Mark Naison: Are parents and their children doomed to ten years of torture introduced in the name of “restoring national competitiveness,” “preparing young people for the job market” and “weeding out bad teachers?”
America’s War on Teachers
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Mark Naison: One question we must ask is why this campaign has acquired such strong bipartisan support and why the public has not spoken out more against it.
Care to Talk about LAUSD Staff Disciplinary Process?
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Leonard Isenberg: If you are finding what Superintendent John Deasy is saying about the LAUSD disciplinary process to be something less than factual, now is your chance to have your say, while maintaining you anonymity.
Creating Cruel and Unusual Punishment for Our Nation’s Children
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Mark Naison: The punitive, stress-filled environment that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Hop has created is good for no one’s children. But it is especially damaging to children who come to school hungry and fearful because their families are living on the edge.
The Real Culprits in America’s Decline Are Shifting Responsibility to Schools and Teachers
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Mark Naison: Are 28 percent of the homes in the United States under water because of union teachers? Can they also be blamed for the 44 percent Black unemployment rate in the city of Milwaukee?
LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s Fairytale
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Leonard Isenberg: Harry Truman used to have a sign on his desk, “The buck stops here.” LAUSD’s John Deasy should have one on his desk, “The buck never stops here.”
American Schools: When “The Best and The Brightest” Don’t Have the Answers
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Mark Naison: President and his chief education adviser, Arne Duncan, believed that a key problem in America’s schools was the low quality of the people working in them, they felt no need to include principals and teachers.
Turning the Tide: An Historian’s View of School Reform
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Mark Naison: Over time, people of courage and integrity will turn the tide and begin to restore sanity to educational discourse and develop a powerful alliance of teachers, parents and students, supported first by the Occupy movement, and later by unions, religious organizations and progressive politicians.
Worse Off Today Than in the Sixties: Who Gives a Damn?
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Rodolfo Acuna: The major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.
Friday Feedback: Attacks on Teachers
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This week, an article by Mark Naison, “How Attacks on Teachers and Government Workers Will Impact All Our Lives,” drew the following exchange between Ryder and Steve Wider.
Fox News Coming to Aid of LAUSD “Rubber Room” Teachers?
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Leonard Isenberg: Now since Mrs. Isenberg didn’t have any dummies for children, I wonder what Fox would want from me, since calling me a progressive would be a major understatement.
Why Teachers Must Become Community Organizers and Justice Fighters
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Mark Naison: Teacher Activists must put forth a vision of Radical Democracy which envisions an education which empowers students as critical thinkers and agents of historical change, not just as obedient test takers and which envisions schools playing a central role in neighborhoods united and mobilized to get a fair share of the nation’s resources.
Occupy LAUSD — Again!
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On Saturday, October 22, at 4:30 p.m., teachers from across California will walk from the California Teachers Association (CTA) conference at the Bonaventure Hotel to speak and rally at the site of the Occupy LAUSD encampment in front of LAUSD headquarters.
Hundreds March for Occupy LAUSD
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Marcy Winograd: Let our schools serve the 99% of students, parents, and teachers, not the 1% of billionaires. Protect and empower public education.
Friday Feedback: “LAUSD’s Apartheid Hall of Shame (Part One)”
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Friday Feedback: This week, Sylvia Pardo comments on Sikivu Hutchinson’s article, “LAUSD’s Apartheid Hall of Shame (Part One),” and Sharon Kyle responds.
A.J. Duffy: Truly a Man for All Seasons
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Leonard Isenberg: It is the ultimate chutzpah for LAUSD to now laud the supposed achievements of its students, while turning a blind eye to the corruption that tries to sell this fraudulent result to the people of Los Angeles.
Anti-Teacher Union “Reformers” Hoisted on Own Petard
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Randy Shaw: After years of teachers union bashing and corporate-led school “reform” efforts, anti-public school forces are now on the defensive. And the main reason is that the statistical measurements do not support their arguments, and even show a pattern of falsification.
It Takes Strength to Compromise — and It Costs Less, Too
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Tanya Acker: There is a lot of discussion these days about the detriments of compromise. When you compromise, for instance, certain people may claim you don’t stick to your guns and decide not to vote for you.
Why Teach For America Is Not Welcome in My Classroom
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Mark Naison: Every spring, without fail, a Teach for America recruiter approaches me and asks if they can come to my classes and recruit students for TFA, and every year, without fail, I give them the same answer: “Sorry.”
The National Education Association Flunks a Crucial Test
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: As long as the N.E.A. as well as organized labor in general remain tied to the corporate-dominated Democratic Party, public education will deteriorate, critical thinking will be undermined, wages will remain low, and the working class will continue to suffer a decline.
Keeping Public Schools Public
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Craig Williams: As progressives, we should also argue that educators need more funding just to deal with the increased poverty created in large part by the private sector.
Let the Teachers Teach
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Jim Cullen: For me the most compelling questions in terms of improving historical literacy turn less on what we want students to know—I have no serious disagreement with what I see here—than how we can help them know it.
Why Obama Must Replace Arne Duncan
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Mark Naison: Today, America’s teachers are so disillusioned with the Obama administration that their participation in the 2012 is a big question mark.
George Carlin Understood Why LAUSD Does Not Educate
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Leonard Isenberg: George Carlin puts it rather succinctly when he says, “They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.”
California Teacher Credentialing Corruption Ignored
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Leonard Isenberg: The preconceived “dominant narrative” that mainstream media is programmed to spew out all over this country that vilifies and lays all blame for bad public education on teachers is allowed to trump reality of corruption and fraud from LAUSD.
Deception Alert: “Liberal” Huffingtonpost Distorts the Education Debate
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Adam Eran: Waiting for a race of cyborg/celebrity super-teachers distracts from the egregious income inequality and the childhood poverty that worsens educational outcomes in the U.S.
The Death of Public Service
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Steve Hochstadt: Republican governors across the country argue that teachers and police and all the other employees of local and state governments make much too much money.
A Crash Course for LAUSD’s New Superintendent John Deasy
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Leonard Isenberg: Superintendent Deasy is smart. I just haven’t figured out whether he is naive or ignorant about what is going on at LAUSD or he just hasn’t had the time to figure it out yet.
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Top 10 Most Read Led by “Blaming Schools and Teachers”
Topping this week’s list is, once again, Mark Naison, the Fordham University professor and editor of With a Brooklyn Accent, who writes so passionately on issues of education and race..