  Common Core has as a goal to standardize what all students in America learn and that standardization happens with the people at the top....global corporations.  We keep hearing that Common Core is simply a method of teaching even as schools bring in one education business after another to implement these policies with suggested lists of what needs to be covered. Online lessons written by these same people are now being installed in schools across America. 

Standardization of STEM classes with Common Core is a misnomer.  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is already standardized because they are subjects based on factual information.  THEY ARE ALREADY STANDARDIZED.  So, what is next?  Our humanities and liberal arts.....history, social studies, civics, literature, music, and arts.
  Remember, America is a plurality and democracy is all about freedom of thought, speech, and action within Rule of Law.  Every region of the country has its own ideas about what frames all of these subjects and it is what makes for a rich cultural experience and allows democracy to work.  China on the other hand standardizes all information given in schools to students and is very autocratic with no democracy.


THIS EDUCATION REFORM IS TAKING US TO A CHINESE-STYLE AUTOCRACY.


Below is a great video explanation of Common Core concerns.  Note that corporations are trying to make this controversy seem conservative republican -----but all citizens are becoming aware and outraged over this usurping of our democratic education system.

Part 1 of 5 Stop the Common Core

NoTo CommonCore·15 videos
  Published on Nov 12, 2012

Copyrighted material. Not authorized to download and reproduce on DVDs. Order DVDs at stopcommoncore.com.




The video below is well known in Maryland but we need to remember what it represents.  I was right next to this gentleman at this meeting, indeed I am in the video trying to keep him from being hauled out of the event.  This public meeting allowed no questions from the audience----rather, it directed questions to be written and then the moderator chose what would be asked----and directed the 'panel' how to answer.  THIS IS WHAT AUTOCRATIC SOCIETIES LOOK LIKE FOLKS.

In Baltimore they go so far as creating Coalitions of education privatization organizations whose voice is the only one media will allow on camera.

See why it is so important to make the race for governor only about those candidates who will move these policies forward?


Now they’re arresting people who complain about the Common Core


September 23, 2013 2:32 AM    Daily Caller


.A YouTube video went viral over the weekend showing a parent who got violently arrested for expressing his frustrations about the implementation of the Common Core at a public forum Thursday night in the suburbs of Baltimore.

Somehow, Ellicott City parent Robert Small was then charged with assaulting a police officer in the second degree, reports The Baltimore Sun.

Small stood up out of order during a question-and-answer forum held by the Maryland State Department of Education. He interrupted Dallas Dance, the Baltimore County School Superintendent. Small explained — calmly, though not particularly fluidly — his belief that the Common Core lowers standards of education for children in the district.

“You are not preparing them for Harvard,” he said.

The irate parent, who has a sixth-grader and a second-grader and in Howard County, Md. schools, asserted that the new curriculum will only prepare students for community college.

This fall, for the first time, 45 states and the District of Columbia have begun implementing Common Core State Standards Initiative, which attempts to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country.

Criticism of the Common Core has risen sharply. Opposition has brought together conservatives who stand athwart a federal takeover of public education and leftists who deplore ever-more standardized testing.

The plan for the question-and-answer forum was for attendees write their questions down on pieces of paper. Then, Dance and the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, Lillian Lowery, would answer them.

After Small spoke for perhaps a few minutes, a security guard confronted him. A police report alleges that Small tried to push the guard away when the guard initially confronted him.

The video does not appear to show Small pushing the guard.

“Let’s go. Let’s go,” the security guard said.

“Let him ask his question,” someone yelled.

To audible gasps, the guard then pulled the 46-year-old father aggressively in the direction of the aisle.

As the guarded escorted Small out of the forum, Small said “Don’t stand for this. You are sitting here like cattle.” Then he asked, “Is this America?”

According to The Sun, Small was then handcuffed and forced to sit on the curb outside until police showed up to take him to a local police station. He was finally released around 3 a.m.

The charge against Small, second-degree assault of a police officer, carries a maximum fine of $2,500 and a prison term of up to 10 years. Another charge, disturbing a school operation, carries a $2,500 fine and six months in prison.

“Look, I am being manhandled and shut down because I asked inconvenient questions,” Small told The Sun on Friday. “Why won’t they allow an open forum where there can be a debate? We are told to sit there and be lectured to about how great Common Core is.”

Small added that he himself attended a community college before transferring to the University of Maryland, College Park to finish his bachelor’s degree.


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The underlining word in these policy roll-outs is 'fear'.  In Baltimore where Johns Hopkins controls public policy and is the face of education privatization, schools have been front-loaded with staff dedicated to these privatizing policies. So teacher's unions and administrators feel out-numbered and fearful of losing their jobs if protesting what they do not like.  It was an act of courage for Baltimore County Teacher's Association to finally say 'this is not working'.   Add school choice to the mix and parents become afraid to complain because it may hurt their child's ability to attend a good school. 

Unlike other cities/states that have strong labor and justice activism Maryland is completely captured and silent.  That looks to be changing as anger grows.

As this article tells......these reforms are lowering the quality of education for 90% of school children and trying to build a system where only the wealthy have the education we have always given all citizens.

Rebecca Mead: Why Louis C.K.’s Complaints about Common Core Matter
By dianeravitch May 1, 2014

Thank goodness at least one prominent journalist in the mainstream media sends her child to public school!

At Rebecca Mead’s public school, two-thirds of the children opted out of the state tests aligned to Common Core.

So Mead understands the frustration of the comedian Louis C.K., whose tweets about the Common Core tests went viral.

Louis C.K. had more than 3 million Twitter followers so when he spoke out, his voice was unheard, unlike the voices of countless other parents.

The advocates of the Common Core insist that the problems that parents object to are not part of the Common Core but caused by faulty implementation.

(That is the same refrain we always hear about great ideas that fail: faulty implementation.)

Mead notes:

Plenty of parents and educators agree with him. After last month’s state tests for English language arts, teachers citywide protested, calling the problems tricky and developmentally inappropriate—as well as questioning the need for three long, consecutive days of testing, no matter the quality of the test materials. Elizabeth Phillips, the principal of P.S. 321, a highly regarded public school in Park Slope, called on members of the State Board of Regents to take the exams themselves: “Afterward, I would like to hear whether they still believed that these tests gave schools and parents valuable information about a child’s reading or writing ability,” she wrote.

This happens to be my most fervent wish: that all legislators and policymakers would take the tests they mandate and publish their scores.

Mead writes:

It seems likely that if more parents with the wealth and public profile of Louis C.K. showed their support for public education not by funding charter-school initiatives, as many of the city’s plutocrats have chosen to do, but by actually enrolling their children in public schools, there would long ago have been a louder outcry against the mind-numbing math sheets and assignments that sap the joy from learning. The majority of children in the school system sit in classrooms with far fewer resources than those enjoyed by C.K.’s children, or by mine. The concentration on testing is only another way in which students are short-changed. Educators have been arguing since last spring that the tests are flawed, and that the achievement gap in New York is widening rather than lessening: in 2013, there was a nineteen-per-cent gap between the scores of white and black third graders in the E.L.A. exams, and a fourteen-per-cent gap in math. “Students who already believe they are not as academically successful as their more affluent peers, will further internalize defeat,” Carol Burris, a principal from Rockville Centre, wrote in the Washington Post last summer, calling on policymakers to “re-examine their belief that college readiness is achieved by attaining a score on a test, and its corollary—that is possible to create college readiness score thresholds for eight year olds.” This week, teachers at International High School at Prospect Heights, which serves a population of recently arrived immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, announced that they would not administer an assessment required by the city. A pre-test in the fall “was a traumatic and demoralizing experience for students,” a statement issued by the teachers said. “Many students, after asking for help that teachers were not allowed to give, simply put their heads down for the duration. Some students even cried.” When a comedian points out the way in which the current priorities don’t add up, it earns even the attention of those who haven’t thought much about school since they graduated. But the brutal math of the New York City school system is no laughing matter.


____________________________________________


'  “Deliverology” is a means to systematically demoralize and humiliate people in lieu of not being able to convince them to pursue a course of action. It is based on the fundamentally flawed idea that an organization or institution can be improved by “incentivizing” people to meet “targets” or what Achieve, Inc., insists educators obsess over: “benchmarks”.[5] It is an autocratic, command-and-control management system that redefines public institutions (such as public schools) as factories, and displays an almost single-minded fixation on cost reduction.[6]. Deliverology is a means for transforming the goal of public institutions from meeting public needs to meeting arbitrary “production” “benchmarks” established by the autocrat under the hoax of saving taxpayer’s money'.


If you look to the article below this one you will get a more light-hearted version of this technical explanation. This article looks at the drivers of these reforms-----cheapening education for most and making it about vocational training K-career college....

ENDING DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION


Big Data, the Common Core, and the Global Governance of Education,

Part 1: Who is Sir Michael Barber? posted in K12, Theory on October 19, 2013 by Mark Garrison SHARE

The Common Core Standards Initiative Flow Chart In this series, I explore the connection between the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI), Big Data and the role these two pillars of current education policy play in governing education beyond the confines of sovereign nation states and their publics. I begin the series by exploring the role of Sir Michael Barber in imposing the Common Core assessment regime and how this relates to the global governance of education.[1]

I have three aims for the series:

  1. To focus attention on the agenda driving CCSI and “Career and College Ready” policies;
  2. To elaborate the CCSI agenda as an effort to restructure both the purpose and governance of education across once well-established political geographies, both inside the United States and across the globe. 
  3. To elaborate the thesis that the Core standards were developed in particular to institutionalize national, “life-long,” high-stakes testing, data tracking regimes. These regimes are a means for directing the development and surveillance of labor and the extraction of discrete skills from  human populations. These regimes institutionalize anti-public forms for governing the human populations from which this skill is to be extracted, whose publics have been rendered infamous by those now usurping power.


Introduction

As resistance to high stakes testing grows following the predicted CCSI imposed mass failure, there is a need to analyze the purposes Core aligned tests serve. If I were asked to quickly convey what the CCSI and “college and career ready” agenda is really about, I’d say: Big Data for regulating labor and populations for the narrow benefit of the super rich. If pressed to say even less, I’d say it is about imposing a high-tech form of slavery.

I am well aware that many will bulk at this analysis as extreme and paranoid. But what is really interesting is how even the mildest critiques of the CCSI are met with demonstrations of religious-like, unshakable support for and confidence in the initiative. For a reform credited with promoting critical thinking to evidence so little of that trait in its own promotion and defense is quite striking. Ironically, this patten has caused me to analyze more carefully the significance of not only the CCSI itself, but the manner in which it is being implemented and defended in the wake of criticism.

There is in the present moment a strange genuflection to the Core, even and possibly especially among some who criticize high stakes tests. Who has not heard during a faculty meeting or public presentation the view that there are “some good things in the Common Core standards.” It seems almost mandatory that someone express such a sentiment during meetings of educators and parents. And in these circumstances even critics of the CCSI find themselves offering the conditioned nod in agreement with that sentiment, as if to do otherwise would violate some deep, unspoken norm and admit to being “unreasonable.”

It seems to be lost on many that this is not a proper way to evaluate something. One does not evaluate something by examining its parts in isolation from one other, highlighting only the elements they like. Nor does one offer serious counter critique by indicating they like what they read on page 54; as if the Core’s ostensible support for an emphasis on mathematical understanding and not just the ability to calculate were enough to render judgment about the entire initiative and dismiss the serious concerns with what those who control the CCSI are up to.

One should instead work to understand the parts and their interrelationships, and the relationship of this whole with its social context. This method enables one to render an overall evaluation. It keeps one from getting lost in the forest by directing one to not fixate only on his or her favorite tree.

To make the point more explicitly, the irrationality of “there are some good things” method of argument can be seen in the following example:

  • It is good that trains run on time. Or, it is good that students explain how and why they arrived at a conclusion.
  • Under Mussolini, the trains ran on time.[2] Under the Gates-Duncan regime, students are asked to explain their answers.[3]
  • Fascism should be supported. The dictate of the super rich and the feds over democratically elected forms of governance should be accepted.
I am not saying that everyone who defends the Core or even high stakes testing is a fascist. I am saying that there is a serious problem with the degree to which the above “logic” prevails and serves to block serious discussion of the political significance of the Core regime and the agenda it serves.

The method of the above “logic” is to cull out and separate one feature of a whole so as to hide and/or justify the essence of that whole. This is disinformation.

All this means that it is vital that we continue to examine not only the tools of the current reforms — standards, tests and data — but that we must also work to discern the aim for which these tools were developed.

One last introductory note is required: to dismiss opposition to the Core as a nutty right-wing hissy fit is a sad attempt by “special interests” to derail a growing grassroots movement of parents and educators who are acting on the basis of their own investigation and conviction that they have a right to have a say over the content and form of schooling their children are mandated to attend. These forces have already identified a key problem with the Core and the “college and career ready” agenda: it is undemocratic and those leading it are acting with impunity. This truth is now self-evident to many, especially given the recent experience New Yorkers have had with their state education officials.

Who is Sir Michael Barber? What has a Knighted British citizen to do with directing national-level education efforts in the United States, let alone the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI)?[4] While the roles Bill Gates and Achieve, Inc. have played in designing and imposing the CCSI are relatively well documented, the role of Barber, a Pearson executive, is not. And while Person is the Dark Star to many educators and parents, little has been written about the role it and McKinsey & Company play in the global governance of education. Study of Barber helps us understand the links between all these entities and sheds more light on the real purpose of the CCSI and the “college and career ready” agenda of which it is a part.

Originally a history teacher, Barber became active in the National Union of Teachers in England. He went on to serve as Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards during Tony Blair’s first term as British Prime Minister. Tony Blair and his counterpart Bill Clinton lead what has been dubbed the “Third Way” movement. While presented as “left of center,” experience suggests otherwise, with “privatization with a strong state” (or “market fascism”) being its key strategic aim. Barber went on to serve as the Chief Adviser on Delivery, reporting directly to Blair. “As head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU), he was responsible for working with government agencies to ensure successful implementation of the Prime Minister’s priority programs,” including those in health, education, and policing. Destruction of the public sector as “we knew it” was the main objective.

Barber became a Partner at McKinsey & Company, working there from 2005 until 2011 (David Coleman also worked at McKinsey during this time). He served as head of McKinsey’s global education practice. “He co-authored two major McKinsey education reports: How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better (2010) and How the world’s best-performing schools come out on top (2007).” Barbers reports are worth reading, actually, as they provide a broader understanding of what “reformers” are up to.

Barber is now Pearson’s chief education strategist. One area of focus is privatization, what is dubbed “affordable learning.” Pearson renders it this way: “Finding business models for affordable schools and other educational solutions in developing areas of the world, to help meet United Nations goals of universal primary education and to raise achievement.”

The main method to achieve these goals is called “deliverology”.

What is Deliverology? Deliverology. Haven’t heard of it? Well, even if you haven’t, you have experienced this marvel of modern science, especially if you work in education or healthcare. And as you’ve probably guessed, its “invention” is credited to Sir Michael Barber.

“Deliverology” is a means to systematically demoralize and humiliate people in lieu of not being able to convince them to pursue a course of action.
It is based on the fundamentally flawed idea that an organization or institution can be improved by “incentivizing” people to meet “targets” or what Achieve, Inc., insists educators obsess over: “benchmarks”.[5] It is an autocratic, command-and-control management system that redefines public institutions (such as public schools) as factories, and displays an almost single-minded fixation on cost reduction.[6]. Deliverology is a means for transforming the goal of public institutions from meeting public needs to meeting arbitrary “production” “benchmarks” established by the autocrat under the hoax of saving taxpayer’s money.

Since the “Texas Miracle” was exposed as a myth, we have seen so-called target culture decrease the quality of education in the U.S. As another example, see this video of John Seddon’s address to the California Faculty Association. The California State University system has employed “deliverology” since 2010. The link in that context to the dramatic increases in tuition and cuts in service to the adoption of deliverology is unmistakable.

As it is premised on the factory model, deliverology redefines people as products to be consumed. The head of the Business Roundtable (BRT) said as much during a New York Times interview of leading architects of anti-public education. BRT President John Engler said: “All the products of K-12 system are either going to go to the university or they are going to the work force. The military is not here, but they’re not very different.”

Deliverology as a method is especially suited for organizing what Barber calls “irreversible transformation”. “Target culture” is really the imposition of behavior management regimes. In the U.S. we call these behavior management regimes “accountability.”

Barber and Vicky Phillips (of the Gates Foundation) explain their theory of change that guides deliverology in the following way:

There is a popular misconception about the process of change. It is often assumed that the key to successful change is “to win hearts and minds.” If this is the starting point then the first steps in the process of change are likely to be consultation and public relations campaigns…The popular conception is wrong. Winning hearts and minds is not the best first step in any process of urgent change. Beliefs do not necessarily change behavior. More usually it is the other way around — behaviors shape beliefs. Only when people have experienced a change do they revise their beliefs accordingly…Sometimes it is necessary to mandate the change, implement it well, consciously challenge the prevailing culture and then have the courage to sustain it until beliefs shift…The driving force at this critical juncture is leadership.[7].

Thus, deliverology appears to be a means for imposing behavior modification techniques that are ultimately aimed at yielding a change in beliefs; irreversible change here seems to be at least in part about people learning to accept product status, that is, as having no rights. Indeed, broad cultural and political shifts are required if that is how social life is to be organized.

In case the point might get lost, it is this: if people do not grasp the larger agenda, they will find themselves agitating for tests that more reliably render the “value of educational products”  – and my guess is reformers will be happy to comply with such demands. This in turn may be mistakenly rendered by some as a victory.

But there is no way to “accurately measure” the “value” of humans-as-products because humans are not products! Humans reject being rendered as things. This is the philosophical basis of the popular slogan that children are more than test scores. It is for this reason, again, that the agenda behind the tests must be carefully discerned. Popularizing the technical shortcomings of the tests absent an analysis of the political context in which they operate will not yield to positive change.

Deliverology is Guiding Common Core Implementation What few realize is that Barber is driving the implementation of the Common Core, and especially the assessment component, through the U.S. Delivery Institute. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Delivery Institute applies “deliverology” to implement the Core. A review of the “Common Core Implementation Workbook” suggests Barber (Pearson) is directing the way in which New York and other states are handling not only implementation, but “pushback.”[8]

This simple fact challenges the idea that the only problem with the CCSI is how it is being implemented. Barber’s (and thus Pearson’s) role, along with McKinsey and Coleman, show that implementation has been carefully crafted and is consistent with the goals of the CCSI and “career and college ready” agenda.



_____________________________________________   

There is nothing wrong with adding rigor and accountability to our education system.....everyone agrees the education reforms of the 1980-1990s deliberately removed all rigor and accountability giving us children not knowing math or how to read.  Remember, it was the same group of people giving us these reforms in Reagan/Clinton era that took textbooks out of the classroom because they 'stifled' creativity and allowed calculators be used by children just learning math because they said all people will need to do now is push a button for a solution-----these are the policies that created our achievement problems today.  IT WAS A DELIBERATE MOVE TO DISMANTLE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL EDUCATION SYSTEM AND ACHIEVEMENT IN THE WORLD.  We simply need to go back to the models we had before Reagan/Clinton.

Having people's angst hit mainstream comedy means citizens are now seeing they are not alone as mainstream media has blocked all dissent of these education policies and only speak of the continued roll-out.

Americans need to note which media outlets are falling into line with this media blockade of dissent.  Public media leads the way because it was captured by corporate interests.  Your taxpayer money is now being used to support 'public' programming that does nothing but support Bill Gates and the Walton Foundation behind all this privatization.

MAKE SURE YOUR PUBLIC MEDIA IS WORKING FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST!
  WE MUST HAVE AN AVENUE FOR OUR VOICE!


If you’ve lost Louis C.K. and Chuck Norris, have you lost America?

Both the acerbic comedian and the action star-turned-activist have come down hard on the Common Core academic standards, which were once widely hailed as a bipartisan success story but are now drawing fire from liberals and conservatives alike.

The debate over the standards has roiled political campaigns and dominated education policy debates for more than a year. Now it’s rocketing into pop culture — and opponents hope that will prove a tipping point.

The latest flash point came this week when Louis C.K. tweeted to his 3.3 million followers: “My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!” He followed that with several pictures of third-grade math problems he deemed incomprehensible or just plain dumb. Within a day, his original protest had been re-tweeted more than 7,000 times. He kept going Thursday evening, tweeting: “Kids teachers parents are vocally suffering. Doesnt that matter? listen to them. Adapt and slow down CCSS. Cool it with the testing.”


The tweets point to a serious liability for the Common Core. Proponents desperately want to focus attention on the goal of raising academic standards and preparing American students to compete in a global economy. But parents want to talk about their children sobbing over nonsensical homework and vomiting from test-day jitters — and those are the stories that resonate, especially on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert picked up on all that social media angst and amplified it with a segment a few weeks ago that ridiculed befuddling math questions. Judy Blume, Maya Angelou and Matt Damon have also weighed in with critiques on standardized testing.

The populist attack on Common Core isn’t always fair: Some of the most widely mocked examples of so-called Common Core math were featured in textbooks and used in classrooms long before the standards were introduced. The blame for some of the confusing assignments rests on individual teachers, not the standards, which lay out what children should learn in each grade but don’t presume to dictate lesson plans or homework. And high-stakes testing was introduced long before the Common Core — and is stressful for some kids regardless of what the exams cover.



Opposition activist Jim Stergios says he would prefer to focus on more sober-minded critiques of the “mediocre quality, dubious legality and outsized costs” of the Common Core. But he can’t say he’s displeased that complaints about the standards have become a pop culture meme.

“You know that discomfort and even outright opposition has reached a critical mass when the core becomes a frequent punch line in the repertoire of late-night comedians,” said Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank.

And supporters acknowledge, with considerable frustration, that the campaign is taking a toll.

“What harms the cause for improving education in this country is the attempt by the opposition and the media, who should know better, to perpetuate these misunderstandings, until eventually people think they are truths, ”said Cheryl Oldham, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.


Take, for instance, the Common Core exams.

They were introduced with great fanfare as the next generation of standardized tests. They require students to write more, to analyze complex texts and, in some cases, to perform hands-on experiments in the classroom. Backers hoped parents would embrace them as far more challenging and meaningful than the traditional fill-in-the-bubble multiple choice.

But because of all those new components, the exams are longer than many states’ former assessments. They’re taken on computers, which this spring have proved vulnerable to crashes, server outages and even cyberterrorism.

Common Core exams are graded on a far tougher curve, leading to huge failure rates in states that adopted them last year. And to top it all off, the recent tests given to students in New York featured questions studded with brand names like Nike and iPod, raising concerns about commercialization.



Any parents who saw benefits in the new exams were swiftly drowned out by the chorus of protests on social media.

By the tens of thousands, parents have refused to let their children take the tests. They have taken to social media to explain why. And their fury has seeped into pop culture.

Colbert aired a series of clips of parents explaining how the tests had rattled and stressed their children. His wry conclusion: “Common Core testing is preparing students for what they’ll face as adults — pointless stress and confusion.”





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If you really think these education reforms are about quality and achievement......look at the steady decline in Federal and state funding and the handover of school funding to corporate donation.  As we see below in Baltimore they are now pulling away once this private structure is in place!


THESE SCHOOLS WILL BE DEFUNDED ONCE PRIVATIZATION GETS HOLD AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS DISAPPEAR. 


School funding falls short for city gifted programs International Baccalaureate and Ingenuity Project could face substantial reductions


By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 7:22 a.m. EDT, April 30, 2014

Darius Johnson says he's just an ordinary student, presented with an educational opportunity in his freshman year of high school that led him to extraordinary choices: Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Duke, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Washington universities, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College.

The senior at Polytechnic Institute is among the gifted students who have worked their way through the Ingenuity Project, one of two programs that have given Baltimore students a competitive edge in college admissions but now face funding cuts in the city's tightest schools budget in decades.

After years of declining funding, and now a new round of cuts the school board is proposing for next year's budget, schools that host Ingenuity and the International Baccalaureate are looking for alternative sources of money or holding out hope that district leaders will see the value of offerings proven to bring out the best in the brightest students.

Johnson, a first-generation college student raised by a single mother, plans to head to Harvard next year on a Gates-Millennium scholarship, which is to cover his education through a doctorate.

Johnson applied to Ingenuity as a freshman — not because he was "naturally gifted," he said, but because he needed focus. By sophomore year, he was researching a new therapy for HIV patients at Johns Hopkins.

"The work is hard," he said. "But as much as we give in hard work, they give back in opportunity. I hope kids who come after me get the same opportunities."

Ingenuity, a program that engages students at Poly and Roland Park Elementary/Middle and other high-performing schools in a rigorous science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum and research, is one of the budget items that school officials are asking the school board to fund with emergency reserves. The board has rejected that request.

Board members are scheduled to vote on a budget next month.

The Ingenuity program, which serves 534 students in four schools, is also facing a major fundraising hurdle, due in part to dwindling funding from the school system in the last five years.

Next year, it would have to raise more than $600,000, and would require Roland Park to pay a per-pupil fee next year for the first time.

Other schools have paid the $100-per-pupil fee. Roland Park has made financial contributions in other ways: paying for full-time Ingenuity staff, helping maintain the program's computer lab, and funding trips.

Principal Nicholas D'Ambrosio said the school would need to raise money to help cover the roughly $18,000 check the school would have to cut to pay the per-pupil charge next year.

The International Baccalaureate program, available at City College, Mount Washington and Thomas Jefferson Elementary/Middle, offers an internationally recognized curriculum known for its rigor and global focus. It's slated for budget cuts next year in two of the schools.

Mount Washington's IB program is set to receive $100,000 next year, down $31,000 from last year. And the budget at City College, which runs two programs, will decrease by $34,000 to $200,000.

Thomas Jefferson is set for a funding increase, because years of underfunding put the school at risk for losing its IB designation.

The school system says that its scaled-back support for Ingenuity and IB is part of a long-term plan.

"In order to ensure there is a diverse portfolio of school options for students to choose from, City Schools is committed to supporting schools in initiating programs, such as IB and Ingenuity," the district said in a statement.

"However, the intent is that over a period of time these programs will become self-sustainable" through individual school budgets and community partnerships.

The Ingenuity program was started in 1993 by the Abell Foundation, which has continued to financially back the program every year since. Ingenuity officials said the goal was for the program to eventually be fully funded by the school system.

But data show that in the last five years, contributions from the school system have dropped, from $420,000 in 2010 to a proposed $368,000 next year. Next year, the Abell Foundation plans to cut its funding to Ingenuity by $100,000 in order to spread money to other philanthropic causes.

"It's been a tremendously successful program, and we think it's something that the school system should really be doing," said Robert C. Embry Jr., president of the Abell Foundation

Dolores Costello, executive director of Ingenuity, said the program posts good results — 95 percent of graduates go on to four-year colleges, and 90 percent graduate in four years — but it still falls short in areas she said are pertinent to its growth.

Costello said the program could be strengthened by offering professional development for teachers and giving students more opportunity to conduct research in high school. It also needs to expand its services to underrepresented students, such as Hispanic students, who make up just 2 percent of its enrollment.

"We're always working to improve, but funding is limiting all of this," she said.

More importantly, Costello said, the city should invest in its advanced students, as it does in its struggling students.

"This program was designed for students like Darius," she said. "There's an idea that they'll all get along anyway, but the question is, would they be doing as well?"

At City, Principal Cindy Harcum said, students who show that they challenge themselves in the International Baccalaureate program certainly have an edge over their peers. When the 46-year-old program, which operates in 147 countries, shows up on a transcript, she said, it gets a second look.

In recent years, Harcum said, district officials have asked the school to ensure that it is living up to its mission of preparing students for college, and the IB program is a major avenue to do so.

"The return on investment is amazing," Harcum said. "This is a ticket that helps kids get into the selective admission schools, and the money to go to them. Especially for those kids who are first-generation college students, who only hear about going to college around the corner, suddenly, the world has opened up to them completely."

Next year, about 60 percent of the senior class at City is slated to take two or more IB courses.

Unlike Advanced Placement, in which students earn credit by taking an exam, IB credits require labs, investigations, oral arguments, and written papers. Harcum said City's IB program has posted results comparable to those of private schools.

Fifty-six percent of City's IB diploma candidates last year earned a diploma from the program — which requires a slate of advanced courses and exams — compared with 58 percent at St. Paul's School for Boys.

City offers the program to all of its students. Harcum said the school needs an additional $54,000 to cover registration fees, exam fees and training for IB teachers to sustain and grow the program.

"What I would hate to do is sell this to everybody, and then not have enough dollars to back it up," she said.

The financial struggles afflicting programs for gifted students also come amid an increased demand by parents for the district to add the programs to their schools and to enhance those already in place.

Kimberly Moffitt, head of the parent-teacher organization at Thomas Jefferson Elementary/Middle, confronted the school board over the school receiving less funding in recent years than other IB schools — even though it runs the only elementary/middle school program in the state.

"We embraced IB as a community and committed to letting our babies know that there's a lot more that happens in this world outside of what happens in Baltimore City," she said.

Moffitt said the school risked being found noncompliant because it didn't have enough money for required staff, such as an art teacher. After paying required expenses to maintain its designation, the school would have $5,000 to $10,000 to run programs for its 515 students.

"IB is extensive to learn and expensive to maintain, and the district seemed to be running on a shoestring budget to make this happen," she said. "We do it OK, but we could do well."

The school is expected to receive $87,500 in additional funding this year, for a total budget of $200,000, which school officials said aims to ensure an "equitable distribution of funds."

That's welcome news for Jamar Taylor, an eighth-grader at Thomas Jefferson, who chose to attend the school when he moved back from China, where wealthy students attended IB schools.

Taylor said the global perspective at Thomas Jefferson made it easier to transition back to an American school.

"Everyone was a lot more open-minded about my experience," he said. "At another school, they may have made fun of me for living in China, but here they were interested in hearing about the pros and the cons."

He plans to attend Baltimore School for the Arts in the fall. What attracted him to the premier high school was that it was a place he could stand out for thinking differently.

Cutting-edge programs such as IB are what more parents across Baltimore are seeking to keep them invested in the city school system, said Brendan O'Brien, the parent of a first-grader and a third-grader at Federal Hill Preparatory School.

The school's parent-teacher organization campaigned to begin the IB application process this year. O'Brien said the district did not issue a letter of support for the school, which delayed its application. School officials said they never received a proposal.

"It's a wonderful program," he said. "It gets kids thinking outside their own neighborhood. And to have a name-brand program in our neighborhood, it does a lot for all aspects of our life. We want to be able to stand out."












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April 21st, 2014

4/21/2014

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RAISE YOUR HANDS IF YOU UNDERSTAND THAT STARVING PEOPLE OF THE ABILITY TO EARN A LIVING IS A TOOL OF AUTOCRACY.  IF THE ONLY JOB PEOPLE CAN HAVE IS PRIVATIZING PUBLIC SCHOOLS----WHETHER AS CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS OR TEACH FOR AMERICA COLLEGE GRADS-----THE PEOPLE MOST VICTIMIZED BECOME THE PEOPLE PUSHING THE AUTOCRATIC POLICIES.  THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES AND IT IS WHY TEACHERS ARE FEELING UNABLE TO SHOUT OUT IN MANY PLACES LIKE MARYLAND!


STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES-----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!

As I showed with my blog on higher education in Maryland the structures created for privatizing our public universities have lowered the standards of education for most.  The same is happening in Maryland with the K-12 schools and much of this has to do with Race to the Top policies.  Baltimore's achievement has dropped to such a low status as it seeks to dismantle public education and all that is equal access and opportunity that long-term teachers in schools are starting to shout out about this attack on democratic education in America.

As I said, Maryland has no public media or public universities producing data to support this but we can look across the nation where real data is collected to see how things are working.  The article below shows how Wall Street and Bloomberg is working hard to skew all data for charters and successes that are not real.  Remember, the plan is simply to get these private charters to look like they are doing good so as to expand them.....and then they will be defunded and left to become the same as for-profit higher education.

We need to take a look at what institutions and politicians are supporting these privatization structures and give them the boot!  Stop allowing policy to be captured by Wall Street pols and private non-profits supporting them!


Baltimore residents will see the parallel to NYC and privatization-----the public education money being sent to these schools is completely wasted as money moves to administration and what will be profit.  No quality to be found.  If you are supporting charters because you want to use them for gentrification and/or segregation-----IT WILL COME BACK TO BITE YOU AS WALL STREET EXPECTS TO TAKE ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS----


Charter Schools: A UFT Research Report

Feb. 4, 2014
5:00 pm
by UFT Research Staff


As charter school proponents go to Albany this week to plead their case, let’s examine the realities behind their claims of stretched resources, unique student demand and stellar academic results.

How poor are charter schools?

While charters maintain they have very thin budgets, and some smaller charters in fact operate close to the margin, others are extremely well-funded.

A review of the most recently available public documents showed that as of 2011-12, the schools in six of the city’s most prominent charter chains had a total of more than $65 million in net assets, including nearly $16 million for the charters which are part of the Uncommon Schools Network and more than $13 million for the Success Academy Network.

What’s more, this supposed poverty doesn’t prevent some charters from paying very large salaries to their executives, as the Daily News recently reported.  The two Harlem Village Academies run by Deborah Kenny pay her a total of half a million dollars a year;  Eva Moskowitz of Success Academies reported a salary only a few thousand less, while David Levin of KIPP got just under $400,000.  All these salaries are dramatically more than those of the city’s mayor and chancellor, who supervise roughly 1,700 schools.

Charters’ opaque bookkeeping methods make it difficult to figure out how much many schools spend on their vendors, but tax filings by the Success Academy schools suggest that management fees charged by that network totaled $3.5 million of their schools’ per-pupil funds in 2011-12. In 2013, the Success Network requested and received a raise in management fees to 15 percent of the per-pupil funding it receives from the state and city.

The total amount of management fees charged by just four of the city’s charter chains in 2011-12 — Success, Uncommon, Achievement First, and KIPP — was over $12 million.  (see table below)

Charter Chain Financial Data, 2011-12

 


Network Name Number of NYC Schools with Audits Total Net Assets of Schools Total Management Fees Top Executive Compensation 2010-11

Achievement First 2

$3,585,931

$2,363,205

$224,200

Success Charter Network 4


$13,563,661

$3,516,362

$475,244

Uncommon Schools 7


$16,820,767

$5,054,626

$252,941

KIPP 1

$1,911,010

$1,089,475

$395,350

Village Academies Network 2

$3,236,767

Not Listed on Audit $499,146

Icahn Charters 4


$26,110,338

$2,236

$280,323

Total 20

$65,228,474

$12,023,668

$2,127,204

All of these figures are based on the schools’ own filings; the lack of publicly available audits for many other chains limits information about what other networks are charging.  Meanwhile, charter proponents led by Success Academy have launched a court fight to prevent an independent expert — the State Comptroller — from auditing charters’ and charter management companies’ books.

A study based on 2010-11 by the city’s Independent Budget Office calculated that as of 2009-10, co-locating a charter school in a public school building in effect gave the charter about $650 per student more in public funding than district schools spend. Their calculations were based on earlier, lower levels of charter per-pupil funding, however; at current rates, that disparity may now be over $2,000 per student.

Charters also get foundation grants — including from right-wing organizations like the Walton Family Foundation, which has given more than $1 million to Achievement First in recent years. In addition, a look at official filings by many charters — in particular the Success Academy network — show that the schools or chains have boards dominated by hedge funders and other financial interests whose contributions could theoretically absorb any reasonable rent charged for public school space; at a gala in 2013, for example, the Success Network raised more than $7 million in one evening.

How unique are charter waiting lists?

Charters make much of the length of their student waiting lists.  But the reality of New York City schools is that tens of thousands of students at all levels end up on waiting lists or completely frozen out of the schools they would like to attend.

More than half of the city’s nearly 64,000 eighth graders did not get into their first choice for high school last year and 7,200 — more than 10 percent of the total — did not get into a single school they applied to.  Approximately 20,000 students who take the test each year for the specialized high schools do not get into one of these schools.

The same is true for thousands of elementary school students who apply for slots in competitive middle schools, and for thousands more families who cannot find space in gifted programs or whose kids end up waitlisted for kindergarten in their neighborhood schools.

Students can and do get off waiting lists in district schools, which generally backfill empty spaces in higher grades if and when students transfer out; most charters, in contrast, almost never accept transfer students off their “waitlists” beyond their early grades.

Does admission to a charter guarantee academic success?

Student scores plummeted across the city last year when the state introduced new tests based on the Common Core standards. But in reading, charters schools as a whole scored under the citywide average (26.4 citywide average, charters 25.1).

Even highly touted charters had classes with significant problems.  Democracy Prep’s Harlem charter had fewer than 4 percent of 6th-graders proficient in reading and fewer than 12 percent passing math.  Fewer than 12 percent of 5th-graders at KIPP Star College Prep were proficient in math and just 16 percent passed the reading test, while 11 percent of their 7th-graders scored proficient in language arts and 14 percent in math.

These results come despite the fact that, as a group, charter schools serve a smaller proportion of the city’s neediest students, including special ed and English language learners.  A 2012 report by the charters’ own association —  the New York City Charter School Center — showed that on average, charter schools had only 6 percent English language learners, compared with 15 percent in district schools.

A recent IBO study showed that an astonishing 80 percent of special education students who start in charter schools in kindergarten are gone by the third grade.

Student attrition is a particular issue for the Success network, whose schools tend to have far higher student suspension rates than their neighborhood schools; they also see their class cohorts shrink as many poor-performing students leave or are counseled out and not replaced.

How can we level the playing field?

If charter schools are serious about playing an important role in New York City education, they should take four immediate steps to level the playing field between them and district schools, as outlined by UFT President Michael Mulgrew below in an article reprinted from the New York Daily News:

For the past 12 years, the Bloomberg administration has singled out charter schools for special treatment, a strategy that embittered many ordinary New York City public school parents and children. Here are four steps charter schools should take now to end that divisive relationship:

Serve the neediest kids

State law requires that charters serve the same percentage of poor and special-needs children, along with English-language learners, as their local district schools do. Unfortunately, many charter schools ignore this requirement. Meanwhile, parents complain that special-needs children and students who struggle academically have been “counseled out” of charters, most of them ending up in local district schools while the charters hold onto students with better scores. A recent report by the city’s Independent Budget Office found that a shocking 80% of special-needs kids who enroll in city charter schools as kindergartners leave their schools by the third grade.

Be good neighbors

The Bloomberg administration often shoehorned charters into public schools. Because some charters didn’t want their children interacting with public school kids, gymnasiums and cafeterias would be limited to charter students at certain hours. Worst of all, students in dilapidated classrooms with outmoded equipment and few supplies watched with envy as the incoming charters spent small fortunes on renovations, paint jobs, new desks and equipment, books and supplies. If they want to be good neighbors, charters should share the wealth — and make sure all students sharing one school building have the same opportunities and environment.

Open their books

If charter operators truly want a new start, they need to abandon the lawsuit they have filed against the state controller seeking to block his ability to audit their books. Parents and taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going.

Stop treating children as profit centers

Charters receive taxpayer dollars. In addition, many get donations from major hedge funders, have millions of dollars in bank accounts and pay their chief executives — who typically oversee a small group of schools — as much as half a million dollars a year, along with lavish benefits. Charters with such resources need to pay rent, as Mayor de Blasio has suggested. And charters should set realistic salary caps for their executives and appropriate limits on payments to consultants.



_________________________________________

You will notice the article coming from UFT in NYC addresses what is the democratic state of New York.  Governor Cuomo and neo-liberals in the New York state legislature are pushing the dismantling of public education as hard as the republicans and pulling the same tax policy bait and switch as we say with Reagan.....soak the middle/working class with taxation and then claim the tax reform that gives the rich the breaks is about helping middle-class families!

REAGAN/CLINTON GAVE CORPORATIONS/RICH THE BIGGEST TAX BREAK IN HISTORY WHILE DOUBLING-DOWN ON TAXATION ON THE MIDDLE-WORKING CLASS.  NEO-LIBERALS ARE NOW DOING IT AGAIN.

Maryland is ground zero for these voucher/private schools getting public funding policies.  I am telling these religious schools that seek support with public money------LOSING OUR DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION SYSTEM WILL NOT BODE WELL FOR YOUR MEMBERSHIP!  In an America currently controlled by global corporations-----totalitarianism does not end well for anyone!

We also see the private donation taking over paying taxes and the loss of tax revenue from writing-off these 'donations'.  The US had the strongest public education system in the world when corporations and the rich were good citizens paying their fair share of taxes.  WE WANT THEM PAYING TAXES AND NOT 'DONATING' TO OUR SCHOOLS!

I am listening as here in Baltimore one school gets air conditioning because of private donations while the others are allowed to operate in the worst of conditions.  It is public funding of schools that allow for equal opportunity and access.

Hurt schools, help rich people


Mar. 27, 2014
2:56 pm
by UFT Editorial Staff


[This editorial originally appeared in the March 27 issue of the New York Teacher.]

A new proposal making its way through the state Legislature is a thinly veiled voucher program that would use taxpayer money to fund religious and other private schools in New York City and across the state.

The proposal, already approved by the state Senate and included in its budget bill, threatens the future funding of public education and must be kept out of the final state budget.


It is misleadingly called the education investment tax credit. It would be more accurate to call it the plan to divest public education and further enrich wealthy donors to private schools.

The program would grant individuals tax credits of up to $1 million for donations to scholarship funds for religious or other private schools.

In other words, money that would go into state coffers to fund public education, affordable housing or infrastructure improvements would instead go into the bank accounts of wealthy people who donate to private scholarship funds.

And the scholarships themselves would benefit children of well-off families, with a generous household income limit of $550,000.


The tax credits would also be available for donors to public schools. But don’t let that fool you. Public schools were added to make the tax credit more widely palatable. This bill would allow wealthy donors to pick which public schools they want to support and which not.

In a cynical attempt by the bill’s writers to win over public school educators and their supporters, teachers would also get a tax credit of at least $100 for buying supplies.

Although the state Senate has passed the bill, which was sponsored by state Sen. Marty Golden, the Assembly leadership, to its credit, is showing less enthusiasm.

But the tax credit proposal has momentum. It is particularly alarming that 17 labor unions, most of them representing uniformed public employees, back the bill on the grounds that it would benefit their members, presumably because many of them send their children to parochial schools.

Have middle-class and working New Yorkers who choose to send their children to private school forgotten the importance of a well-funded public education system?


This proposed massive tax giveaway would hurt working people by increasing the already staggering wealth inequality in New York. By draining money that we need for our public schools, state universities, highways and other vital services, it would threaten the economic future of our state.


_______________________________________________

Chicago is the home of Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan------Obama's education-privatization team working for Wall Street.  What Rahm is doing in Chicago is happening in Maryland and especially Baltimore.  The difference is that Chicago, as with New York, has strong labor and justice advocate system.  Maryland and Baltimore has none.  Where Baltimore has organizations supposedly tasked with protecting civil rights and civil liberties working with these privatizers----- across the country parent and teacher groups are successfully fighting off this attack on public education.

Wall Street calculated that hitting underserved communities with this privatization scheme would allow them to create the structure for privatizing all public schools.  As we see in Baltimore it is the opportunity to own a business that drives people of color to play with Wall Street.  These small business charter school owners need to take a look at what happens when Wall Street simply steps in to take those businesses----as is happening today with Baltimore Minority Contractors.

STOP SUPPORTING THE DISMANTLING OF THE BEST PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE WORLD!





Chicago Teachers Union Advocates for Comprehensive Charter Reform in Illinois


For Immediate Release: April 07, 2014
Contact: Stephanie Gadlin - stephaniegadlin@ctulocal1.com/312-329-6250 CHICAGO –


The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has been a vocal critic of Illinois charter operations which compete with neighborhood schools for critical resources and often cherry-picks students based on test scores.  The law that sanctions the privately held, publicly funded charters is deeply flawed and in the wake of the UNO scandal the union and taxpayers have continued to lobby lawmakers to do something about it.

Thus, CTU, along with a number of education advocates, parents and others, currently backs several pieces of legislation under consideration in Springfield that will bring significant reforms to unstable charter movement in Illinois, including a bill calling for the elimination of the Illinois State Charter School Commission.

“Tax payers are demanding more accountability from charter operators; they want to know whether the money going to these schools is actually being spent on educating students,” said CTU President Karen Lewis, NBCT. “With all of this talk of school choice there is surprisingly little information about their students’ rates of graduation, drop out or push out from these organizations. The law as its currently written totally undermines the authority of the Illinois State Board of Education and gives it to a shadow commission with little to no oversight. This is unacceptable in the nation’s third largest school district.”

Charter operations not only lack accountability but with little to no innovation in pedagogy they also fail to outperform CPS’s traditional schools, according to research.  Another crucial and little-known element of charter proliferation is the large financial windfall that can flow toward investors such as billionaire political hopeful Bruce Rauner.  The would-be governor has given about $2.5 million to Noble Street, which has 8,850 students, 98 percent of whom are minorities and 89 percent who come from low-income families. A campus bears his name. His family foundation has also given about $4 million to other organizations that operate or support charter schools.

A vocal opponent of public education and unionized teachers, Rauner once floated a scheme that would call for the transferring of public wealth and resources to private hands throughout extreme leverage (debt) similar to financial structures that led to the Great Recession in 2008. In 2010, he instigated a plan that would raise $200 million in equity, borrow $600 million and purchase 100 CPS schools that the investor group would then lease to charter operators. In such a plan, the investor group would reap two benefits: First, they would receive steady streams of revenue from the leases, and second, they could claim tax credits from depreciation on the buildings.  In short, the public would ultimately pay to lease back its own buildings.

Such schemes have made charter proliferation big business in Illinois. While CPS cited budgetary reasons for closing and consolidating scores of neighborhood schools, their own charter proliferation policies have caused unnecessary expenditures.  Here is a look at current legislation pending in the General Assembly of which the CTU supports:

1. SB2627/HB3754: Eliminates the Illinois State Charter School Commission



What this bill does:  Seeks to eliminate the Illinois State Charter School Commission and return its functions to the State Board of Education (ISBE).

Rationale: The State Charter School Commission (SCSC) is an initiative of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to promote the expansion of charter schools, especially in suburban areas where there is little support for charters. The SCSC eliminates local control of schools by providing a second application round for charter schools. Charters whose applications are denied by the local school board can appeal to the SCSC for approval. Two Chicago charter schools linked to the Turkish Gulen movement were approved in this manner, and a Sun-Times investigation found that these schools had significant conflicts of interest regarding contracts and expansion.

2. SB2779/HB4237: Diminishes authority of State Charter School Commission by mandating a referendum



What this bill does: Would require a voter referendum for any charter approved by ISBE or the State Charter Commission. The municipal election would take place in the district where the charter would be approved.

Rationale: The bill provides for voter approval for charter schools that have been approved over the wishes of the local school board. It is an additional mechanism to return control over district policy to local school boards.

3. HB 6005/SB 3030: Charter School Accountability Act

What this bill does:  Requires the charter school authorizer to host charter school lotteries (rather than the school)

· Provides that a charter school waiting list must be centrally administered by the authorizer

· Prohibits a charter school from creating any admissions process subsequent to a lottery

· Requires the authorizer to inform the next parent or guardian on the waiting list in the event that a student transfers from a charter school

· Prohibits future charter schools from contracting with for-profit EMO/CMOs

· Mandates that the physical property of the charter school is owned by charter not EMO/CMO

· Forbids an employee to be employed by both a EMO/CMO and charter school

· Mandates that charters pay pro-rated portion of funding for student who leaves to the new school district

· Prohibits charter schools from spending public funds on marketing

· Charter is subject to an audit by auditor general administrative costs are 20% greater than those of the host district

· Requires a charter assessment report every 5 years

· Includes funding limits if charters are not in compliance with reporting regulations

· Creates a compensation cap for charter school CEOs—compensation cannot be greater than 80% of the compensation of the school district superintendent

· Creates a compensation cap for charter school principals—compensation cannot be greater than 10% more than the average compensation of principals in the district

Rationale: The UNO charter school scandal identified important weaknesses in the current law that have yet to be remedied and provide opportunities for future abuse. These reasonable regulations ensure a level governance playing field between charters and traditional public schools.

4. SB 3303: Limits charter expansion in areas where public schools have been closed



What this bill does:   Provides that no charter can be granted within the same zip code, or neighboring zip code, in which a public school was closed within 10 school years.

· Provides that no charter must be granted unless the General Assembly has appropriated transition impact aid for the school district where the charter school is to be located.

· Provides that CPS designate attendance boundaries for Chicago charter schools.

Rationale: In the wake of the largest mass school closure in US history and the subsequent approval of 18 new charter schools, this law would provide crucial limits on future charter school openings by ensuring that any new campuses opened only where needed and when resources are available.

5. HB3745: Requires all charter high schools to establish vocational academies



What this bill does: Requires all alternative schools and charter high schools to establish vocational academies for students in grades 10-12.

Rationale: True career readiness requires access to experiential job training that only vocational education can provide.

6. HB4655/SB3004: Applies sections of the School Code that pertain to student discipline policies to charter schools



What this bill does: Amends the school code as it pertains to school discipline policies, and seeks to apply sections of the school code disciplinary policy to charter schools. The bill seeks to redefine what school behavior rises to the level of expulsion or suspension, sets limitations on out-of-school suspensions, in-school arrests, and requires behavioral support services and alternative educational services to be provided to certain students. The bill also provides that a student may not be issued a monetary fine or fee as a disciplinary consequence.

Rationale: Charter schools should be held to the same discipline standards as traditional public schools. Fines and harshly punitive discipline measures have resulted in an expulsion rate in Chicago charters that is 12 times the expulsion rate in public schools. These discipline actions have a disproportionate racial impact, as Latino and especially Black students are subject to such discipline at far greater rates than white students.

7. HB4527: Mandates charter school compliance with state and federal SPED and ELL laws



What this bill does: Requires charter schools to comply with all federal and state laws and rules applicable to public schools that pertain to special education and the instruction of English language learners.

8. HB 5328: Mandates Chicago charter schools be administered by a local school council



What this bill does: Requires a school that is initially placed on academic watch status after a fourth annual calculation or that remains on academic watch status after a fifth annual calculation to be approved by the school board and by the school's local school council, if applicable.

Rationale: Parents and community members should have a role in the governance of institutions that receive public money and claim to be public schools. This bill ensures that parents have meaningful roles in charter school operations.

9. HB 5887: Creates restrictions on virtual school options for students



What this bill does: Provides that the State Charter School Commission must require Commission-authorized virtual charter schools to (1) ensure student access to teachers and report to the local school board or boards information regarding teacher accessibility, the teacher/student ratio, and the amount of teacher/student contact time; (2) provide opportunities for peer interaction and collaboration; and (3) adopt protocols to prevent bullying or other inappropriate online behavior. Sets forth requirements and limitations that the Commission must impose with regard to entities proposing virtual charter schools.

· With respect to Commission-authorized virtual charter schools, requires the Commission to limit the withholding of State funds from a school district in proportion to the per pupil expenditure used for building maintenance, classroom supplies, transportation, safety and security, and other costs unique to brick-and-mortar schools.

· With respect to all Commission-authorized charter schools, provides that the Commission must require that proof of continuing enrollment and attendance be submitted quarterly, with prorated refunds to the school district upon withdrawal of students from the charter school.

10. HB4591: Requires funding to follow charter students who transfer to district schools


What this bill does: Provides that if a charter school dismisses a student from the charter school after receiving a quarterly payment from the school district, the charter school must return to the school district on a pro rata basis, for the time the student is not enrolled at the charter school.

Rationale: Because of high dismissal rates, charters are able to keep funds for students they no longer educate. Such funding should follow the student if that student transfers from a charter to another charter school or to a public school.


________________________________________
Common Core was written by corporations and developed during the Bush Administration.  It is simply an attempt by global corporations to capture all information and Race to the Top captures how it is distributed.  We do not need standardization of STEM------STEM is nothing but facts.  We do not need standardization of liberal arts/humanities because the US is a democracy embracing pluralities-----ALLOWING OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM TO BE FUSED WITH DIFFERING OPINIONS IS WHAT MAKES A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.

The neo-cons and neo-liberals working to make the US an autocratic nation play the republican voters off the labor and justice democrats with these policies.  Republican voters are fighting it because it will take control of what is taught in the classroom but they do not understand that it is their neo-cons that are pushing it.  Labor and justice democrats are being sold that this will raise achievement and get rid of those 'anti-evolution' nuts. 

STOP ALLOWING NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS KILL PUBLIC EDUCATION.  THIS COMMON CORE POLICY IS BAD FOR EVERYONE.

So, as labor and justice fight the Race to the Top testing and evaluation----charters and Teach for America------the republicans are fighting Common Core AND THEY BOTH NEED TO BE FIGHTING BOTH POLICIES!  Do not allow a need to segregate schools produce the conditions to take away your communities ability to control your own schools.  Don't allow decades of defunding public schools and dismantling education policy with rigor and accountability sell you on the need for privatized schools to get good education.

DEMAND STRONG PUBLIC SCHOOLS WORKING TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, LEADERSHIP, AND DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES!



Below you see again that a Wall Street privatization scheme uses the propaganda of 'raising the underserved' just as they used Affordable Care Act as 'raising access to health care for the poor'.  In both cases it has actually done the opposite.  As we see in this article Common Core fails to address the largest problems for the underserved students and it is bringing down the rigor and standards for middle-class students.  Achievement is in decline even as pols skew the data to make it sound as if things are going great.  Maryland is the greatest example of skewing data in the country!

IT IS NOT ABOUT FLAWED IMPLEMENTATION-----IT IS ABOUT ALLOWING WALL STREET TO HAVE OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION AS IT IS TAKING OUR PUBLIC HEALTH!


The Answer Sheet: The Myth of Common Core Equity



Carol C. Burris, Valerie Strauss, Alan A. Aja March 11, 2014
(freepik.com)

The Common Core State Standards were originally promoted as a way of raising academic standards for all children around the country. But is the initiative really about equitable outcomes? Here’s a post that takes on that question, by award-winning New York Principal Carol Burris and Alan A. Aja, assistant  professor and deputy chair in the Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies at Brooklyn College (City University of New York). In 2012, he was a recipient of a Whiting Fellowship Award for Excellence in Teaching. Burris has been writing about the flawed Core implementation in New York on this blog.

Burris, principal of South Side High School, has been chronicling the flawed implementation of school reform and the Common Core State Standards across the state for some time (here, and here and here and here, for example). She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is the co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It has been signed by thousands of principals teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens. You can read the letter by clicking here.  Her new book is “On The Same Track: How Schools Can Join the Twenty-First-Century Struggle Against Resegregation.”

By Carol Burris and Alan A. Aja

When the Common Core curriculum was promoted in 2009, its creators said unequivocally that principles of equity would be at the center of its eventual implementation. After all, the Bush administration’s test-happy No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate failed to close the “achievement gap” between whites and minorities. Then the Obama administration inaugurated a A Race to the Top contest among states and districts for federal funds and supported a new set of higher standards for all states intended to ensure college and career readiness for all students, with specific concern for our most under-served and disadvantaged.

On the surface, this seemed like a telling moment in a so-called post-racial, color-blind era, one where racism and institutionalized discrimination are viewed less and less as predictors of life chances. At last it appeared that policymakers were acknowledging the disparate effects of previous federal education policy toward marginalized communities, recommending instead to “raise the standards” through a rich curriculum and equitable teaching practices states could voluntarily adopt.

Five years and 47 states later, Race to the Top reforms are doing anything but to the communities that have been under-served. A barrage of news reports from states across the country underscore the growing discontent by students, parents, unions and legislators over the initial rollout of the Common Core, with a range of grievances from poorly constructed and confusing texts/materials, excessive testing preparation and concerns of children’s data-based privacy and security. But lost amidst the protests, town halls, so-called “delays” and potential “moratoriums” is the issue of equity all over again, making us wonder if “achievement gaps” were truly a primary concern of the Common Core architects at all.


In New York for example, one of the first states to roll out the new curriculum, scores from Common Core tests dropped like a stone—and the achievement gaps dramatically widened. In 2012, prior to the Core’s implementation, the state reported a 12-point black/white achievement gap between average third-grade English Language Arts scores, and a 14-point gap in eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) scores.  A year later enter the Common Core-aligned tests: the respective gaps grew to 19 and 25 points respectively (for Latino students the eighth grade ELA gap grew from 3 to 22 points). The same expansion of the gap occurred in math as well. In 2012, there was an 8-point gap between black/white third-grade math scores and a 13-point gap between eighth-grade math scores. In 2013, the respective gaps from the Common Core tests expanded to 14 and 18 points.

The problem however, is more than just a gap in average scores. Using another indicator, the percentage of black students who scored “Below Standard” in third-grade English Language Arts tests rose from 15.5 percent to a shocking 50 percent post-Common Core implementation. In seventh-grade math, black students labeled “Below Standard” jumped from 16.5 percent to a staggering 70 percent. Students with disabilities of all backgrounds saw their scores plummet– 75 percent of students with disabilities scored “Below Standard” on the Grade 5 ELA Common Core tests and 78 percent scored “Below Standard” on the 7th grade math test.  Also, 84 percent of English Language learners score “Below Standard” on the ELA test while 78 percent scored the same on the 7th grade math exam.

When a student scores in the Below Standard category of 1, there is a good chance that her or his answers were mere guesses, or that the test was so difficult, they simply gave up.  How do such tests help nine year olds who are struggling to learn English, or poor students starting school without the advantages of pre-school and the enriched experiences that affluence brings?  How do we advance the cause of equity by giving them the message: You are “below standard” and not on the road to be ready for college?

Rather than heeding the warning that something is very wrong, New York’s Board of Regents adds the highest of stakes for students—their very ability to graduate high school.  In February, the New York State Board of Regents established the college-ready scores that students will need for graduation, beginning with the class that enters high school in four years. These scores, which up until now have been known as “aspirational” measures, have been reported by the state in the aggregate and by sub-group for the past several years. If these scores were used last year, the New York four-year graduation rate would have plummeted to 35 percent. This low rate masks even worse outcomes for students with disabilities (5 percent), as well as black (12 percent), Latino (16 percent) and English Language learners (7 percent). New York Education Commissioner John King even told reporters that he was disappointed that the scores were not phased in sooner because the delay means more students would leave high school “unprepared.” He need not worry. With his preferred cut scores, most students—especially students of color, poverty and disability–will not leave high school at all.

We need not wait until graduation, however, for our most vulnerable students to feel the consequences. The designers and supporters of the Common Core never considered how the test outcomes would affect the school opportunities of disadvantaged students within the context of the competitive design of the American public education system.

For instance, in many school districts state tests are used to make decisions about promotion as well to assign students into “honors,” “enrichment,” and other “accelerated” programs. State scores are used as well for admissions to competitive middle schools and high schools. Given the disturbing evidence that the score gap has widened, if these scores are used for these purposes, many of our students of color, poverty, disability and our English language learners will have doors of opportunity shut as they compete using these very scores. This, in our opinion, is a discriminatory practice.

Research has already established that holding back students unnecessarily can have detrimental impacts down the road, and that by design and impact high-stakes testing disadvantages English language learners, special education, minority and low-income children. The research of Claude Steele, Joshua Aronson, and Aaron Spencer demonstrates that outcomes on high-stakes standardized tests underestimate the achievement and college readiness of children stigmatized as cognitively inferior by stereotype, while exaggerating the scores for individuals from groups whom society deems cognitively superior. Needless to say, we are baffled as to why education reformers continue to deny the evidence that standardized tests are invalid measurements of learning, and would instead “up the ante”’ with Common Core testing.

In the meantime, the Common Core aligned-tests will be used to justify the continuance of market-based education reforms.
This means firing teachers and principals based on test scores, closing urban schools with higher low-income populations and the proliferation of charters as punishment (which ironically scored worse in language arts and the same in math as New York City public schools in the latest round of Common Core-aligned tests).
These strategies, straight from what economist Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine” school of economics, lead to further gutting and pseudo-privatization of the most necessary of our public goods, while continuing the false narratives that teachers and their unions are the problem or that racism, poverty and inequitable resource distribution are merely excuses.

In the coming months and years ahead, the debate will continue over the role and efficacy of the Common Core. In some states and localities, that conversation will focus on local control and federal intrusion, while in others it will concern the dubious marriage between business and government.  Some will debate simply how to delay implementation, as though the reforms themselves are not the problem.  They will ignore the evidence that is right before their eyes.

It is time for those who fight for equity to question the very assumptions of reform. If a goal of public education is to expand the life chances of all students, why are we pursuing punitive policies and practices that push the opportunities of our most vulnerable students even further behind?







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April 17th, 2014

4/17/2014

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REMEMBER, ALL OF THESE POLICIES MAKING COST FOR HIGHER EDUCATION TOO HIGH FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS DELIBERATE....THE GOAL IS TO END HIGHER EDUCATION FOR 90% OF AMERICANS.  GLOBAL CORPORATIONS NEED PEOPLE BAREFOOT AND UNINFORMED IN ORDER TO MOVE FROM FIRST WORLD, TO SECOND WORLD, AND WITH THE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT-----THIRD WORLD.

Remember folks.....the massive corporate frauds of last decade of tens of trillions of dollars was meant to place the US into so much debt as to act as an excuse to dismantle all that is public.  It is why as well that Obama and neo-liberals suspended Rule of Law to allow the loot to stay at the top....they must have Federal, state, and local governments in debt so as to pretend our public structures cannot be maintained.



I spoke yesterday about the private non-profits in Maryland and Baltimore turning our government into a mechanism for profit. I want to talk today about the privatization of higher education and its goal for the same profit-generating mechanism.  I have spoken at length about the capture of our community colleges and transition into corporate job training paid for by taxpayers and students.  Some vocational tracks in community college are not bad, but making the entire system based on job training ends yet another avenue for the lower-middle class to enter strong higher education paths.....which is the point.  It also seeks to eliminate labor union apprenticeships which have always handled all of these job training duties while an employee was on the job and getting paid. 

SEE HOW UNION-BUSTING AND HUMAN RESOURCES OUTSOURCING TO THE PUBLIC IS A PROFIT-MAXIMIZER?
 

The entire education reform of Obama's terms have been about ending public education and access to the best of education.  Remember, the 1% have said that education is wasted on 90% of Americans.  This is the goal of these education reforms and it is why they are being fought all across the country.  We know that the Captains of Industry and government graduated from public schools when the US was operating its best.  Now that Ivy League grads have control----stagnation, crippling fraud and corruption have a grip.

Let's see what people across the country are doing and we thank those groups in Maryland who are starting to shout loudly and strongly-----


WHO'S SCHOOLS?  OUR SCHOOLS!!!!


It is very sad how Obama and neo-liberals in Congress have allowed the Department of Education to become a Wall Street credit collection agency complete with fraud, corruption, and profiteering as student loans are treated like pay day lenders.  People are forced into repayment plans they cannot afford while already making monthly payments and then fees of as much as $3,000 show up on their balances with no documentation of why.  Balances cannot be given they are told because the amounts change from day to day.  They have done to student loans what they did to the Federal Housing Agency---FHA.  Made it predatory and corrupt and intend to simply blow up these student loan programs.


KEEP IN MIND THAT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FOR-PROFIT EDUCATION FRAUD WILL COME BACK WHEN RULE OF LAW IS REINSTATED.  THIS INCLUDES ALL OF THIS FRAUD WITH STUDENT LOANS.

It is absurd that all of the politicians below calling for lower rates are not shouting at the degree of fraud and corruption super-sizing these loans.  If they were progressive that would be the solution.  Obama appointed Duncan just to do what is being done and Duncan saying his job is to lower cost for the taxpayers by raising rates for student loan holders is a lie.  Any money saved this way goes out to build the private education structures he pushes.


Student Loan Borrowers' Costs To Jump As Education Department Reaps Huge Profit

Posted: 04/14/2014 9:19 pm EDT Updated: 04/15/2014 12:59 pm EDT

The U.S. Department of Education is forecast to generate $127 billion in profit over the next decade from lending to college students and their families, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Beginning in the 2015-16 academic year, students and their families are forecast to pay more to borrow from the department than they did prior to last summer’s new student loan law, which set student loan interest rates based on the U.S. government's costs to borrow. The higher costs for borrowers would arrive at least a year sooner than previously predicted.

James Kvaal, a top White House official, last year dismissed the possibility that student borrowers would pay higher costs under the new law. The Consumer Protection Financial Bureau on Monday warned borrowers about a "jump" in rates.

The projection, made public Monday by the nonpartisan budget scorekeepers, provides the federal government’s best estimate of how much the government's student loan program will cost taxpayers. That the program is predicted to generate an average annual profit of about $12 billion through 2024 is likely to fuel calls for the Obama administration and Congress to take additional steps to reduce borrowers’ debt burdens, which the Education Department pegs at an average of more than $26,000.

The program produces a profit because the interest rate paid by borrowers exceeds the federal government’s cost to fund those loans and administer the program. The figure also accounts for loan defaults and borrowers’ use of flexible repayment plans that tie monthly payments to their incomes.

The congressionally mandated
accounting method that determines the profit figure has been criticized by some experts, including the Congressional Budget Office. The Education Department in the past has disputed the use of the word “profit.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has used the profit to help his department reduce its cost to taxpayers to the lowest level since 2001, budget documents show. As Washington focuses on reducing federal expenditures, some experts and student groups said they fear the Education Department may be too reliant on student loan revenues to advocate for debt relief.

“This is a profit-making machine for the Education Department,” said Chris Hicks, who leads the Debt-Free Future campaign for Jobs With Justice, a Washington-based nonprofit group. “The student loan program isn’t about helping students or borrowers -- it’s about making profits for the federal government.”

Education Department representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Amid an era of falling inflation-adjusted incomes for college graduates and increasing student debt burdens -- total student debt has doubled since 2007, according to the Federal Reserve -- a group of federal regulators, policymakers and student loan experts worry that the nation’s economy will be restrained for years as monthly student loan payments take an increasing bite out of borrowers’ paychecks.

Researchers have found that student loan borrowers are less likely to start small businesses, save for retirement, take out a home mortgage or buy a car. A group of bank chief executives that advise the Fed also have warned about negative repercussions on the nation’s banking system from growing student debt loads.

Hicks said younger borrowers face daunting circumstances. If forced to choose, he said he reckons that borrowers would most likely default on their federal student loans rather than give up their credit cards or forgo health insurance. “I really wonder whether the Education Department is thinking of the consequences of potentially setting up a generation of borrowers to fail,” he said.

To prevent economic ruin, a loose coalition of groups led by the Center for American Progress has been advocating for a federal plan that would enable borrowers with high-rate student loans to refinance into cheaper debt.

Refinancing plans have either been endorsed or formally introduced by lawmakers, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Some White House officials are said to support a student loan refinancing scheme, proponents said, but President Barack Obama has not yet publicly endorsed it.

The Education Department, on the other hand, has told some refinancing supporters that a plan to enable borrowers to refinance expensive debt into loans carrying lower interest rates could cost as much as $100 billion over a 10-year period in foregone federal revenue. The department also has warned that a refinancing plan likely would force it to reduce the number of Pell Grants given to college students from low-income households.

Supporters have taken the rough estimate and Pell Grant warning as an indication that the department does not want to allow borrowers to refinance.

Jason Delisle, director of the federal education budget project at the New America Foundation, said CBO figures show that the Pell Grant program will need more money to continue at present levels beginning in 2017. Assuming that Congress does not want to reduce the amount of Pell Grants available to low-income students, the program would need an additional $38.1 billion from 2017 through 2024, Delisle estimated.

Refinancing supporters argue that student loan profit should be used to offset the loss of future federal revenues that would result from allowing borrowers to refinance expensive student loan debts. Student loan profits are used to fund the federal government generally, rather than specific programs, James Runcie, Office of Federal Student Aid chief operating officer, told a Senate panel last month.

But the CBO estimates have been wrong before, underscoring the danger of basing policy on fleeting budget estimates from Washington’s main arbiter on the cost of federal programs.

For example, in August, when Congress was poised to pass the student loan law that set future interest rates, the budget office forecast that federal student loans would generate a $184.7 billion profit through 2023 -- more than the new estimate. Last year, the budget office estimated that the Pell Grant shortfall would be more than $47 billion, Delisle said. The budget office regularly revises its estimates, taking into account recent economic activity and other data.

Still, the Education Department’s estimated profits show a federal student loan program that is charging borrowers way too much, according to Hicks. Beginning in 2015, the average undergraduate borrower will pay 5.72 percent to borrow from the federal government, the budget office estimates. Graduate borrowers are forecast to pay at least 7.27 percent, while parents will pay 8.27 percent.

All three rates are higher than what borrowers paid in the 2012-13 academic year -- the last year before Congress changed the law. The Education Department could help borrowers deal with higher rates by pushing its loan servicers to offer distressed borrowers flexible repayment plans that base monthly payment amounts on incomes.

Despite White House pressure, the number of borrowers in income-driven repayment plans remains low.

“The public needs to be concerned about a government agency acting like a bank,” Hicks said. “The Education Department has a profit motive.”

___________________________
The point isn't how much university tuition has been raised over the last few years....the point is that the cost was raised too high over and last few decades to pay for the corporatization and administration costs.

These student loans accumulated over a decade or more have been deliberately inflated to pay for this privatization and now students are left with college debt they should never have incurred.  Add to this the deliberate policy of keeping the US economy stagnant as the rich dismantle our government structures and impoverish....and you have the making of totalitarianism.

Students protest college costs Rally at OSU part of national event


By Encarnacion Pyle The Columbus Dispatch  •  Friday March 2, 2012 10:15 AM

More than 100 Ohio State University students converged on the Oval yesterday to protest growing college costs and what they say is increasing administrative pressure to run the university like a business.

The rally was part of a national day of protests coordinated by several student groups, including the Occupy movement, which had its start on Wall Street.

“If education is a right, then education isn’t and shouldn’t be a privilege only accessible to people of certain financial qualifications,” said Molly Hendrix, a senior sociology major.


Gathered in front of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library, students pumped their fists in solidarity as they chanted slogans such as “public education, not a corporation.”

The students complained about the increasing amount of money they have to borrow to pay for school and the poor job prospects awaiting them once they graduate.

Ohio college seniors who graduated with student loans in 2010 owed an average of $27,713, ranking the state the seventh-highest in the nation, according to a report by the Project on Student Debt.

It’s hard to repay loans, the protesters said, when you don’t have a job.

In Ohio, nearly 1 in 5 people between the ages of 20 and 24 were unemployed last year. Only 16- to 19-year-olds had a higher rate, at 24 percent, state statistics show.

They also protested against the state’s enterprise university plan and Ohio State’s willingness to consider leasing its ancillary operations, such as the airport, golf course and parking operation, to private investors. Privatizing operations would serve “private interests instead of the common good,” said Deb Steele, an organizer with Jobs With Justice, a national association of labor unions, faith-based groups and community organizations.

OSU spokesman Jim Lynch said the university has raised tuition only twice in the past five years. “We share our students’ concerns with rising college costs.”

That’s why the university is aggressively pursuing innovative ways to create revenue streams and reallocate existing resources to support teaching and learning, he said.

After listening to more than a half-dozen speakers, the students marched to President E. Gordon Gee’s office, where one of the students read off a list of demands. They then headed to N. High Street, where they spilled into the roadway, blocking southbound traffic for about 20 minutes.

The group ended its march at the Ohio Union with an “open mic” session on a bullhorn, allowing various students to share personal concerns about the future of higher education.

____________________________
As I have said, this education privatization is ground zero in Maryland as Erhlich and now O'Malley make ending public education their goal.  Maryland universities have been gutted and corporatized to such an extent that we have some of the worst education stats in the country.  Online universities are now the only path some lower-middle class families have and these platforms are dismal.

Don't go by the media headlines in Maryland.....they have all the data ranking Maryland #1 in every measured area....including education because none of the data is real!  That is what corporatized education is about-----no public accountability means they can say anything!


Making adjuncts of academics charged with higher education makes sure the people charged with holding power accountable will not be able to do so.  This was the goal of dismantling the tenure/professor as academic structure.  No doubt professors had allowed themselves to be removed from the student, but that was because the emphasis on research and being published that came with university privatization.

IF YOU END ALL OF THE CORPORATE STRUCTURES BUILT THESE FEW DECADES TO MAXIMIZE CORPORATE PROFIT AND CAPTURE THE PUBLIC'S MAIN SOURCE OF HOLDING POWER ACCOUNTABLE-----STUDENT TUITION DROPS BIG-TIME AND
EDUCATION FUNDING GOES TO SUBSIDIZING THE LOWER/MIDDLE CLASS AND NOT CORPORATE PROFIT.

The story with the institution below, MICA, is doubly-telling.  MICA and Peabody Institute for Music were both taken by Johns Hopkins in what can be described as a hostile takeover.  Basically Hopkins controls all of the money and City Hall and as they do with everything in the city----they starve communities and/or institutions until they are forced to merge.......THAT IS A HOSTILE TAKEOVER.  Simply reversing this structure will go far to bring more power to these instructors.
 

Since it was O'Malley that allowed all of these structural changes to occur-----we know he is not really going to support any labor issue beyond a statement.  Every deal he has made during his tenure has weakened and impoverished labor.  In Maryland, pols make statements to get headlines and then the issue is ignored or not enforced.

THIS IS HOW POLICY PROPAGANDA WORKS----IT IS O'MALLEY WHO CREATED ALL THIS CORPORATE STRUCTURE FOR ALL MARYLAND UNIVERSITIES AND NOW THE MEDIA ARE PRETENDING THAT O'MALLEY SUPPORTS LABOR AND JUSTICE! 



Thursday, Mar 20, 2014, 2:15 pm

Academic Labor Unrest Spreads to Maryland Colleges

(UPDATED) BY Bruce Vail Email Print

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley (D) supports a bill that would ease organizing among community college workers.   (NASA Goddard/Flickr/Creative Commons)

BALTIMORE – Part-time professors at the historic Maryland Institute College of Art are joining a growing movement of academic workers around the country who want a union to help them with fundamental issues of fair pay and decent job conditions.

A committee of part-time faculty—also known as adjuncts—filed a petition on March 7 with the National Labor Relations Board seeking an election to establish Gaithersburg, Md.-based Service Employees International Union Local 500 as its collective bargaining agent. Joshua Smith, one of the committee’s leaders, tells In These Times that the adjuncts hope to move to an election within just a few weeks.

And instructors at other institutions in the region see the move to unionize as highly necessary. “This is an exciting development. Adjuncts really need a union to protect them from the abuses of a system they are unable to change. At the moment, they have no voice ... There can be no sense of community, scholarly or academic, when adjunct faculty are not included in decision-making as to curriculum or policy,” says Peggy Beauvois, a part-time instructor in the College of Education at the nearby Loyola University Maryland, which does not employ unionized faculty. 

“We simply can not meet the needs of students when we must have two—and sometimes three—adjunct positions to even begin to support ourselves. I’ve heard stories about adjuncts who can’t afford an apartment and are living out of the back seat of their cars,” she adds.


Smith estimates there are about 200 adjuncts at MICA, who teach about 45 percent of the school’s courses; overall, he says, the campus environment is a positive one. “We do enjoy working at MICA and it’s a great place to teach,” he says.

But that’s not enough to outweigh the worries about survival and consistent employment that being an adjunct entails, he points out. “Of course compensation and benefits are big issues, but job security is probably the biggest concern,” he says. “You can have been an adjunct for ten years, but you still don’t know whether you will have a class to teach next semester.”

The big question awaiting the adjuncts at MICA is whether the school’s administrators will actively oppose unionization, Smith says. A best-case scenario would see the college bosses adopt a neutral position, as they did at Georgetown University, where Local 500 ran a successful part-time faculty organizing campaign in 2013. Alternatively, higher-ups could take a more antagonistic approach similar to those of Boston’s Northeastern University, where administrators hired the notorious union-busting firm Jackson Lewis last year to stifle organizing. For the moment, though, MICA public relations director Jessica Weglein Goldstein says the school has “no comment” on its position of adjunct unionization.

Smith, however, remains optimistic. The part-time professor, who has taught art history in Baltimore for four years, believes the union will prevail easily in an election. The organizing committee has been active on MICA’s campus since 2011, he says, and has worked to gather support both within the adjunct population and outside of it. For example, members of the committee formally asked full-time professors to remain neutral in an election campaign—a presentation Smith deemed to be effective.

In general, the unionization of adjuncts “is long overdue,” says Michelle Tokarczyk, Vice President of the Maryland Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). There is very little unionization of college staff in the state thus far, she says, but the movement has a broad base of approval from many in the higher education community.

Though MICA is a private institution, labor allies in Maryland hope that its faculty’s efforts will work in conjunction with another campaign focused on community colleges throughout the state. A coalition of unions comprised of the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), SEIU Local 500 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is currently working to push legislation through the state house in Annapolis that would ease organizing at community colleges. Given the lack of labor laws specifically covering community college employees, the coalition is advocating for a bill that would provide a statewide legal framework for those workers when they unionize in the future.

Prospects for passage of the bill are good, reports Sean Johnson, an MSEA official, although it does not appear that state legislature is inclined to act quickly. Organizers have garnered support from key state representatives, however, and Gov. Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign the bill if it passes. Right now, a number of community college presidents are opposing the bill, but labor lobbyists in Annapolis believe that opposition can be overcome, Johnson says.

If the bill is passed, the three unions hope to organize some 19,000 employees at 16 community college campuses: MSEA would seek to unionize the regular full-time faculty, Local 500 would agitate among the adjuncts and AFSCME is interested in the other college staff. “Our coalition has been successful in the past,” Johnson says, in reference to unionization of more than 1,000 academic workers at suburban Washington, D.C. Montgomery College in 2008, “and we think it will be successful again.”

The urgency of organizing academic workers—especially part-time ones—is starting to be recognized on a national scale, says Local 500 organizer Kevin Pietrick. Indeed, on the same day the Baltimore art college instructors filed for an election, so did adjuncts at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University. Similar organizing efforts are underway in several other states, he says.

And in Baltimore, a successful campaign at MICA may potentially pave the way for other colleges in the area. 

Beauvois wishes the MICA adjuncts well and hopes that union movement picks up steam in the academic community. “As it is now, [working as an adjunct] is not a living wage,” she says. “It’s a hobby, or volunteer work, but you can’t make a living.”

UPDATE: Maryland Institute College of Art confirmed on March 24 that it had agreed to a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election for the part-time instructors seeking union representation. The election, to be conducted with mail-in ballots, will commence April 10, and will conclude with the counting of completed ballots April 29.

The bargaining unit will include about 350 employees.


 
______________________________________________
Below you see a great example of what is happening in the US as well although the US has no mainstream media that isn't captured and corporate so we do not hear about this.  This is the dangerous effects of having universities handled as corporations.....the money 'donated' to support these universities come with the direction of curricula.....and if a university is running on money from patented research, then market values take the lead.

THIS IS NOT WHAT DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION LOOKS LIKE.

In the US it will be Common Core taught in the K-12 classrooms that will rewrite history as this standardization hits every single classroom in America.  Common Core will do what is being done at the university level-----control all avenue of information a person can access.  The power of academics to operate freely and unafraid of stating facts is the primary source of a free society.  This is why neo-liberals from Obama and Congress to O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly are building these structures that have as a goal ending democracy and freedom of information.


Academics back students in protests against economics teaching Professors argue in letter to the Guardian against 'dogmatic intellectual commitment' to 'orthodoxy and against diversity'
  • Phillip Inman, Economics correspondent

  • The Guardian, Monday 18 November 2013 17.10 EST

Unemployed men in the 1930s. 'Students can complete an economics degree without learning about the Great Depression.'

Photograph: Mark Benedict Barry/Corbis

A prominent group of academic economists have backed student protests against neo-classical economics teaching, increasing the pressure on top universities to reform courses that critics argue are dominated by free market theories that ignore the impact of financial crises.

The academics from some of the UK's most prestigious institutions, including Cambridge and Leeds universities, said students were being short-changed by their courses, and they accused higher education funding bodies of being a barrier to reforms.

In a startling attack on the agencies that provide teaching and research grants, they said an "intellectual monoculture" is reinforced by a system of state funding based on journal rankings "that are heavily biased in favour of orthodoxy and against intellectual diversity".

The academics said in a letter to the Guardian that a "dogmatic intellectual commitment" to teaching theories based on rational consumers and workers with unlimited wants "contrasts sharply with the openness of teaching in other social sciences, which routinely present competing paradigms".

They said: "Students can now complete a degree in economics without having been exposed to the theories of Keynes, Marx or Minsky, and without having learned about the Great Depression."

The attack follows protests at Manchester University. Students there, who formed the Post Crash Economics Society, said their courses did little to explain why economists failed to warn about the financial crisis and had too heavy a focus on training students for City jobs.

Earlier this month an international group of economists, backed by the New York-based Institute for New Economic Thinking, pledged to overhaul the economics curriculum and offer universities an alternative course.

At a conference hosted by the Treasury at its London offices, they pledged to have a first-year course ready to teach for the 2014-15 academic year that will include economic history and a broader range of competing theories.

The debate over the future of economics teaching follows several years of debate about the role of academics, especially in the US, in providing the intellectual underpinning for the borrowing and trading binge ahead of the 2008 crash.


Levels of private borrowing reached record levels in many countries and trades in exotic derivatives, often funded with debt instruments, soared to a point where few bank executives understood their exposure in the event of a credit crunch.

Many economists, including the 2013 Nobel prize winner Robert Shiller, have argued that mainstream economics wrongly teaches theories based on maintaining openly competitive markets and that well-informed buyers and sellers eliminate the risk of asset prices rising beyond a sustainable level for a prolonged period.

The academics, led by Professor Engelbert Stockhammer of Kingston University, said: "We understand students' frustration with the way that economics is taught in most institutions in the UK.

"There exists a vibrant community of pluralist economists in the UK and elsewhere, but these academics have been marginalised within the profession. The shortcomings in the way economics is taught are directly related to an intellectual monoculture, which is reinforced by a system of public university funding (the Research Excellence Framework and previously the Research Assessment Exercise) based on journal rankings that are heavily biased in favour of orthodoxy and against intellectual diversity," they said.


_______________________________________

All around the world developed nations are seeing their democratic institutions dismantled as these global corporations seek to create autocratic structures of what are democratic nations.  The universities and K-12 are the foundation of free societies which is why Clinton, Bush, and now Obama and our state neo-liberals are dismantling and corporatizing K-college.  Having business people replace academics sets the stage for silencing what has always been the source for holding power accountable-----the universities!

Below you see what universities have done for centuries------shouted out and monitored the conditions of society.  See how super-sizing privatization with adjuncts and business people as classroom lecturers will do?  People fearful of losing a job will not shout.....

MARYLAND IS GROUND ZERO FOR THESE FEARS AS PRIVATIZATION HAS BEEN IN THE WORKS IN MARYLAND LONGER THAN AROUND THE COUNTRY.

We need the citizens of Maryland to stand with these educators from K-college.  These changes are killing our educators but as important, they are killing our democracy.

Hundreds of academics protest against mass surveillance

Politics
03 January 14 by Olivia Solon  WIRED UK




Shutterstock Hundreds of academics from around the world have signed a declaration that highlights that the world is under "an unprecedented level of surveillance" and that "this has to stop" in order to protect people's privacy.

Academics Against Mass Surveillance was conceived of by four colleagues -- Nico van Eijk, Beate Roessler, Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius and Manon Oostveen -- at the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam after all of Edward Snowden's revelations about large-scale surveillance by governments.

"We were discussing that academics had been a tad quiet in the media," explains the Institute's Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius. 


The law professors drafted a declaration and then asked friends (mainly human rights professors) for feedback before they agreed on a text. The text was then shared internationally with colleagues, and almost 300 other academics -- from countries including the US, UK, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Japan, Germany and Austria -- have put their name against the declaration. "It was a snowball effect," he adds.

The declaration points out that intelligence agencies "monitor people's internet use, obtain their phone calls, email messages, Facebook entries, financial details, and much more".

It adds: "Agencies have also gathered personal information by accessing the internal data flows of firms such as Google and Yahoo. Skype calls are 'readily available' for interception...This has to stop."

The declaration points out that the right to privacy is a fundamental one, protected by a range of international treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.


"Without privacy people cannot freely express their opinions or seek and receive information. Moreover, mass surveillance turns the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt. Nobody denies the importance of protecting national security, public safety, or the detection of crime. But current secret and unfettered surveillance practices violate fundamental rights and the rule of law, and undermine democracy."


Those who have signed the declaration call for action and urge these spy agencies to be more transparent and accountable. "States must effectively protect everyone's fundamental rights and freedoms, and particularly everyone's privacy," it says.

When asked which organisation represented the biggest threat to digital rights, Zuiderveen Borgesius told Wired.co.uk: "Phew, hard question. It seems to be a draw between the NSA and GCHQ, as far as the Western countries are concerned. But it wouldn't surprise me if more scandals will be disclosed about other European intelligence agencies soon."

He added that the declaration wasn't so much a political message, but "a scientific consensus that this unfettered and secretive surveillance has to stop".









__________________________________________

Act Locally » March 26, 2014

Teachers’ Strikes, Catching Fire From Oregon to Minnesota, school is out unless teachers and communities are heard.


BY Sarah Jaffe

Medford teachers protected their preparation time from proposed cuts and limited the student-to-teacher ratio. Portland teachers won an increase in their prep time and the hiring of new instructors to shrink class sizes.

Conventional wisdom holds that it’s hard to garner sympathy for relatively well-paid public workers at a time when fewer and fewer people have jobs that make ends meet. So the so-called “age of austerity” has seen unions of teachers and other public-sector employees accept cut after cut. Teachers in particular have been targeted by an education reform movement that posits unionized educators as a threat to children’s learning.

Yet in spite of that, teachers are beginning to win some battles—by winning over hearts and minds in the communities they serve.

“I think we’ve reached the point where it’s very clear to teachers that we can’t give [students] what they deserve under the circumstances that we find ourselves in now,” says Elizabeth Thiel, a high-school English teacher at Madison High School in Portland, Ore. Parents and students have also realized that endless standardized testing and demands for “accountability” from teachers at the same time that budget cuts swell class sizes and reduce services is a recipe for disaster, not success.

Thiel’s union, the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), came within days of a strike before reaching an agreement February 18 with Portland Public Schools that includes the hiring of 150 new teachers to reduce class sizes and curtailing the extent that teacher evaluations hinge on student test scores. In Medford, Ore., a 16-day strike ended February 21 when the district conceded to many of the teachers’ demands on pay, benefits and working time. And in St. Paul, Minn., the district agreed to a deal on February 21, the last working day before the union was due to take a strike vote. In all three districts, strong community support helped the teachers win a stronger contract. A year and a half after the Chicago Teachers Union revived the strike with a seven-day work stoppage that became national news, teachers unions around the country are showing a willingness to fight, and are doing the organizing necessary to win communities to their side.

“[The district] didn’t believe that we would go out on strike, and they didn’t believe that after 11 days we’d still be every single one of us strong,” Cat Brasseur, the communications chair of the Medford Education Association, tells In These Times.

The Medford and Portland school districts seemed to be counting on the austerity ideology to hold sway as they demanded “rollbacks” from the workers: 118 separate demands for concessions in Medford, 78 in Portland. Both districts called an end to direct bargaining after the minimum amount of time mandated by law and then declared an impasse after the minimum 15 days of mediation. But teachers called their bluff, and the community was on their side. It turns out that making conditions in schools, not just wages and benefits, central to collective bargaining is popular with the public. In Oregon and Minnesota, the unions built relationships with parents and students that helped convince the school districts that they should accede to some demands.

Medford teachers protected their preparation time from proposed cuts and limited the student-to-teacher ratio. Portland teachers won an increase in their prep time and the hiring of new instructors to shrink class sizes. In St. Paul, teachers secured an expansion of the city’s pre-kindergarten program and smaller class sizes in high-poverty schools, in order to allow teachers to give individual attention to students who need it the most. According to Nick Faber, a 28-year St. Paul teacher and an officer in the St. Paul Federation of Teachers union (SPFT), families are facing more economic challenges than ever, which means students are coming to teachers with more problems that require closer relationships.

Bargaining for policies that help teachers deepen their relationships with parents is not new to the SPFT: Their last contract won funding for a project that trains teachers to make home visits. In addition to maintaining that program, which has now trained more than 400 teachers, Mary Cathryn Ricker, president of the SPFT, says that the new contract allows schools to change how parent-teacher conferences work. In the past, she says, conferences had been modelled on “a generally white, middle-class mom who could find time to stop by after school got out and visit with her teachers.” But today, more children come from single-parent homes or those where two parents work, and schedules can be erratic. And so, Ricker says, St. Paul teachers successfully won the flexibility to design conferences in ways that better suit community needs.


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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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