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Friday, February 10, 2012
The Broad Road Show finally comes to Sacramento
by Mike Simpson, published on December 23, 2009 at 6:37 PM
Storyline: Mayor Johnson STAND UP
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Mayor Kevin Johnson announced STAND UP; a new initiative launched on Monday. A $500,000 grant will kick-start the first phase of the new nonprofit's development. It will focus on raising academic achievement and college completion rates by advocating, supporting, and developing excellent public schools. The seed money comes from a national philanthropy group, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
Mayor Johnson said he's looking for a new education liaison; someone who will work with STAND UP. Rumors and speculation has Michelle Rhee, lightening rod Chancellor of Washington DC Public Schools as a leading candidate. Rhee a nimble leader, has played a major role in the Education Reform movement which is currently being promoted by the Obama administration, Governor Schwarzenegger and the Mayor. This reform movement promotes privately operated public Charter schools which are opposed by teachers unions and some parent and community groups. Ms Rhee and the Mayor announced their engagement last month.
Really, what could be better than some rich guy (billionaire) coming to town dropping a cool half million on our public schools in these times of shocking budget cuts. In Sacramento I think there are three schools of thought on that subject:
1) Stand Up
2) Sit Down
3) Shut Up]
If there are some who don’t get Stand Up, it could be that it is not certain which public schools the plan refers to, community-managed excellent public schools or corporate-managed excellent public schools.
The Sit Down community sees Stand Up as irrelevant due to the questions unanswered at St. Hope: the controversial AmeriCorps investigation, enrollment numbers and finances. Or some just don’t like KJ Local parent groups and community advocates blogs Sac Chartergate and Scusd Observer often focus on Sit Down issues.
The Shut Up people firmly believe that STAND UP is part of a vast education conspiracy as presented in “The Rise of Venture Philanthropy and the Ongoing Neoliberal Assault on Public Education: the Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation,” by Dr. Kenneth Saltman. of DePaul University
Most of the conspiracy allegations centers on Mr. Broad: Either you think he is the coolest guy who ever lived or a diabolical capitalist sent to kill public education. Schools Matter, Perimeter Primate , Seattle Education 2010 and The Broad Report make a case for the Shut Up group with opinion, data and a lot of passion.
My best move, most surely, is to Shut Up. One thing I am sure of is that things that are happening at city hall have a lot to do with what is happening at the state capitol.
Peter Schrag of theCalifornia Progress Report stated: “This is not a tempest in a teapot. It reflects fundamental disagreements, some philosophical, some political, some mere turf fights, over the future of the state’s K-12 schools. Either the Senate bill, by Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, or the Assembly substitute by Julia Brownley of Santa Monica, also a Democrat, which the governor threatened to veto, would have been likely to produce significant changes in the state’s school standards, in its testing program, in school transfer rules and parental rights, and in the reconstitution of failing schools.”
The point is we need to have this conversation. This brings me to my real point.
I ask you to join me here at the Sacramento Press to a have a discussion on this community education issue as well as many more pressing issues facing education in Sacramento today. Sacramento Press represents an opportunity for the entire community to hear and express different points of views. If you don’t know how, Sacramento Press invites you to participate in regularly scheduled community workshops.
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Strange, no public option in health care but a large business and well heeled financed campaign to give us all a 'private option, in public education.
The hypocracy and self-serving interests are no better illuminated than the charachters and surrogtes of Broad and his vast empire -- Rhee, Johnson, Bloomberg, Klein, Villaraigosa, et. al.
Motivated by the 'grand experiment' in New Orleans the Hudson Institute in an article entitled The Wave, by Andy Smarmach outlined the actual business plan. 75% marketshrae in major cities must be fielded and then of course this will be with the encouragement of fixers like Austin and his astro turf Parent Revolution that just tried to make de-certifying public schools a part of the assembly bill debated for Race to the Top monies.
This certainly is a race to the top, for a small few elites and their rich brethren and coin operated politicians. but in the end, as we know, our children lose out on what was once a national treasure adn envy of the world -- public education. Instead, along with teachers they will be tethered to the carpetloom of canned curriculum cookie cut and used at each charter chain retail outlet.
For more on my writings and comments you can go to dailycensored.com, dissidentvoice.com or Counterpunch.com. Also, my new 1,000 page book on charter schools is out through Grey House Press.
Danny Weil
Strange, no public option in health care but a large business and well heeled financed campaign to give us all a 'private option, in public education.
The hypocracy and self-serving interests are no better illuminated than the charachters and surrogtes of Broad and his vast empire -- Rhee, Johnson, Barr, Austin, Bloomberg, Klein, Villaraigosa, Pastorek, et. al.
Motivated by the 'grand experiment' in New Orleans the Hudson Institute in an article entitled The Wave, by Andy Smarmach outlined the actual business plan. 75% marketshare in major cities must be fielded by the corporate charter charlatans and then of course this will be with the encouragement of fixers like Austin and his astro turf Parent Revolution that just tried to make de-certifying public schools a part of the assembly bill debated for Race to the Top monies.
This certainly is a race to the top, for a small few elites and their rich brethren and coin operated politicians. But in the end, as we know, it is a race to the bottom as our children lose out on what was once a national treasure and envy of the world -- public education. Instead, along with teachers, they will be tethered to the carpetloom of canned curriculum cookie cut and used at each charter chain retail outlet on an educational conveyor belt of despair, discouragement, surveillance, test and drill, with little opportunities to discover the arts, their own youth, humanities, critical thinking and citizenship education.
For more on my writings and comments you can go to dailycensored.com, dissidentvoice.com or Counterpunch.com. Also, my new 1,000 page book on charter schools is out through Grey House Press.
Danny Weil
Rather Broad only chooses to have behind the scenes contact with a set of carefully chosen top level political and bureaucratic elites. In addition, his contact with them is always accompanied by the offering of a great deal of money, or a gift of Broad-trained personnel to work in their organizations. This method insures that Broad's targets will implement the changes he wants – very few, if any, of which have been shown to be effective by objective, academic, non-Broad/Gates/Walton funded research.
Why would a person who is playing such an influential role before the public feel it is necessary to act with such cunning and stealth? As the one pushing such grand plans, why won’t Broad appear in public debates, in the true democratic fashion, especially when he is so involved with generating a permanent alteration of such a major and important public institution?
Eli Broad needs forced to come out from underneath his rock and stand before the public to be made accountable. He needs to be alone on the stage to answer to the masses who are being affected by what he is doing, and don’t want his money, and can’t be paid off. People are sick of seeing the schools in their neighborhoods get destroyed by Broad's "disruptive innovation."
There is a growing network of parents and teachers and other public school supporters from Durham, N.C. to N.Y.C. to Seattle to Portland to Chicago to L.A. to Oakland to Jacksonville, Fl. to Washington D.C. to Portland, and more and more -- who are just waiting for the opportunity to raise their voices to him. People are catching on to Broad’s manipulations and are becoming increasingly outraged, but he slinks around and stays well hidden behind the doors.
http://dailycensored.com/2010/03/07/motor-city-robert-bobbs-ties-to-billionaires-boyz-club-exposed/comment-page-1/#comment-4049
Danny