Why Are Things As They Are?

Little Red Schoolhouse

The children walking along the road of truth and reason carry love to all; and they clothe everything in new skies; they illumine everything with an incorruptible fire issuing from the depths of the soul. Thus a new life comes into being, born of the childrens’ love for the entire world; and who will extinguish this love–who? What power is higher than this? Who will subdue it? The earth has brought it forth; and all life desires its victory–all life. Shed rivers of blood, nay seas of blood, you’ll never extinguish it. Maxim Gorky, Mother, p486.

Community Colleges Freeze Up When Need is Greatest: In California, with a budget cut of 8 percent across the board, the community colleges turned away 140,000 students last year. In Colorado, the waiting lists for nursing programs at some of the state’s community colleges have grown to as long as 3.5 years. In May, New York’s community colleges stopped accepting applications for the fall semester and added students instead to a wait list. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112605087.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010112605159

The  Admission of the Detroit Federation of Teachers Boss’ About What  DFT Allowed to Happen to DFT Members in the Recent Sellout Contract:

[Letter sent today to Dr. Barbara Byrd Bennett, DPS Chief Academic and Accountability Auditor]

Dear Dr. Byrd-Bennett:

We are getting a lot of feedback from teachers concerning the overwhelming amount of testing and progress monitoring they are required to do. While each of the assessments may have merit, taken as a whole they leave too little time for instruction. Teachers throughout the district are asking “When do we have time to teach?”

In addition to the regular curriculum, students are assessed using the Star Math and Star Reading programs. They work on individualized lessons and assessments through Accelerated Math and Accelerated Reading. Three times per year students take a battery of benchmark assessments including up to five Dibels assessments, Burst, and TRC. Throw in quarterly Q tests that take two class periods per day for four days each quarter, and two to three weeks of MEAP testing, and it’s no wonder teachers want more time to teach.

In between benchmarks, teachers are asked to print up to 80 pages of Burst lessons every two weeks. These lessons are to be taught to the lowest achieving four to five students in each class for a half hour per day. Some schools don’t have enough toner to print these lessons, others don’t have enough copiers, and nobody seems to have enough time. One teacher estimates that a quarter of her instructional time is devoted to these assessments and progress monitoring.

On a weekly basis, teachers also are asked to do time-consuming progress monitoring for Dibels and TRC. Much if this work is done with one student at a time. While our teachers are doing their best to keep the rest of the class doing meaningful work, it is not possible to properly monitor and coach the others while you are testing individuals.

Two common themes emerge from discussions with teachers throughout the district. First, these assessments all have some merit individually, but together, they are too much. Second, we as teachers can handle all this, but our students are suffering.

One teacher told me that for one day, she ignored Burst, Dibels, TRC, Accelerated Math and Reading, and all she did was teach. It was the best day the class had all year! The saddest thing is, this didn’t happen until the third week of October, and she had to ignore directives to make it happen at all.

To bring more balance to the classroom, we suggest that the district strongly consider the following changes.

1. Eliminate the Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 benchmark tests. These tests are not aligned with the district’s scope and sequence charts. Students are taking tests in November on material that won’t be covered until March. As a result, there is no validity to these tests.Our teachers have seen tests designed by and for DPS every few years. From Exit Skills, to ESAT, to MIP, to Q tests, the tests come and go and you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who will claim instruction has improved as a result of any one of these.

2. Allow teachers to use their professional judgment to determine the amount of progress monitoring to do. Progress monitoring in TRC is particularly difficult, since the text in the Palm devices frequently does not match the text in the books students are reading.

3. Discontinue Burst groups. The lower achieving students can be helped in the regular classroom setting.

4. Provide additional personnel to help with assessments. Whether the district allows literacy coaches to do some of the assessments or provides classroom aides to assist with class management, more help is needed to keep all children learning.

We know that standardized testing is here to stay. To improve our scores, we need more instructional time, not more tests.

Sincerely,
Mark O’Keefe
DFT Executive Vice President
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBqqbRRF4J8

Another Bill Gates Shoe Drops on School Workers:

Now Bill Gates, who in recent years has turned his attention and considerable fortune to improving American education, is investing $335 million through his foundation to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A big chunk of that money is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.

The effort will have enormous consequences for the movement to hold schools and educators more accountable for student achievement.

Twenty states are overhauling their teacher-evaluation systems, partly to fulfill plans set in motion by a $4 billion federal grant competition, and they are eagerly awaiting the research results.

For teachers, the findings could mean more scrutiny. But they may also provide more specific guidance about what is expected of the teachers in the classroom if new experiments with other measures are adopted — including tests that gauge teachers’ mastery of their subjects, surveys that ask students about the learning environments in their classes and digital videos of teachers’ lessons, scored by experts.

“It’s huge,” said Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education. “They’re trying to do something nobody’s done before, and do it very quickly.” www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/education/04teacher.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

We Say FightBack!

Students Occupy Tower of Pisa!

Italian students have occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome’s Colosseum to protest education cuts and university reforms being considered by parliament. Italian news agency ANSA says some 2,000 students marched Thursday(11/25) in the northern university town of Pisa, forming a human chain around its famous tower to prevent tourists from entering. Several students climbed inside the landmark as tourists snapped photos of the protest.

In Rome, students brandished banners reading “No profits off our future” as they marched around the Colosseum.

Thursday was the second day of protests against the reforms, which eliminate some areas of study and force schools that are running at deficit to close.

In Milan, police clashed briefly with students to keep them from entering the subway. www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Students-occupy-Pisa-s-tower-Colosseum-in-protest-832290.php

Footage posted on YouTube showed mounted police riding at speed into a crowd of around 1,000 protesters who had gathered south of Trafalgar Square on Wednesday night.

The footage of the horse charge came as Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, declined to rule out joining future demonstrations against fees increases. Asked on BBC radio if he would join future protests, Miliband said: “I was quite tempted to go out and talk to them [the protesters]. Peaceful demonstrations are part of our society. As Labour leader I am willing to talk to people who are part of them.”

The Tories accused him of “dithering” over the issue.

At a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority the day after the protests, the Met’s commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, was asked if there had been horse charges at the protests. He replied: “I was at the debrief last night, there was no reference to that whatsoever and I have no reference to it.”
…Later that day, a Met spokesperson said: “Police horses were involved in the operation, but that didn’t involve charging the crowd.” The spokesperson said horses may have been used “to help control the crowd for everyone’s benefit”, but added “police officers charging the crowd – we would say: no, they did not charge the crowd.”

In a statement after the YouTube footage was posted, the Met said: “The use of police horses to disperse and distance the crowd was an appropriate and proportionate tactic at that time in the given circumstances.”
…Yesterday student occupations were continuing in at least nine universities – including sit-ins in Leeds, Cambridge, Manchester, Edinburgh, University College London, Brighton, Newcastle and the School of African and Oriental Studies in London. More than 16,000 people are signed up for the next day of action on Tuesday.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire

99ers Arrested Protesting Loss of UCB in NYC: NYC Unemployed Arrested Protesting Benefits Termination With Members of Flashmobs4jobs

Workers who have exceeded the 99 week maximum limit on unemployment benefits (called 99ers) were arrested for blocking traffic on Varick Street at a demonstration outside the NYS Department of labor. They were demanding that Congress, in the upcoming lame duck session, immediately pass a bill granting benefits to those workers who have passed the 99 week limit. They also called for the reauthorization unemployment benefits extensions set to expire on November 30 and new legislation to create jobs. There are currently 4.5 million 99ers with an additional 50,000 jobless losing their benefits each week  http://wbai.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11165&Itemid=135

Writing Can Be Fighting: Krashen Crashes the NYTimes: Thomas L. Friedman notes that in countries like Denmark and Finland that
outperform the United States in education, teachers graduate in the top one-third of their classes.
But there is another explanation for why the United States lags behind: poverty. The percentage of children living in poverty in Denmark and Finland is under 3 percent. In the United States the percentage is 21.
Poverty means poor nutrition, substandard health care, environmental toxins and little access to books, all of which have a strong negative effect on school success. Middle-class American children attending well-financed schools outscore nearly all other countries. But our overall scores are unspectacular because we have such a high percentage of children living in poverty. Increasing pressure on teachers and parents will not significantly improve achievement, but if we can protect children from the effects of poverty, American tests scores will be at the top of the world.
The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education.

— Stephen Krashen

What to Do About Bad Schools? Check Rock&Roll High School Watch the Classic Video Ending:  (skip the ad) www.metacafe.com/watch/3065271/rock_n_roll_high_school_part_10_10/

Perpetual War

Imperialist Goon Tiptoes in and Out of Afghanistan, Lying: In a rousing holiday-season visit, President Barack Obama on Friday told cheering U.S. troops in Afghanistan they’re succeeding in their vital mission fighting terrorism. But after he flew in secrecy for 14 hours to get here, foul weather kept him from nearby Kabul and a meeting to address frayed relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101203/ap_on_re_as/as_obama

Fifty Years Ago: The Korean War and China’s Intervention: In retrospect the events on the battlefield in late October and early November 1950 were harbingers of disaster ahead. They had been foreshadowed by ominous “signals” from China, signals relayed to the United States through Indian diplomatic channels. The Chinese, it was reported, would not tolerate a U.S. presence so close to their borders and would send troops to Korea if any UN forces other than ROK elements crossed the 38th Parallel. With the United States seeking to isolate Communist China diplomatically, there were very few ways to verify these warnings. While aware of some of the dangers, U.S. diplomats and intelligence personnel, especially General MacArthur, discounted the risks. The best time for intervention was past, they said, and even if the Chinese decided to intervene, allied air power and firepower would cripple their ability to move or resupply their forces. The opinion of many military observers, some of whom had helped train the Chinese to fight against the Japanese in World War II, was that the huge infantry forces that could be put in the field would be poorly equipped, poorly led, and abysmally supplied. These “experts” failed to give full due to the revolutionary zeal and military experience of many of the Chinese soldiers that had been redeployed to the Korean border area. Many of the soldiers were confident veterans of the successful civil war against the Nationalist Chinese forces. Although these forces were indeed poorly supplied, they were highly motivated, battle hardened, and led by officers who were veterans, in some cases, of twenty years of nearly constant war. ..
Convincing himself and his Far Eastern Command staff that the Chinese would not intervene in force, General MacArthur was determined to reunify Korea and change the balance of power in Asia. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, impressed by MacArthur�s stunning triumph at Inch�on and the collapse of the NKPA during the following month, were in no position to argue. Despite some misgivings, they allowed MacArthur a generous, although not unrestrained, latitude to pursue his vision of winning the war before the year was out. Even President Truman, not a man to defer easily to anyone, apparently felt that MacArthur should be allowed to carry on the war and finish off the North Koreans.

To implement MacArthur�s objectives, General Walker drafted plans for his Eighth Army to advance quickly against the crumbling opposition all the way to the Yalu River on the Chinese frontier

www.history.army.mil/brochures/kw-chinter/chinter.htm

The US  in Afghanistan Longer than the Soviets Fascists:

This wonder of Science and Engineering is Not Beating the People

one thing set the day apart: With its passing, the length of the U.S. military’s campaign in Afghanistan matched that of the Soviet Union’s long and demoralizing sojourn in the nation.

The last Red Army troops left Feb. 15, 1989, driven out after nine years and 50 days by the U.S.-backed Afghan fighters known as mujahedin, or holy warriors. Ragtag yet ferocious, they were so spectrally elusive that the Soviet forces called them dukhi, or ghosts. A fitting term, perhaps, for a country that has been called “the graveyard of empires.”
…In the eyes of some, even the Pentagon’s recent decision to deploy M1 Abrams battle tanks in southern Afghanistan evokes the David-and-Goliath confrontation of the mujahedin and the Red Army: The massive tank is seen as an effective battle weapon, but not one likely to win the hearts and minds of watching villagers.Billions of Western dollars spent for aid and development are overshadowed, for many Afghans, by a sense that the NATO force abets corruption and graft in the government of President Hamid Karzai…”Americans haven’t drawn any lessons from the Soviet military presence; they keep stepping on the same rakes,” said Sergei Arutyunov, a senior fellow at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow. www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-russia-20101127,0,1367159,full.story

US Ambassador Says Honduran Coup Completely Illegal: Llorens noted that Zelaya’s “forced removal by the military was clearly illegal, and (Speaker of Congress Roberto) Micheletti’s ascendance as ‘interim president’ was totally illegitimate.”

The Obamagogue To WikiLeaks: “Shut Up!” Wiki To Obamagogue: “Bugger Off.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX_kcPyRw50

The Obama administration moved Monday to contain potential damage to U.S. national security from the WikiLeaks release of tens of thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic documents and said it might take criminal action against the whistle-blowing Internet site.

The White House directed a government-wide review of guidelines for classified information handling, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered tighter safeguards for U.S. diplomatic communications. Meanwhile, the CIA was assessing harm done to U.S. intelligence operations.

“This is a serious violation of the law,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. “This is a serious threat to individuals that both carry out and assist our foreign policy.” www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/29/104458/obama-weighing-criminal-action.html

The cable said that “even the most zealous of coup defenders have been unable to make convincing arguments to bridge the intellectual gulf between ‘Zelaya broke the law’ to ‘therefore, he was packed off to Costa Rica by the military without a trial.'” www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/28/104400/all-parties-broke-law-in-honduras.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S47sO1TCVmE&feature=related

Wiki Gems: Pakistani Government Scammed US of Millions: Hundreds of millions of dollars in American military aid to Pakistan earmarked for fighting Islamist militants was not used for that purpose, US diplomats discovered after conversations with Pakistan’s military top brass.

Pakistan’s army chief said the money, including $26m (£15m) for barbed wire and $70m (£43m) to defend against non-existent Taliban warplanes, had been diverted into the Islamabad government’s coffers, according to leaked cables to Washington.

Despite $55m for helicopter maintenance, sometimes only two Cobra helicopter gunships were ready to fly. Although $335m had been given for medical care and a fleet of 26 helicopters, the frontier corps still had no medical rescue service. The army claimed $70m for radar maintenance even though the Taliban have no air attack capability, and a “highly suspect” $26m for barbed wire. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/america-pakistan-barbed-wire-bill

Wiki Gem II: US Bribing Pakistan to Pay For Taliban: akistan’s army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba, and “no amount of money” will change the policy, the US ambassador warned in a frank critique revealed by the state department cables.

Although Pakistan had received more than $16bn (£10bn) in American aid since 2001, “there is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance … as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups”, Anne Patterson wrote in a secret review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in September 2009. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-us-aid-pakistan-militants

Wiki Gem III: Hillbillary as the Mother of All Spies:

Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton’s name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications….

In one directive that would test the initiative, never mind moral and legal scruples, of any diplomat, Washington ordered staff in the DRC, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to obtain biometric information of leading figures in business, politics, intelligence, military, religion and in key ethnic groups.

Fingerprints and photographs are collected as part of embassies’ consular and visa operations, but it is harder to see how diplomats could justify obtaining DNA samples and iris scans. Again in central Africa, embassy officials were ordered to gather details about countries’ military relations with China, Libya, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Washington assigned high priority to intelligence on the “transfer of strategic materials such as uranium”, and “details of arms acquisitions and arms sales by government or insurgents, including negotiations, contracts, deliveries, terms of sale, quantity and quality of equipment, and price and payment terms”.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-us-aid-pakistan-militants

Wiki Gem 4: US Funding Gangster Afghan Regime: Obama acknowledged the dilemma. “Are there going to be occasions where we look and see that some of our folks on the ground have made compromises with people who are known to have engaged in corruption?” he asked. “There may be occasions where that happens.”

Ahmed Zia Massoud held the post of first vice president from 2004 to 2009; the brother of the famous Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, he was discussed as a future presidential prospect. Last year, a cable reported, Mr. Massoud was caught by customs officials carrying $52 million in unexplained cash into the United Arab Emirates.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/asia/03wikileaks-corruption.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Japan Continues to Re-Arm: pan’s naval forces have been gradually expanding their range in recent years, mostly to help protect vital sea lanes through which much of the world’s commerce—and the country’s vital supply of imported oil–flows. The next step under consideration by Tokyo: the introduction of a sci-fi like surveillance tool, dubbed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.  http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/11/15/japans-next-stage-of-military-expansion-drones/

Wiki Shut Down By US Government:

The United States struck its first blow against WikiLeaks after Amazon.com pulled the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in an apparent reaction to heavy political pressure.

The main website and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the US and Europe on Wednesday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.

The plug was pulled as the influential senator and chairman of the homeland security committee, Joe Lieberman, called for a boycott of the site by US companies.
www.staplenews.com/home/2010/12/1/wikileaks-website-pulled-by-amazon-after-us-political-pressu.html

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor:

David Stockman Who Once Said, “Government is a Trojan Horse for the Rich” Today: “Stockman cites a remarkable statistic: In 1985, the top five percent of the households the wealthiest five percent had net worth of $8 trillion which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five per cent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.

Stockman thinks there should be a special 15% surtax on the wealthiest Americans to help pay down the deficit.messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=537818&articleId=199989&func=6&filterHidden=true&filterUnhidden=&filterRead=true

Stockman Says “The Fed is Injecting Heroin into the Economy…and that will kill the Patient:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lVDS9hwKs0

More News on the Biggest Theft in the History of the World: Rich vs Poor: What have we learned so far from the disclosure of more than 21,000 transactions? We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

We also learned that the Fed’s multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks — Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse — which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities.Deutsche Bank, a German lender, sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.

The Fed said that this bailout was necessary to prevent the world economy from going over a cliff. But three years after the start of the recession, millions of Americans remain unemployed and have lost their homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college. Meanwhile, big banks and corporations have returned to making huge profits and paying their executives record-breaking compensation packages as if the financial crisis they started never happened.

What this disclosure tells us, among many other things, is that despite this huge taxpayer bailout, the Fed did not make the appropriate demands on these institutions necessary to rebuild our economy and protect the needs of ordinary Americans. www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html

Holy Crap! MainStream Notices Class War! Sky Falling! There’s another, more subliminal factor feeding the public’s anger about taxes and spending, and the only accurate term for it is economic class. Most Americans are fine with rich people getting richer, even when they get richer faster than everyone else — so long as the rest of us make progress too. But that’s clearly and painfully not the case today – the stock market and corporate profits are way up and multi-million-dollar Wall Street bonuses are back, while high unemployment won’t budge, wages are down, and the value of most people’s homes keep falling. On top of that, it was middle-class Americans who financed a recovery, through taxpayer bailouts and emergency spending, which so far seems to benefit only the wealthy. These factors alone should give Republicans pause as they prepare to block the extension of unemployment benefits and hold tax cuts for the middle-class hostage to preserving the tax cuts for the well-to-do.  http://ndn.org/blog/2010/12/quiet-role-class-coming-budget-battle

Unemployment Still A Growth Market for the Rich: Employers added fewer jobs than forecast in November and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, pointing to economic weakness that’s likely to keep the Federal Reserve pumping money into the financial system.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-03/u-s-added-39-000-jobs-in-november-unemployment-rose-to-9-8-.html

Solidarity Forever:

After Forcing Teachers to Vote Twice, Weingarten Touts Another Sellout (merit pay attached to test scores, etc): With today’s contract ratification, Baltimore joins a growing list of school districts nationwide that are using collective bargaining and collaboration as vehicles for education reform. The contract is a bold step by the Baltimore Teachers Union and the Baltimore City Public Schools to transform the city’s school system and make a difference in the lives of all students. It meshes unique reforms with school improvement strategies that are working in other districts. The BTU and BCPS have shown what is possible when both sides are committed to a collaborative process that is focused on working in the best interests of kids.

The provisions of the agreement establish a foundation for improved teaching and learning. The agreement replaces the conventional seniority system with a new career pathway that allows educators to determine the pace of their career advancement and associated salary increases, depending on additional work they take on as well as training they complete. It also provides for labor-management collaboration on school improvement programs and other education decisions, a process to ensure more reliable teacher evaluations, and increased access to better professional development.

This is the second time Baltimore’s educators have voted on the new contract…www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2010/111710a.cfm

D.C. AFT Votes Out One Sellout For….? The Contract Remains and Only 1 in 4 Teachers Voted (how deep is defeatism?): “Where the contract requires collaboration, I absolutely will collaborate. Collaboration didn’t become a bad word when I got elected,” said Saunders, in an interview shortly before his formal installation ceremony at the American Federation of Teachers office on Capitol Hill. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120106735.html

AFT’s Weingarten Boasts of Sellout Contract and Cooperation with Bosses: “A Mission to Transform a City’s Beaten Schools” (news article, Dec. 2) accurately portrays a school system that has made tremendous strides for its students and community. Test scores were already rising upon Dr. Andres Alonso’s arrival in Baltimore in 2007, but he should be commended for his vision and accomplishments in transforming Baltimore’s schools.But smart, successful reform in Baltimore or anywhere else doesn’t happen without the input and participation of the system’s teachers and their union. Dr. Alonso partnered with the community and the Baltimore Teachers Union to achieve sweeping, even groundbreaking changes.This collaboration culminated last month in a contract that meshes unique reforms with school improvement strategies that are working in other districts. For instance, the contract replaces the conventional seniority system with a new career pathway that allows educators to determine the pace of their career advancement and associated salary increases. It also establishes a culture of collaboration and shared leadership.

Such a contract could not have been negotiated if not for the respectful, cooperative labor-management relationship — which ensures that everyone is rowing in the same direction. Even when there were stumbles — such as when the parties had to renegotiate after B.T.U. members rejected the first tentative agreement — no one resorted to finger-pointing or harsh words; there was just a mutual commitment to make necessary changes quickly and move forward for the sake of the students.

Other school systems that need to be transformed might consider looking at Baltimore’s example for what works and what could be replicated.

Marietta English
Randi Weingarten
Washington, Dec. 2, 2010

Spy Vs Spy

US Government Manual on How To Handle Walk-In Defectors: The fact that a walk-in may be referred to other post officials for a decision on further actions is classified and may not be shared with non-cleared personnel. All briefings should emphasize the importance of ensuring that the walk- in is fully screened, but should also convey that legitimate walk-ins may exhibit nervous or anxious behavior, particularly because access controls and host nation security forces around many of our diplomatic posts make it difficult for walk-ins to approach our facilities discreetly. All briefings should also stress the importance of not drawing attention to the walk-in or alerting host nation security personnel.

States party to the 1987 Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment have agreed not to expel or return an individual from their territory to another country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he/she would be in danger of being subjected to torture. www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/235430?intcmp=239

Magical Mystery Tour:

Another Church (15,000 Member The Rock) Ruins Lives: Mann said the estimated 15,000 people who attend five Sunday services cause unbearable traffic, parking and noise problems. “It’s pretty much ruined our lives,” she said. web.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/02/developer-may-have-to-pay-millions/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1XGA5WgwMw

Big Bucks to Victim of Another Rapist Priest: A jury in Delaware on Wednesday awarded $30 million in compensatory damages to a man who said he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest — the largest such award granted to a single victim in a clergy abuse case, victims’ advocates said. www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/02church.html?scp=1&sq=priest%20%2430%20%20million%20settlement&st=cse

Above, Rapist Priest Francis Deluca

Never Forget:

Above, Black Panther Party Leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark murdered by Chicago Police, December 4, 1969

Thanks To: Faith and Craig, Amber, Elvira and Tony, Sandy and Van, Donna S, Marisol, Arturo, Ruben, Ray, Aschlye, Tania, Greg, Bill(s), Mr J and Z, Sherry, Ken and Barb (yes), the Susans, Stephen K, George and Sharon, Wayne, Alan S (get the video and write the book!), Patty A, Kim B, Don A, Steve, Ricky, Dennis, TC and Carol O.

Good luck to us, every one,

r