Rouge Forum Update: September 11 Hysteria Edition
Reminder: Nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee go to Community Coordinator Adam Renner at adamrenner70@gmail.com by Septembeer 15. Rouge Forum conference authors/presenters, please send your finished work to Adam.
and don’t forget to strike on October Seventh!
Little Red Schoolhouse
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vcgCG60tw8&feature=watch_response
Real Authentic Rooted in Life Assessment (no kidding): The Learning Record provides an architecture and process for documenting student progress and achievement, based on interviews, observations over time, samples of students’ naturally-occurring work, and well-supported interpretations of learning across five dimensions. It is an evidence-based assessment with a deep foundation in learning theory and research. An 8-page print form (The Primary Language Record) was originally developed by London teachers and researchers to facilitate the process, gather information, and present it consistently. This information is collected and organized using a simple Word or RTF document that links to a selection of student work, prepared over the course of a semester or school year.
The Learning Record provides a way of accounting for learning that is richer and more meaningful than standardized testing, yet offers much more consistency and comparability across student populations than conventional portfolio assessment. It can serve as the sole record of students’ achievement, or it can be used to inform and support conventional grading.
www.learningrecord.org/contents.html
Versus
Value Added Assessment (Pro): What is value-added assessment?
Value-added assessment is a new way of analyzing test data that can measure teaching and learning. Based on a review of students’ test score gains from previous grades, researchers can predict the amount of growth those students are likely to make in a given year. Thus, value-added assessment can show whether particular students – those taking a certain Algebra class, say – have made the expected amount of progress, have made less progress than expected, or have been stretched beyond what they could reasonably be expected to achieve. Using the same methods, one can look back over several years to measure the long-term impact that a particular teacher or school had on student achievement. www.cgp.upenn.edu/ope_value.html
The Racist Common Core Standards (note the good bibliography at end): “I believe the standards movement is generally a decoy. I don’t care whether it’s a Democrat or Republican who calls for it. When people put so much emphasis on standards as a school reform tool, it means that they want to act like they’re performing a reform effort, but they’re actually moonwalking. They look like they’re going forward but they’re going backwards.” www.blackeducationnow.org/id17.html
New Tests! With Computers! ($330 million): With a federal award of $330 million, California and 43 other states joined Thursday to replace the much-maligned year-end English and math standardized tests with new nationwide tests that could better measure student learning and teacher performance. Also Thursday, the Los Angeles Board of Education formally directed its superintendent, for the first time, to include student test score data as part of teachers’ evaluations. “This is not an educational tool; this is an educational weapon” aimed at weakening job protections, said Mat Taylor of United Teachers Los Angeles. Elsewhere, he added, such efforts have translated to silencing union activists and narrowing what students are taught.
The diversion, as he called it, over teacher evaluations “keeps us from talking about the real issues we face,” such as inadequate funding and lack of meaningful teacher input at schools.
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me–lausd-20100903,0,2428011.story
Broad Foundation Brags, “We’re Kickin Ass!” The Broad Residency in Urban Education announced today it has placed its largest class of 42 early career executives into 28 public education systems across the country, expanding for the first time into state departments of education. www.sys-con.com/node/1524011
Full Scale Assault on Education in 2010: Class Size/pay cuts/closed schools/transfers/benefit cuts/more student fees, and worser!
www.detnews.com/article/20100907/SCHOOLS/9070341/Detroit-area-students-return-to-bigger-classes–costlier-fees
An Opening Question for Any Class: Why Have School? Why Are We Here?
www.counterpunch.org/gibson09072010.html
It’s Class War: So far the education sector has largely lead resistance to the cuts, on college campuses specifically, but these cuts go far beyond the universities. It is not just education that is being destroyed; social services, such as free and/or affordable healthcare are being cut; there are massive foreclosures and a lack of affordable or public housing; unemployment remains high. Anyone can see that these cuts aren’t just affecting students, but the working-class as a whole.
San Diego State’s Pride! The Gambling Institute: The tribal gaming institute is part of SDSU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. It was launched with a $5.5 million endowment from the Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay Indians in 2005. The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians also contributes, primarily by making officials and managers available to speak to students and offering tours of its casino operations. www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/06/sdsus-gaming-institute-focuses-on-tribal-casinos/
First Day of School in Detroit–Two Kids Shot: The first day back to school ended badly this afternoon with two teens shot not far from Mumford High School on the city’s west side.
The 16-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl were wounded about a block from the school at Wyoming and Santa Clara streets shortly after being released from their first day back in class, Detroit Police said. www.detnews.com/article/20100907/SCHOOLS/9070416/Two-Detroit-students-shot-near-Mumford-High
First Week of School in Detroit–the City Catches Fire: It didn’t have to be like this,” said Sharon Kelso, who said she dialed 911 several times to report a small fire in the alley behind her northwest Detroit home, which eventually escalated into a blaze that destroyed several homes.
“I called 911 and the phone rang and rang,” Kelso said. “Finally, the call was disconnected. Then I drove to the fire station a few blocks away; nobody was there. A Detroit traffic officer came up and saw the fire, and he was trying to get through to someone, but he wasn’t getting anybody, either. So we just stood there and watched while this thing got bigger and bigger. Finally, an hour later, they sent one truck.” Residents also criticized DTE Energy for failing to respond to several reports of downed lines and people stealing power…DTE estimates that as many as 70,000 Michigan homes and businesses — or roughly 3 percent of DTE’s customers — are stealing natural gas and electricity. And the bulk of the illegal hookups are in Detroit. www.detnews.com/article/20100909/METRO01/9090419/Questions-raised-about-Detroit-s-response-to-fires
California Loves BP Setting Up the Environmental Curruculum: BP, the energy giant responsible for the largest offshore oil spill in history, helped develop California’s framework for teaching more than 6 million students about the environment. Despite a mixed environmental record even before the Gulf of Mexico disaster, state officials included BP on the technical team for its soon-to-be-completed environmental education curriculum, which will be used in kindergarten through 12th-grade classes in more than 1,000 school districts statewide.
www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/07/100175/bp-helped-in-californias-environmental.html
Perpetual War Front
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRv56gsqkzs&feature=related
Iraq: War Still On???: Two American soldiers were killed and nine wounded on Tuesday when a firefight erupted inside an Iraqi Army base north of Baghdad, the first deaths of American troops since President Obama declared an official end to the United States combat mission in Iraq a week ago, American and Iraqi officials said. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/world/middleeast/08baghdad.html?hpw
Stratfor on Sept 11 2001: Bush was the victim of a decade of failure in the intelligence community to understand what al Qaeda was and wasn’t. I am not merely talking about the failure to predict the 9/11 attack. Regardless of assertions afterwards, the intelligence community provided only vague warnings that lacked the kind of specificity that makes for actionable intelligence. To a certain degree, this is understandable. Al Qaeda learned from Soviet, Saudi, Pakistani and American intelligence during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and knew how to launch attacks without tipping off the target. The greatest failure of American intelligence was not the lack of a clear warning about 9/11 but the lack, on Sept. 12, of a clear picture of al Qaeda’s global structure, capabilities, weaknesses and intentions. Without such information, implementing U.S. policy was like piloting an airplane with faulty instruments in a snowstorm at night. (With Stratfor permission) www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100907_911_and_9_year_war?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100908&utm_content=readmore&elq=0147a6dc805c494baf2fbd5b5fc9f611
German Military Report on the Coming of Peak Oil (two bullet points of many): *Oil will determine power: The Bundeswehr Transformation Center writes that oil will become one decisive factor in determining the new landscape of international relations: “The relative importance of the oil-producing nations in the international system is growing. These nations are using the advantages resulting from this to expand the scope of their domestic and foreign policies and establish themselves as a new or resurgent regional, or in some cases even global leading powers.”
*Crisis of political legitimacy: The Bundeswehr study also raises fears for the survival of democracy itself. Parts of the population could perceive the upheaval triggered by peak oil “as a general systemic crisis.” This would create “room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government.” Fragmentation of the affected population is likely and could “in extreme cases lead to open conflict.”
www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
There Goes the Economy
Emerging Fascism Front:
abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7653496
LA RAMPARTS Division at It Again: As Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck defended the fatal shooting of a day laborer and officials called for calm, protesters and officers clashed Tuesday night in Westlake near the site of the incident. About 300 demonstrators gathered at the LAPD’s Rampart Station. Some in the crowd hurled eggs at police cars and others threw objects at the station windows, prompting officers in riot gear to push the throng along 6th Street.
Officers fired non-lethal projectiles at protesters near Union Avenue and 6th, where Manuel Jamines was fatally shot Sunday afternoon by an officer who said Jamines refused commands to drop a switchblade. About 9:30 p.m., police declared the protest an unlawful assembly and moved in to disperse the crowd www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-shooting-20100908,0,5823510.story
Obamagogue Wins Torture Secrecy Rights in Court: A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information. The sharply divided ruling was a major victory for the Obama administration’s efforts to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy powers. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09secrets.html?_r=1&hp
The Heavens Weep
What Flood? Juan Cole–The great Pakistani deluge did not exist, it seems, because it was not on television, would not have delivered audiences to products, and was not all about us. As we saw on September 11, 2001, and again in March 2003, however, the failure of our electronic media to inform the public about centrally important global developments is itself a security threat to the republic www.tomdispatch.com/post/175292/tomgram:_juan_cole,_the_media_as_a_security_threat_to_america__/
Spy vs Spy:
Ana Montes had access to all U.S. intelligence on Cuba and led briefings on Capitol Hill, at the State Department and the Pentagon regarding her enlightened Cuban policy. “On Cuba,” one government official said. “Montes was who you went to.” Thus pampered, promoted and honored under Clinton, Montes today serves a 25-year prison sentence for “Conspiracy to Commit Espionage.” . . .cicentre.net/wordpress/index.php/2010/08/18/cuban-spy-ana-montes/
Solidarity Forever:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0E1KDqnS3U
NEA’s $450,000 a Year Boss Has This Profound Comment on the Opening of School: “This is such an exciting time of year for our profession,” Van Roekel writes in his travel log from the road. “We meet new students and as we get to know each of them, we wonder which of them will grow up to be a world-renown surgeon, a police officer who saves lives, or even President of the United States.” neatoday.org/2010/08/30/nea-president-wraps-up-national-tour/
Failed Labor Hack Quits: She said that forming the breakaway federation fueled more union organizing by the Teamsters, for instance, among port truck drivers in Los Angeles. She also said that without the creation of Change to Win, Mr. Obama would never have won the presidency. She said that federation’s endorsement of Mr. Obama in April 2008 was pivotal to his defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton in several crucial primaries.
Change to Win has fallen far short of its proclaimed goal of organizing 750,000 workers annually. “There hasn’t been the big increase in union membership that they had called for,” said Peter Dreier, a labor expert at Occidental College. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/us/05labor.html?hpw
Lorena Gonzalez, SoCal Labor Boss, Howls BUY AMERICAN (wake up LG, its Capitalism):
President Obama recently said that the road to real economic recovery starts with three words – “Made in America.” I believe him. Like so many, I was raised believing that the “Made in America” tag was a symbol of national pride, an imprimatur that meant both loyalty and quality. So I was embarrassed when I recently looked through my closet and it took me quite a while to find anything that was tagged “Made in America.” And, while I proudly drive an American-made Ford both at home and at work, it had been a while since I checked other smaller products to specifically ensure they were made in the United States. wwww.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/05/starting-labor-day-lets-buy-american/
From Libertarian Mike Antonucci: Quote of the Week #1. “While the National Education Association Representative Assembly supports and appreciates the significant increase in federal funding for education, the NEA takes a position of no confidence in the US Department of Education’s Race to the Top competitive grant policies and guidelines, the use of competitive grant policies and guidelines as a basis for the reauthorization of ESEA, and similar initiatives and policies that undermine public education.” – the text of New Business Item 2, approved by the 2010 National Education Association Representative Assembly, July 4, 2010.
Second Quote of the Week #2. “We congratulate the 10 winners of the final round of funding in the Race to the Top competition. Most of the winners, like Delaware and Tennessee in the first round, reflect the value of collaboration among unions, administrators and state governments, which is essential in transforming public schools and sustaining the changes that benefit students.” – NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, August 24, 2010.
We Say Fight Back!
Shoe-bombing Bush’s Lap-poodle Blair
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDh1syeLqhk
England–the Tube Strike is On: Talks aimed at averting a series of strikes on the London Underground have broken down, according to the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union.
The RMT said the industrial action with the Transport Salaried Staffs Association would go ahead as planned. The first 24-hour strike is planned for Monday with members due to walk out on a further three dates. The unions are fighting plans to cut 800 jobs. London Underground said there would be no compulsory redundancies. Up to 10,000 union members are expected to walk out for 24 hours on 6 September, 3 October, 2 November and 28 November
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11166047
France–the Strike is On: French unions are striking nationwide as lawmakers begin debating President Nicolas Sarkozy’s bill to raise the retirement age. Transport workers began walking off the job last night, and today many schools, post offices, and government offices will be closed. Demonstrations are planned in 137 cities. Sarkozy has vowed not to compromise on the key plank of his pension proposals, which would lift the retirement age to 62 from 60. The bid to shore up the retirement system may calm bond investors and rating services in the wake of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/french-unions-set-to-strike-tomorrow-as-sarkozy-pension-bill-debate-starts.html
General Strike in India: New Delhi, Sep 7 (Prensa Latina) About 100 million workers joined the 24 hours general strike called by eight Trade Unions in India, protesting against the rise of price and privatizations. www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218438&Itemid=1
According to the president of the National Congress of Indian Trade Unions G. Sanjeeva Reddy the strike is being felt in transportation, mining, electricity, telecommunications, bank, oil, port and other sectors which are not organized like construction.The strike succeeded in 99 percent
South Africa’s Public Workers’ Strike in Retreat: A strike by more than one million public sector workers in South Africa has been suspended.Trade Union leaders say they have not accepted a pay offer by the Government, but will halt the strike for three weeks to allow their members time to consider it. The BBC reports some 1.3 million civil servants went on strike demanding a pay rise of 8.5% and a housing allowance of 1000 rand ($US135) per month. The government has offered 7.5%.President Jacob Zuma last week ordered his ministers to negotiate an end to the strike, which is entering its fourth week.The government’s renewed offer was initially refused by the unions and the Congress of South African Trades Unions.The strike has seen strong criticism of President Jacob Zuma, who the unions helped bring to power in 2009. Analysts say the unions are angry that they have received little from him.
www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/56194/south-african-strike-suspended
Why do Europeans Resist and Strike While Americans Do Not?
But the biggest difference between there and here is the people’s reactions. On Tuesday, September 7, somewhere between 2 and 3 million French citizens stopped work for a general strike. Their target was one part of the French government’s “austerity program” — a proposal to raise the minimum age to receive a partial retirement pension from 60 to 62 years of age and for receiving a full pension from 65 to 67 years. General strikes have also occurred in Greece and are planned in Spain. All of Europe has agreed on a day of strikes and demonstrations against austerity continent-wide on September 29. These will be led by trade unions and actively supported by left political parties, community organizations, church groups, students, and still others..The failure to develop, support, and widely disseminate anti-capitalist criticism and proposals for non-capitalist alternatives undermines the capacity for mass mobilizations to protect and advance working people’s interests, especially in times of crisis. Even to make a political difference on so limited an issue as changing the age of retirement, effective mobilization of workers requires that they understand that issue in a much broader framework. Workers who see themselves in a broad social struggle for justice and for basic social change toward a better society can also then grasp and act on a particular issue with a sense of its historic meaning and implications. mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wolff090910.html
What Shall We Think of Staff Striking the Union? One Arrested! The Ohio Education Association said members of the Professional Staff Union (PSU), representing about half its 220 employees, went on strike early Wednesday, when the previous contract expired.
www2.nbc4i.com/news/2010/sep/01/2/least-1-picketer-arrested-outside-oea-building-ar-218473/
Magical Mystery Tour:
Jon Stewart on Christian Burnieism: www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-8-2010/weekend-at-burnies?xr
Rats! How Come Warrior Gates Didn’t Call ME?– she and her father’s Topeka flock set fire to a Quran in plain view on a Washington, D.C., street and nobody seemed to care. “We did it a long time before this guy,” Phelps-Roper said by telephone from a street corner in downtown Chicago, scene of the latest Westboro picket — against Jews this time, not gays. www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/09/100291/fred-phelps-daughter-westboro.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-12DgmLYU
Wait! Pentagon to Burn Ten THOUSAND Real Books! Worse Than Burning God! Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10books.html?_r=1&hp
Poverty =Religion but for One Special Place (nice chart): Religion has a surprisingly high correlation with poverty, according to a Gallup survey conducted in more than 100 countries. The more poverty a nation has, the higher the “religiosity” in that nation. In general, richer countries are less religious than poorer ones. The biggest exception? The United States, which has the highest religiosity relative to its wealth on the planet. www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/religions-correlation-with-poverty/
Worst Thing in the History of the World:
Would Miss Anchorage Scam You? Prosecutors say Rachel Yould, a former Anchorage Rhodes and Fulbright scholar, is a master manipulator who should spend six years in prison for misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. They say she should pay more than $800,000 in restitution. Yould, despite her guilty pleas to 15 felony counts of federal mail and wire fraud and making false statements, says she is innocent and that the whole case is based on misunderstanding. www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/07/100174/ex-miss-anchorage-and-rhodes-scholar.html
Coppers and Quotas. Who? Coppers? On the tape, a police captain, Alex Perez, can be heard warning his top commanders that their officers must start writing more summonses or face consequences. Captain Perez offered a precise number and suggested a method. He said each officer on a day tour should write 20 summonses a week: five each for double-parking, parking at a bus stop, driving without a seat belt and driving while using a cellphone.
Best Thing in the History of the World
Corn Popping on the Stalk! Shepherd said the outer coat of a kernel can explode from heat after the ears are pollinated. Temperatures in corn fields can be 10 degrees higher than in the surrounding area as the plants are producing energy. www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/09/07/us/AP-US-ODD-Popped-Corn.html?_r=1&hp
Take This Grace Lee Boggs–Jesse Jackson Says Urban Farming is a Joke (his Caddy stolen in Detroit): Rev. Jesse Jackson today called urban farming “foolish” and said he regrets that the theft of his SUV in Detroit last month captured more attention than his two-week tour across the state touting the green energy industry. “We have to put the focus on what we need,” Jackson told the Detroit City Council during a 30-minute appearance, comparing the city to a war zone not unlike Iraq. “There needs to be security, stability and reconstruction. Everything that has been done in Baghdad could be done here.” www.freep.com/article/20100907/NEWS01/100907036/1318/Jackson-blasts-urban-farming-jokes-about-theft-of-his-SUV-in-Detroit
War Criminal. Traitor. Thief. Whiner. Duke Cunningham: Disgraced former San Diego congressman and current federal inmate Randy “Duke” Cunningham wrote a letter to the federal judge who sentenced him to eight years in prison bitterly complaining the IRS is draining his life savings. In a handwritten, three-page letter sent in June from federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., Cunningham wrote that last December tax authorities placed a levy on both his congressional and military retirement pensions. www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/08/cunningham-fights-protect-savings-irs/
Conyers Crooked Wife To Hoosegow: Conyers pleaded guilty in 2009 to taking bribes to vote for Synagro Technologies in a $1.2-billion sludge disposal deal. Cohn sentenced Conyers in March to 37 months in prison. She is scheduled to self-surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Friday.
www.freep.com/article/20100909/NEWS01/100909008/1320/Conyers-prison-appeal-denied
Dickie S and Grace “When the Truth is Found, To be Lies…”
Never Forget:
Chile. September 11, 1973
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMFmKg0k8cY
Thanks to Jeffrey, Alex, Neil, Sean, Perry, Kathy, Adam and Gina, Wayne, Terry Ray, Sharon A, Peter M, Ricky and Chris, Ken and Barb, the Susans, Crystal, Marisol, Ruben, Edgar, Jesus, Teeyah and Moshe, Bob, Bill, and good luck to all those Detroit Teachers like Mr J and Z. You need it!
and good luck to us, too, every one.
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