Everything Is So Fucked

Have you ever visited Annotated Rant? It's hilarious. My favorite is Fuck The South.

I saw a similar rant recently and wanted to share it with you. It's from a Millennial (I assume) in response to The Atlantic's recent article on why Millenials aren't buying anything (cuz their cheap). The following rant explains it's not cuz they're cheap:

Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy

HAHA NO MONAY!!!!!

Maybe our generation aren’t buying houses and cars because EVERYTHING IS SO FUCKED

You want us to actually talk to bank people and get home loans and auto loans? They are still fucking us! Any time I go into a bank, I feel disgusted. You want me to do MORE business with the who want to charge me 5 dollars for every single swipe of my debit card? Get fucked!

You think I’m gonna buy a car? A car? Where am I gonna get the money for a car and the insurance and the insurance against the insurance company if God forbid they decide to do the same things they did to the poor Fisher family and countless others? And fucking GAS? Are you crazy? The planet is dying, and you want me to buy gas at $FUCK.YOU/gallon?

In the past 5 years since the economy fell apart, we’ve been adapting. We’ve been listening to countless horror stories of those who made the risk. Those who saved and did it right, and still ended up with an inferior product with inferior service that RUINS YOUR LIFE. It’s not like ordering a pizza, and instead of sausage, you get cheese. It’s like ordering a pizza and then your credit is ruined and you are flat broke. The pains of acquisition aren’t worth it if it can all be taken away like a bureaucratic fart in the bathtub. It would be smarter to save our money for tickets to god-damn Mars than to invest in these hideous, broken systems.

We aren’t cheap. We fucking hate doing business with you people.

All these pieces on Millennials are so mired in confusion since we don’t even trust journalists any more. The news, our entire lives, has been scary. Think about being 8 and processing the deaths of abortion doctors or homegrown terrorism. Now try to process the news when every asshole on camera just lies. The news hasn’t had an ounce of truth in it for 10 years. Can you not understand how much we don’t trust anyone who is older than us? How can you trust anybody when the president and vice-president of the United States lied to the Secretary of State so they could START THE WRONG WAR!

Fucking seriously.

Also, that graphic? Is that what you think we all look like? Are you fucking kidding me, Atlantic?

I hope they never find out how to market to us. I hope we splinter so much that companies like Ford will have to make a decent product instead of asking the Vomit Spouts that created Jersey Shore how to create MORE fantasies about how great THINGS will make your life. We don’t attach to things because things break. We saw everything break.

But, that’s just me.

h/t TFTT

If It Were About The Children....

Reforming School Reform 

---

by Matthew L. Mandel, NBCT

It’s not about the children.

The education reform movement, at least here in Pennsylvania, may be about a lot of things, but it certainly isn’t about our children.

If it were, efforts to bridge the achievement gap and advance opportunities for all children would look a hell of a lot different.

If it were about children, each and every public school would be awash in resources and technology. A licensed school nurse would be in each and every building so that the health and safety of kids were not compromised. All schools would have these necessities, not just “experimental” and privately-managed schools who are flooded these and then labeled a success.

If it were about children, students in the poorest neighborhoods—those most at-risk—would step into vibrant learning environments each morning—schools that met their intellectual, artistic, and athletic needs and inclinations. Schools would not be turned into grim test-prep facilities, with a curriculum narrowed to core, state-tested subjects. Children would be given a reason to be excited about coming to school, aside from making AYP.

It’s not about the children.

If it were about children, we wouldn’t value differentiated instruction, then test children all the same way.

If it were about children, schools would be as safe as the offices of those politicians in Harrisburg who cut funding to public schools, and then hand out EMO contracts to campaign contributors and others once a school has been labeled a “failure.”

If it were about children, those who cut funding for vital family services would realize the inextricable link between childhood poverty and educational outcomes. These same politicians would be as incensed by children in their state having inadequate nourishment, dental, vision, and medical care as they are about whether same-sex partners have a right to be married.

If it were about children, in Philadelphia, a state takeover charged with both improving financial management and educational outcomes would be put to rest as a failed experiment. A district’s management team wouldn’t be able to run a district into insolvency, say they are sorry, and then move on to lucrative consultant positions. Reformists like Michelle Rhee and Arlene Ackerman—who help to cultivate a culture of testing “irregularities”—wouldn’t be allowed to exit with a golden parachute before being held accountable for the results under their leadership.

If it were about children, boisterous, spotlight-seeking politicians who wax poetic about school vouchers as an elixir for what ills public schools would be required to do their own homework and examine research that compellingly indicates that vouchers don’t work. These same politicians would also be too embarrassed to call the fight for vouchers in Pennsylvania “the Civil Rights battle of our generation.” Our nation’s true Civil Rights leaders died trying to create greater opportunities for those without. Proponents of Senate Bill 1 are crusaders for someone’s interests, just not for our children’s.

If it were about children, legislators who stump for vouchers would have to guarantee a source of funding to bridge the gap between the value of the voucher and the cost of tuition at elite public and private schools. They wouldn’t be allowed to get away with deceiving families with the notion of “choice” when such choice belongs solely to the schools, not to the students and their families.

If it were about children, no Federal mandates could exist unless they were adequately funded.

If it were about children, big money philanthropy wouldn’t be the driving force in education reform; it would be research instead . As in the field of Medicine, what works in the field of Education would be replicated in schools and districts throughout the country. Theories and strategies that do not work would be discarded. Academic historians like Diane Ravitch wouldn’t be labeled “traitors” because they no longer support business-model reforms. An intellectual, not a politician, Ravitch lets research and outcomes influence her conclusions. What a novel idea.

If it were about children, teachers would be held in the highest regard. Those politicians who were bullies with a microphone when I debated them at Bright Hope Baptist Church wouldn’t be allowed to posture that they are the ones “fighting for children.” They are not in classrooms, every day—knee to knee, often amid poor conditions and with inadequate resources—advocating for our youngest and most at-risk. 

If it were about children, those who judge me would be able to do my job—today—not just be able to read a book in front of the cameras. My competency and teaching acumen would not be reduced to elements—such as the quality of my bulletin boards or organization of my students’ constructed response folders—that do not adequately convey my skill and my passion.

And if it were about children, teachers would be respected partners in any dialogue on necessary reforms. In what other profession are practitioners in the field given so little respect for their knowledge, insights, and contributions?

And if it were about children, 

teachers would be respected partners 

in any dialogue on necessary reforms.

None of the above is an apology for what improvements are necessary. No self-respecting professional believes he or she can’t do better and that things don’t need to improve. 

But I choose to believe that a state that can build billion-dollar stadiums, raise millions to save works of art from being relocated, and create impenetrable bubbles of security around visiting dignitaries (in a country that can allocate trillions of dollars in resources to fight with such gallantry and precision in foreign lands) can surely have the ability to effect change that works for all children.

Education reform, here and elsewhere, is about a lot of things. It’s about access to billions of public dollars. It’s about politics and kickbacks for friends and donors. It’s about retaliation and retribution. It’s about religion, right-wing values, and anti-unionism. It’s about creating more, but for fewer, and to hell with the rest. It is, in effect, a form of child abuse in a digestible political wrapper.

But it certainly isn’t about children.

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: Out Of Context Edition

(Crossposted) TFT Has Something To Tell You About Students First: Updated

This was originally posted at my students?first blog.

Michelle Rhee's Students First Facebook page, like Education Nation before it (prompting my Miseducation Nation response), has stopped allowing people to post on their wall. It seems to have happened at around 2pm Pacific on Monday, July 25, 2011.

This tactic is popular with folks who are trying to get their lies believed. They need to obfuscate, cheat and squash any and all dissent, especially dissent with facts to back it up.

Students First is in the business of convincing the public that poverty is a choice and can be overcome. Well, to be fair, they say that since poverty is such a huge problem they have decided to focus on the one factor in a school they know they can get popular support for--teacher bashing. They admit poverty is a much larger problem, and they go on to admit that it's too big for them, so they will focus on teachers, or something.

They are confused. They have no good reason for ignoring poverty as they claim to want to put students first.

Bullshit.

Poverty's effects account for 60-90% of factors negatively impacting a child's ability to learn. Teachers and schools have effects that account for the other 10-40% (most researchers agree that the low number --10% -- is the more accurate measure of the effects. Ninety percent of factors fall outside of school. Rhee want to focus on the 10%, and she want one billion dollars to do it).

If it weren't so dishonest it would be funny.

Update: Here is the proof that my assumption about SF being responsible for cutting off access to posting to their page was on purpose and not a glitch as they first claimed--a claim which has been scrubbed and replaced with the truth:

1) Here we have two comments where the missing SF claim of a glitch used to be. SF's original claim, that is was a glitch, was transposed by Sahila:

"StudentsFirst is not responsible for the removal of wall posting privileges, nor do we sensor any material that is not deemed abusive or profane. Unfortunately, Facebook is experiencing technical difficulties across the platform. We are working on having the issue resolved, thank you for your patience."

It used to be between the 2 comments you see below, but it was removed.

2) Here we have the new comment from SF saying they did it, not FB, and they offer no explanation of the removal of their first comment that was a lie.

So, they lied, and were caught. And Michelle Rhee wants you to trust her. She lied. Again. Again? Yes, again. She lied about her students' scores as a teacher, she lied about all those screwed up teachers she fired as Chancellor (remember they were rehired at huge expense?), she lies about the negative effects of LIFO and tenure, and she lies about the root causes and solutions to poor school performance by our most vulnerable kids.

Why does anyone trust her? Oh, they don't. She's a tool of the Oligarchy, and trust has nothing to do with it.

PISA And The Lies The Reformers Tell (I Got Yer Truth Right Here!) Updated

Results from PISA 2009 disaggregating OECD countries and United States schools by the level of child poverty. Inspired by a blog posting of Mel Riddle, but with new data from UNICEF.

We are #1! America, fuck yeah! (In the graphs, FL means "free lunch" which is America's poverty school  measurement.)

Update: Sorry I didn't post the link to Marder's site before.

Powered by Tableau

Listen To TFT On Blog Talk Radio Monday, 7/18

I will discuss Neil Haley's (the Total Tutor) new conservative radio show where he chooses to lie about the SOS March, among other things.

Should be a good 1/2 hour!

Yong Zhao On Arne Duncan Being "Stunned" About Cheating In Atlanta

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about the cheating scandal in Atlanta?

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said he was “stunned” by the cheating scandal in Atlanta Public Schools revealed last week. Given that English is my second language and I wanted to make sure I do not misunderstand the Secretary’s feelings about one of the largest scandals in U.S. education, I went to dictionary.com and found the following definitions of “stun:”

1. to deprive of consciousness or strength by or as if by a blow, fall, etc.
2. to astonish; astound; amaze.
3. to shock; overwhelm

So what was Mr. Duncan’s feeling? In the spirit of test-based education, this makes a great item on the next standardized test for our children:

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about cheating in Atlanta?

A. He was deprived of consciousness or strength
B. He was astonished, astounded, and amazed
C. He was shocked and overwhelmed
D. All of the above

Using my well-honed testing taking skill developed in China, I went at the task and eliminated “B” and “C” first because both contain the element of “surprise” in that he was surprised to find out there were such massive cheating going on in schools. This cannot be true or I refuse to believe it is true because as Secretary of Education, Mr. Duncan must have read the numerous reports of suspected and confirmed cheating incidents in the nation’s schools, including but not limited to places such as Boston, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago, where he served as its education chief.

Yong Zhao

The "100% Graduation Rate" Lies Have Their Own Website Now

The Gallery of "100% Graduation Rates"

Concord Academy Petoskey, Michigan
Petoskey News, June 3, 2011: 
"Concord Academy Petoskey recently became the state's ninth public school academy (charter school) to attain the status of Michigan School of Excellence."
"Concord's authorizing organization, Lake Superior State University, has offered the Petoskey school a new contract to operate for 10 years as a School of Excellence."       "...last year, Concord posted a 100 percent graduation rate"

Young Women's Leadership Charter School, Chicago IL

From an April 5, 2011 news article on WBEZ 91.5 website:
"Rahm Emanuel said that he wants an all-girls charter school to add another campus in Chicago. The mayor-elect praised the Young Women's Leadership Charter School of Chicago, while glossing over parts of its record.
`You have three hundred applicants for 50 openings in class,' Emanuel told the crowd of the school's supporters at a downtown hotel. `Let's give them another choice in the city of Chicago. Another charter.'
Emanuel called the school's results `quite impressive,' though state records show only 15-percent of high schoolers there met state standards. The mayor-elect twice on Monday cited a `hundred percent graduation rate' at the charter school."

More at the link. h/t Tracey Bowens Douglas

The Charter School Myth Take-down

School Finance 101 is good at explaining data, especially the lies used to misrepresent the data by those who would like to push their charter agenda. To wit:

The Offensively Defensive Ideology of Charter Schooling

There now exists a fair amount of evidence that Charter schools in many locations, especially high performing charter schools in New Jersey and New York tend to serve much smaller shares of low income, special education and limited English proficient students (see various links that follow). And in some cases, high performing charter schools, especially charter middle schools, experience dramatic attrition between 6th and 8th grade, often the same grades over which student achievement climbs, suggesting that a “pushing out” form of attrition is partly accounting for charter achievement levels.

As I’ve stated many times on this blog, the extent to which we are concerned about these issues is a matter of perspective. It is entirely possible that a school – charter, private or otherwise – can achieve not only high performance levels but also greater achievement growth by serving a selective student population, including selection of students on the front end and attrition of students along the way. After all, one of the largest “within school effects on student performance” is the composition of the peer group.

From a parent (or child) perspective, one is relatively unconcerned whether the positive school effect is function of selectivity of peer group and attrition, so long as there is a positive effect.

But, from a public policy perspective, the model is only useful if the majority of positive effects are not due to peer group selectivity and attrition, but rather to the efficacy and transferability of the educational models, programs and strategies. To put it very bluntly, charters (or magnet schools) cannot dramatically improve overall performance in low income communities by this approach, because there simply aren’t enough less poor, fluent English speaking, non-disabled children to go around. They are not a replacement for the current public system, because their successes are in many cases based on doing things they couldn’t if they actually tried to serve everyone.

Again, this is not to say that some high performing charters aren’t essentially effective magnet school programs that do provide improved opportunities for select few. But that’s what they are.
But rather than acknowledging these issues and recognizing charters and their successes for what they are (or aren’t), charter pundits have developed a series of very intriguing (albeit largely unfounded) defensive responses (read excuses) to the available data. These include the arguments that:

Read the rest, and the excellent point by point take-down (and links) here.

Michelle Rhee Admits Teachers Are "Immeasurable" Among Other Things

In this interview Michelle Rhee admits that teachers, great teachers anyway, are immeasurable. She also says that tons of standardized tests are a great way for parents to know, bi-weekly, how their kid is doing. She never mentions that parents can actually call teachers, visit the classroom their kid is in, schedule a meeting, look through their kid's backpack and see what is going on, or any other pro-active method of caring for your own child.

Oh, and she does some spinning of the investigation of her erasures, which can only be explained as cheating.

Arne Duncan Claims More Untruths

Stephen Krashen makes 3 points in rebuttal to Arne's article today [I will give you #1]:

1. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that his policies succeed in overcoming poverty:

Duncan states that schools and their "local partners" are "overcoming poverty" by "investing in teachers, rebuilding school staff, lengthening the school day and changing curricula."

I know of no evidence that this is so. Rather, the research indicates that there are very few high-performing schools in high poverty conditions. Also, to my knowledge, no detailed studies have emerged with descriptions of rebuilt schools with longer days showing consistent, startling progress.

There have been occasional media reports (e.g. Felch, Song and Poindexter, 2010), but these cases of improvement are sketchy. It is not clear whether scores are being pumped up by test prep or are the result of genuine teaching and learning.

The lack of comparison groups makes it impossible to dismiss the possibility that all students in the district are getting better, possibly due to the introduction of new tests and "test inflation," improvement due to greater familiarity with the test. Gerald Bracey (2009) reported that one highly publicized "success story" published in The New York Times about the Harvard Promise Academy, was true only for one grade, one subject and for one year.

Duncan gives the impression that "overcoming poverty" happens all the time under his administration. There is no real evidence that it happens at all.

Stephen Krashen

10 Things About Charters (I'll Give You #10)

10. Even great teachers can only do so much.

Much of the public debate over charter schools focuses on teacher performance and the ability to fire ineffective teachers – something that’s more difficult at a traditional public school where teachers are typically union members. While it’s true that teachers represent the most important in-school factor affecting student performance, out-of-school factors matter more, Ravitch says. “The single biggest predictor of student performance is family income,” she says. “I certainly wish it were not so, but it is.” Children from higher-income families get a huge head start thanks to better nutrition, a larger vocabulary spoken at home and other factors, she says. The narrative that blames teachers for problems that are rooted in poverty “is demoralizing teachers by the thousands,” Ravitch says. “And you don’t improve education by demoralizing the people who have to do the work every day.”

Smart Money

Mike Rose Takes Reformers To Task, Deservedly So

I have great respect for Mike Rose's opinions on education. He is one of the smartest education bloggers (he's actually a highly respected academic, but he blogs) out there. He studies this stuff, and has for a long time. His opinion matters. Let's hope those who pay the bills (bribes?) listen.

Threats to school reform ... are within school reform

This was written by Mike Rose, who is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is the author of “Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America" and "Why School?: Reclaiming Education for all of Us.”

By Mike Rose

Here’s an all-too-familiar storyline about reform, from education to agricultural development: The reform has run its course, has not achieved its goals, and the reformers and other analysts speculate in policy briefs or opinion pages about what went wrong. The interesting thing is that the reform’s flaws were usually evident from the beginning.

As someone who has lived through several periods of educational reform and has studied schools and taught for a long time, I see characteristics of the current reform movement, as powerful as it is, that could lead to unintended and undesirable consequences. But when reform is going strong it can become a closed ideological system, deaf to the cautionary tale.

I have six areas of concern:

Tone down the rhetoric

In the manifesto “How to Fix Our Schools” published on October 10 in The Washington Post, New York City’s chancellor, Joel Klein and 14 colleagues wrote: “It’s time for all the adults – superintendents, educators, elected officials, labor unions, and parents alike – to start acting like we are responsible for the future of our children.” The collective “we” is used here, but it’s pretty clear rhetorically that the signatories believe that they are already on the side of the angels. Anyone who is not on board with their reforms is acting out of self interest.

This is not the way to foster the unified effort called for in the sentence. Reformers have been masterful at characterizing anyone who differs from their approach as “traditionalists” who want to maintain the status quo, putting their own retrograde professional interests ahead of the good of children. Teachers unions are the arch-villain in this Manichean tale of good and evil, and schools of education are right behind.

I’m reminded of the toxic rhetoric of patriotism that characterized the 2008 presidential campaign. So, if I may, in the interest of the children, I suggest a less adversarial language. Many of the people on the receiving end of it have spent a lifetime working for the same goals voiced by the reformers, and the reformers need their expertise.

There is another language issue, and that’s the unrelenting characterization of public schools as failures. To be sure, this crisis rhetoric predates the current reformers, going back to the 1983 document “A Nation at Risk.” Since then, the language of crisis and failure has intensified. Crisis talk can give rise to action, but heard consistently enough and long enough, such rhetoric can also lead to despair and paralysis.

There is a crisis in American education, and it involves mostly poor children, and thus it is a moral as well as educational outrage. But it is just not accurate to characterize public education itself as being in a 30-year crisis.

Steven Brill Gets Math Lesson About Charter vs. Public Schools

Steven Brill wrote a bunch of crap in the New York Times Magazine and is taken to task by Valerie Strauss:

Charters vs. public schools: Behind the numbers

...It is worth noting that education historian Diane Ravitch reported in her book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System" that only about 100 of the 40,000 homeless schoolchildren in New York City public schools are enrolled in charter schools.

Charter school advocates don’t have to make bogus comparisons to boost their argument in favor of an expansion of these institutions.

The truth may not be as compelling, but it has the virtue of being, well, true. Some charter schools are excellent and work wonders with kids. Some do an average job, and some are awful. There is no evidence that charter schools are the silver bullet that will “save” public education....[emphasis mine]

h/t Valerie Strauss

Lies Of Omission

Speaking before about 1,000 cadets -- many of whom will be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan -- Obama cited continuing threats to the U.S. by violent extremists while proclaiming that American intervention has “brought hope” to the Afghan people.

“The war began only because our own cities and civilians were attacked by violent extremists who plotted from that distant place, and it continues only because that plotting persists to this day,” Obama said in prepared remarks at the military academy in upstate New York.

I'm sure certain that Obama gets briefings every day, and that those briefings inform him that there's no Al Qaeda in Afghanistan any more, that Al Qaeda and the various varieties of Taliban are not joined at the hip, that Al Qaeda's closest Taliban allies, like AQ itself, is now headquartered in and mostly concerned with Pakistan. Yet in front of 1,000 young Americans who will be asked to lay down their lives, if needed, for their nation - he lied.

I'm also sure that his briefings tell him that a vast majority of the residents of Kandahar would prefer that their "hope" not be brought at gunpoint, but by reconciliation - yet McChrystal's summer offensive operation, campaign process gesture will proceed there anyway. And that most Afghans beyond Kandahar would prefer that too. And that in any case the Kandahar gesture will now only begin after the 12 months that McChrystal said was the crucial period in Afghanistan, raising questions about the general's competence and honesty. Yet in front of 1,000 young Americans who will be asked to lay down their lives, if needed, for their nation, he mentioned none of this - he lied by omission.

From Newshoggers

I Am An Atheist Jew, Like My 13-Year-Old Son: Huh?

I went to a bar mitzvah today. I had to. I reacted viscerally. Let me explain.

Those of you who are regular readers are probably aware of my atheism. What you may not know is my Jewish history.

I was created by a "Jewish" father and a "Christian" mother. Apparently--I don't remember--we had a Christmas tree for the first couple years of my life. My dad (whose mother emigrated from Russia in 1910--she's the little girl in the picture) couldn't stand it, so it ended. From then on, again apparently, my family was Jewish. Mom did not convert, mainly because we were not religious. At all. Never went to temple. As a child my mother and her family were not religious either. Neither my dad, my brother nor I were bar mitzvahed. It was just a religious thing anyway, and who really believes a 13-year-old becomes a man by reading some Torah?

The Frustrated Family were just a bunch of cultural Jews, with a shiksa as our leader. Indeed, in my large extended family (those are 2 parents and their children in the picture--all of whose descendants have Seder together in L.A., where most of them live) my goyishe mother was considered the glue that holds the family together. That's how it was most of my life. Now that she has moved, she is merely a participant, like me.

I went to Jewish summer camps as a kid, was a counselor, and as a young adult I ran a few. That was my Jewish identity. The cultural Jew. The non-religious Jew. To some Jews, I would be considered a bad Jew; or worse, some might call me a self-hating Jew (I have been so accused). I love chopped liver and corned beef sandwiches. I felt connected to all my ancestors who were killed, sent away and harassed for millenniums. To be a Jew, in my mind, was to be part of a culture. We were a people, not a religion.

Summer camp was all about culture. We did the prayer before the meal, but we did it "Dixie" style, because praying is stoopid. Jews praying seemed to be marginally important compared to the things Jews in my life stood for: equality, fairness, intellectual curiosity, and social justice. The religious thing just never struck me.

The most important thing I got from being an "affiliated" Jew were friendships that last to this day. I was connected to a high-quality group of people. That is all good, and I want that for my son.

My son will be 13 in June. His mother (we are not together--haven't been since his birth) wanted him to go to Hebrew school. Her other 2 kids, now grown, did not. I think she deferred to her goyishe ex-husband and didn't think much about her, and subsequently her kids', Jewishness. It wasn't a big thing for her.

But with our son, possibly because her other son is lately feeling his Jewishness, she wanted it.

I was therefore confronted with a tough issue; I am an atheist. I become more atheist every day, it seems.

When she told me she wanted our son to go to Hebrew school, at the temple where I had run the camp, I decided not to make much of it. The kid wanted it, she wanted it, and I know my influence on our son is such that a little religious nonsense would not make him believe in fairies (or god). Besides, the cantor was an old rocker and we were friendly (we collaborated when I was camp director). I figured everything would be fine.

On the day we went to temple to talk with the rabbi about enrolling the kid in Jew school I had one question. After her schpiel, I asked if I could speak to the rabbi alone. I asked her, in private, if she tells the students the Torah/bible/old testament is the word of god, or just a bunch of stories. She convinced me she was not going to suck the empiricism out of the kid, so I said fine. So I told his mother, go for it! But I won't pay.

So the kid has been going for a couple years and this is his bar mitzvah year. He goes to the bima in August. Today was his good friend's bar mitzvah, and my first in a long, long time.

As I sat there, alone in the back, listening and watching, I felt horrible. I was tense. I nodded my head in disagreement, like Justice Alito. I watched the grown ups, with their talit, daven and close their eyes. I watchhed them gently leave their seat to go tell others to pick the prayer book up off the floor (there are no pews, just folding chairs). I watched the gay rabbi and the transgendered rabbinic assistant do their jew/rabbi thing, all the time saying things to myself like:

This is so obviously full of shit. Men hold the torah!

Why is the rabbi touching the kid's head? Is he channeling Jesus?

Don't put the prayer book on the ground, but let anyone go to the bima!? Even women and homos?!

I am not a homophobe. I am not sexist. I thought these things because if traditions can be jettisoned in the name of equality, why can't the whole kit and caboodle be jettisoned in the name of sanity?

I listened to the rabbi and the bar mitzvah boy talk about god. I know this kid. He has never mentioned god. Nor has my son, except to tell me his atheism is kept quiet at temple because there are some true believers there.

And here is where the visceral nature of everything comes into focus. My son, who by his own admission is an atheist, is being required to maintain a mountain of religious nonsense to please his mother (also not religious--but very "spiritual") and to not make himself uncomfortable in the presence of these true believers--folks who might label him a bad Jew. I cannot countenance that. But, what choice do I have?

Fortunately my kid is hip to all the crap. He knows the only reason to keep going is because of the friends he has made and will keep, and the work he has put in. It is not about religion for him. It is about fun and feeling the satisfaction of accomplishing something after putting in a lot of work. He makes me very proud.

As soon as it was over I left. I love the family. I love the bar mitzvah boy, who has spent many nights here with my son. They are best friends.

My strong reaction tells me how hard it will be at my own kid's bar mitzvah. I will have to go up on the bima with him. I will have to listen to him artfully interpret the Torah portion so as not to compromise his integrity and at the same time not offend anyone. He can do it. But why?

I am an old curmudgeon. He is young and full of life. I need to watch myself as we near the culmination of this Jewish silliness.

The Bogus Recovery

Bob Reich reminds us that just because some greedy bastards are getting rich from our misery that does not mean we are in a recovery.

Are we finally in a recovery? Who’s “we,” kemosabe? Big global companies, Wall Street, and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments are clearly doing better. As to the rest of us – small businesses along Main Streets, and middle and lower-income Americans – forget it.

Business cheerleaders naturally want to emphasize the positive. They assume the economy runs on optimism and that if average consumers think the economy is getting better, they’ll empty their wallets more readily and – presto! – the economy will get better. The cheerleaders fail to understand that regardless of how people feel, they won’t spend if they don’t have the money.

The US economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. That sounds good until you realize GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy. For example, part of the increase is due to rising health care costs. When WellPoint ratchets up premiums, that enlarges the GDP. But you’d have to be out of your mind to consider this evidence of a recovery.

Part of the perceived growth in GDP is due to rising government expenditures. But this is smoke and mirrors. The stimulus is reaching its peak and will be smaller in months to come. And a bigger federal debt eventually has to be repaid.

So when you hear some economists say the current recovery is following the traditional path, don’t believe a word. The path itself is being used to construct the GDP data.

Rob Tisinai: Nonsense Assassin

Protect the children, and mean it!

h/t Sully

Michelle Rhee: "[They] Hit Children...Had Sex With Children..." Updated, Updated and Updated

She looks mean

The Washington Teacher, who you should bookmark, is worried Michelle Rhee might be insane. She points us to Jeff Chu at Fast Company as evidence:

Eighteen months after we profiled Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee ("The Iron Chancellor," September 2008), she still hasn't won union approval of a new contract. After the October layoffs of 266 teachers and staff, the union claimed Rhee used a budget crunch as a pretext for dismissing veteran teachers, since seniority rules don't cover cuts for fiscal reasons. "I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school," Rhee says. "Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?" The release of 2009 test scores was good news for Rhee: Only D.C. and four states showed gains in math for fourth and eighth graders. "We're not good yet," she says, "but I'm seeing the quality of instruction improving."

So, that's Rhee's claim. Hard to believe.

If you go to the article link you can read some comments. One, by someone who claims to be a psychologist, is very worried about Ms. Rhee's mental state. I think there are a few of us who are worried!

Update: Candi sent along this email of Bill Turque's followup:

Rhee says laid-off teachers in D.C. abused kids
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 23, 2010

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee told a national business magazine that some of the 266 teachers laid off in October's budget reductions had sex with children or had hit them, a claim immediately and angrily challenged Friday by leaders of the Washington Teachers Union.

Rhee's comments appear in the February issue of Fast Company, a magazine aimed at young entrepreneurs and change-minded corporate executives. In a brief item, Rhee addressed the union allegation that she contrived the budget crunch to circumvent seniority rules and rid the system of older teachers.

"I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school. Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?" she said.

Rhee declined to provide specific numbers Friday or details to substantiate her remarks about sexual misconduct and teachers striking students. Neither did she respond when asked by e-mail why such teachers were allowed to remain in the school system before the Oct. 2 job cuts. D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said late Friday that she was researching the matter.

"I cannot comment at this time," she said.

George Parker, president of the teachers union, called Rhee's statements "reckless" and without basis in fact. The union usually receives notice from the District when a teacher faces disciplinary action, Parker said, and he has received no information that any of the 266 had been under investigation for sexual offenses against children. One of the 266 faced action for administering corporal punishment, he said.

"This paints all teachers as being a group of child molesters who assault children and don't come to work," Parker said. "It damages the reputation of a lot of innocent, hardworking, dedicated teachers."

Rhee said she had made similar statements in other venues, including her October 29 apearance before the D.C. Council. Rhee's sworn testimony then did not mention teachers having sex with students. When council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) asked whether she would fight any attempt to reinstate the 266 teachers, Rhee said she would.

"There were some promising or effective people who were [laid off], but there were also some people who, quite frankly, if you saw what was in their file and what their situations have been in this city, you would be shocked," Rhee said. "Just to give a little sampling of this, six of the [laid off] employees had served suspensions for corporal punishment. One was suspended four times, three times for being AWOL."

As Brown attempted to cut her off, she added: "For you to say, 'Would I fight all 266 people coming back into the system,' I would, because a number of these people are not people that you or I would want to put in their classroom."
Word of Rhee's comments to Fast Company rippled through the teaching ranks, with some expressing outrage.

The union's general vice president, Nathan Saunders, said Rhee owes the city's teacher corps an apology. "The statements are not only an affront to every single teacher that was [laid off] but every single teacher currently employed in D.C. public schools," Saunders said. "It's irresponsible, and she needs to be taken to task for it."

Other union activists said they were especially offended by Rhee's remarks, in light of the recent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by her fiancé, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.

Before Johnson's 2008 election, the inspector general for the federal Corporation for National and Community Service filed a criminal referral with the U.S. attorney in Sacramento about Johnson. It included allegations that Johnson had inappropriately touched a minor girl and climbed into bed with a teenager who worked for the charter school he founded. The school received funding from Americorps, which is part of the community service corporation.
Johnson was not charged.

"I'm ready to recommend that Chancellor Rhee submit for a fitness for duty examination because these are the rants of either a mad or very confused woman," Candi Peterson, a teacher and member of the union's board of trustees, said on the Washington Teacher blog.

This seems to me to be among the most egregious abuses of power I have ever seen. Michelle Rhee is claiming, with NO support/proof, that she fired teachers not for the reasons given at the time but because now, with no substantiation, she has decided to say that these teachers did horrible things to kids--with no proof (well, there is the one case of corporal punishment, but to paint the entire group with this broad brush is wrong, and maybe criminal)! And if it turns out there is proof of abuse of students by teachers, why were they not fired for it, or at minimum placed on paid administrative leave while it was investigated? Who has the responsibility to see that every student has a safe learning environment? Guess who...The Chancellor (they really need to change that to Superintendent)!

The little people, like you and me, need to speak up and expose these abuses by the powerful. We need to do it more, and with real paper/envelope letters. Blogs are great (especially Candi's and this one), but we can't really do anything except preach to the choir. I am in California, but what happens in DC is illustrative of what is happening nationwide.

I support the wrongly accused. I stand with them. We are all RIFed Teachers!

Update II:
ABC News7:

Update III: Michelle Rhee responds.

Rhee Response Concerning Student Safety

Arne Duncan's Ren10 Is A Confirmed Failure

Mike Klonsky has been exposing Arne Duncan's failure as Chicago schools CEO regularly. Now with the exposure of the truth about Duncan's Ren10 failure, Klonsky takes his well-deserved shot (sans links):

Duncan should apologize


I can't help but look back to 2006, when in response to our early critical assessment of Ren10, Arne Duncan wrote:

Academics are supposed to stick to the facts and remain impartial, but Ayers and Klonsky have clearly failed the test...Closing and reopening a failing school is an absolute last resort, intended only for the small handful of schools that have consistently underperformed while the rest of the system has made steady and dramatic gains...All of us in Chicago are grateful to Ayers and Klonsky for their work with small schools in our city and their continuing commitment to education, but they need to get their facts straight.

Duncan's response was at best misleading. He is calling for the closing of thousands of schools, not as a "last resort" but as the mainstay of his mandated Race-To-The-Top strategy and threatening the losses of badly needed school funding if states and districts fail to comply.

He owes us and more importantly, the children and parents of Chicago Public Schools an apology for what they've been put through. He also needs to get HIS OWN facts straight. Reading the recent studies from the Civic Committee, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, the Washington Post, or even the Sunday Trib would be a good start. The verdict is in on Renaissance 2010 and on the myth of the Chicago Miracle.

Finally, he needs to stop reproducing, on a national level, his now obviously failed Ren10 strategy.