Why Are Things As They Are?

These good-for-the-rest-of-your life posters are available online.

Remember Proposals are Due, April 15, for the Rouge Forum Conference
rougeforumconference.org/

Send Your Articles, Photos, Cartoons, for the RF News to Community Coordinator Adam Renner.

On the Little Rouge School Front:

CTA is the Biggest Campaign Spender in California: “ $211,849,298″
www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/all-in-favor-politics/2010/mar/10/report-details-special-interests-campaign-spending/

“Fire All the Teachers” Demagogue Becomes Good Cop on NCLB: “The new proposals would require states to use annual tests, along with other indicators, to divide the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools into three groups: some 10,000 to 15,000 high-performing schools that would receive rewards or recognition, some 5,000 chronically failing schools requiring vigorous state intervention, and 80,000 or so schools in the middle that would be encouraged to figure out on their own how to improve.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/education/14child.html?hp

AFT Welcomes Common National Standards (ya cannot make this stuff up): “The new standards released on March 10 by the Common Core State Standards Initiative represent the best effort so far to transform today’s patchwork quilt of 50 sets of state standards into one set of strong, consistent expectations for what all students should know and learn, AFT president Randi Weingarten says.”
mi.aft.org/dft231/index.cfm?action=article&articleID=c090cf98-74f9-4e68-be1e-14e25fb72272

WashPost: National Regimented Curricula Require Racist Tests: “We will need tests—they will likely evolve into national tests—that are aligned with the new standards. That means changing the annual tests already used in some states, and overcoming the still widespread view that national testing undercuts states rights.”
voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/03/national_standards_need_nation.html

Emily Alpert on Apartheid U. That is, UCSD: Black students are a rarity at UCSD. Only 1.6 percent of its undergraduate students are black, a stat that has become a rallying cry after an escalating series of racially offensive events around the university… voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_ee910f9a-2cc3-11df-a9e8-001cc4c03286.html

Paul Moore: “Letter: I teach at the ‘Central Falls High School’ of Miami, Florida, and we won’t let you scapegoat us for your problems.” www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1222&section=Article

Detroit Board Joins George Washington (yes) In Lawsuit Against Bobb: “The Detroit Public School Board unanimously voted Monday night to file a second lawsuit against Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, saying $145,000 in private foundation support he receives under his new contract is unlawful.” www.detnews.com/article/20100309/SCHOOLS/3090359/Detroit-Schools-board-sues-Robert-Bobb-over-private-compensation#ixzz0hkn4GuNr

On March 12th the Detroit Federation of Teachers leadership announced on their web site that they would join the lawsuit against Broad’s Bobb while the community began to respond to the Skillman plan to abolish the Detroit School Board. “Union and community activists at a school board meeting Thursday night said they were outraged by the plan to get rid of the board, while many parents were divided, and Mayor Dave Bing said he’d only take on the responsibility if voters agreed.”
www.detnews.com/article/20100312/SCHOOLS/3120369/1026/Control-of-Detroit-Public-Schools-splits-community#ixzz0i1zkTH8Q

Financial Manager Bobb Throws DPS into Deepest Debt Ever: “• Instead of a $17 million surplus Bobb projected for this fiscal year, spending has increased so much Bobb is projecting a $98 million deficit for the budget year that ends June 30…(and proves concessions don’t save jobs)…The financial situation will be managed, Bobb said, if a number of measures take place for the fiscal year that begins this summer. Among them: eliminating 2,100 positions to save $128.8 million; reducing health care costs by $47 million; saving $8 million through outsourcing transportation; and closing an estimated 41 schools.”
www.detnews.com/article/20100310/SCHOOLS/3100376/1026/schools/DPS-deficit-grows-under-Bobb#ixzz0hoZdBAgV
www.detnews.com/article/20100310/SCHOOLS/3100376/DPS-deficit-grows-under-Bobb#ixzz0hkozJ8Dq

Detroit News Editorial: Back the Tyrant; Fire the Teachers and Let the Union Help! “Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson says his leadership team will hold a review today to decide whether to eject Conn and other such teachers from the union for their actions. That seems appropriate. It’s not up to individual teachers to decide what policies they’ll abide by. The union has agreed to some of the changes the dissidents are trying to block. Bobb should fire educators who are actively working to undermine district policies during school hours.
www.detnews.com/article/20100309/OPINION01/3090319/1008/opinion01/Editorial–Detroit-school-board–allies-try-to-stop-to-stop-reform-from-within#ixzz0hocnsTct

Bobb, Skillman, Broad, et al, Plan to Seize Detroit Schools–Close 40: “A coalition of education leaders and foundations will unveil today a sweeping academic reform agenda that targets failing schools, calls for 70 new programs and launches a national effort to recruit principals. The $200 million plan also aims to build community support this year to eliminate the Detroit Board of Education and make the mayor accountable for Detroit Public Schools….Other initiatives include the effort from the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which did not sign off on the plan but was engaged in the talks to develop it, to open its own school,”
www.detnews.com/article/20100311/SCHOOLS/3110440/Detroit-targets-failing-schools-in-new-academic-plan-#ixzz0hqiGKoPW
www.detnews.com/article/20100311/SCHOOLS/3110440/Detroit-targets-failing-schools-in-new-academic-plan-#ixzz0hqhX8XEL

Who is Michigan Future Inc? www.michiganfuture.org/about-michigan-future/leadership-council/

Could it Be A Pattern? KC to Close Half of its Schools: “The Kansas City Board of Education voted Wednesday night to close almost half of the city’s public schools, accepting a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink the system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit.In a 5-to-4 vote, the members endorsed the Right-Size plan, proposed by the schools superintendent, John Covington, to close 28 of the city’s 61 schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs, including those of 285 teachers.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/11kansascity.html?hp

Texas Loves Them Textbooks: Tx, Fla, and California set the social studies standards in textbooks because they make huge, state-wide, purchases.www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig“In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ””Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”) “The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.”

The They Say Cut Back; We Say Fight Back Front:

New York City March 4th Action (with short video):
forpubliced.blogspot.com/

Greece Rising: ATHENS (Dow Jones)–Greek police fired tear gas and percussion grenades Thursday as violence marred a protest by an estimated 50,000 people who joined in the latest nationwide general strike against the government’s austerity program. In a clash involving 200 to 300 anarchists and riot police, the police pushed back the group, which responded by throwing projectiles. There were also separate clashes reported outside of the Greek parliament, Agence France Presse reported. Meanwhile, near the city’s main university further street battles broke out between police and anarchist protesters.  “http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100311-705838.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope

And Video History of Rebellions in Greece:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKriq2pf-7A&feature=related

Bob Koehler: The Image in My Mind: Schools in Orange Jump Suits:

Schools in Orange Jumpsuits

Washington State Students Sing Over Legislature to Protest Budget Cuts:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ojNkOPkftw

On the Perpetual War Front: March on March 20th, Anniversary of the Invasion—

Iraq Opposition Alleges Massive Vote Fraud:
news.sg.msn.com/top-stories/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3943041

Censorship in Afghanistan via Death To Journalists:
kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article4789

On the Ooops there Goes the Economy Front:

MP3 Tomcast Interview with Michelle Alexander on the Age of Obama as a Racist Nightmare:
tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-jim-crow.html
and her fine essay: www.tomdispatch.com/post/175215/tomgram:_michelle_alexander,_the_age_of_obama_as_a_racial_nightmare/

And Tomgram on the US Ponzi Schemes: “The wave of financial crime may have peaked in 2005 or 2006, but the detritus of such collapsed schemes has left regulators and investigators ever busier. Almost four times as many Ponzi schemes broke down in 2009 — 150 — as in 2008 — 40. According to the Associated Press, the FBI began more than 2,100 securities fraud cases last year, an increase from 1,750 the year before.”
www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175217/tomgram%3A_andy_kroll%2C_welcome_to_america%2C_sucker

There is Nothing Wrong With the Air at Ground Zero, Nothing Wrong, Nothin…. “A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached in the cases of thousands of rescue and cleanup workers at ground zero who sued the city over damage to their health, according to city officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs.” www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/science/earth/12zero.html?hp

Tidbit One: If you would like an invitation to the black-tie optional Charter 2010 gala to celebrate the University of California’s 142 anniversary, all you have to do is email Susan Ohanian and get her invitation, then get ten friends with $250 dollars each and mail your total in. It is at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Valet Parking available of course. Diane Feinstein will be there.

Tidbit Two: March 14 is Albert Einstein’s Birthday (1879) and, in 1883, Karl Marx died.

Classics and Poems:
For this week, an excerpt from Einstein on “Why Socialism?” The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals….www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php

Songs: The Internationale, in Greek:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPXGRD3A6FY

Thanks to Faith, Ofira, Amber, Wayne, Adam and Gina, Mr J and Z, Donna, Sherry, Marc and Bonnie, Carl, Peter M, Steve R, Kay T, Sandy H, Sally, the Susans, Lauren, Jovani, Marisol, Arturo, Jesus, Terry, Toby, Rona, Matt, Ken and Barb, Gil, and Bob.

Good luck to us, every one.

r