{"id":16388,"date":"2015-04-04T22:59:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T06:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=16388"},"modified":"2015-04-04T23:23:45","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T07:23:45","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-no-gods-no-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-no-gods-no-masters\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: No Gods. No Masters."},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"capitalism<\/a><\/p>\n

Call for Papers:\u00a0 Caribbean Military Encounters<\/strong><\/div>\n
A multidisciplinary anthology from the humanities<\/strong><\/div>\n
Editors: Shalini Puri and Lara Putnam<\/strong><\/p>\n
We invite papers for a multidisciplinary anthology that explores the Caribbean as a<\/div>\n
militarized region. Our volume will focus on the lived experience of militarization from<\/div>\n
across the numerous language areas of the Caribbean…Due May 31, 2015\u00a0 purishalini.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/caribbean-military-encounters-cfp.pdf<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Galeano\u00a0\u00a0 The Shoe
\n(January 15) <\/strong>
\nIn 1919 Rosa Luxemburg, the revolutionary, was murdered in Berlin.Her killers bludgeoned her with rifle blows and tossed her into the waters of a canal.Along the way, she lost a shoe.Some hand picked it up, that shoe dropped in the mud.Rosa longed for a world where justice would not be sacrificed in the name of freedom, nor freedom sacrificed in the name of justice.Every day, some hand picks up that banner.Dropped in the mud, like the shoe.\u00a0 www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175974\/tomgram%3A_eduardo_galeano%2C_sacrilegious_women\/<\/a>Student Debt Strike is ON <\/strong>Just over a month ago, Waging Nonviolence reported that 15 former students of Corinthian Colleges \u2014 the beleaguered, notorious for-profit higher education system \u2014 were going on strike; not from their jobs, or from class, but from their debt. Today, there are over 100 debt strikers. Their goal is to ramp up pressure on the Department of Education to relieve not just the debt they incurred, but all Corinthian students\u2019 loans and declare that for-profit colleges are not, in fact, too big to fail.\u201cWe had hundreds and hundreds of requests to join the strike,\u201d said Debt Collective organizer Ann Larson. With the initial announcement, the group invited potential strikers to sign up on their website to become part of the Corinthian Collective. A team of dozens of volunteers then sorted through strike requests in a \u201crigorous process,\u201d informing debtors about the consequences of striking, reading over bills from their lenders and asking them to write up brief biographies and statements about why they were striking.\u00a0 wagingnonviolence.org\/2015\/03\/student-debt-strikers-grow-number-power\/<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Back to Some Classics<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
\"Goslings\"<\/a>1924 It is the thesis of the business men who run our educational system that the schools are factories, and the children raw material, to be turned out thoroughly standardized, of the same size and shape, like biscuits or sausages. To these business men the teachers are servants, or ‘hands,’ whose duty is the same as in any other factory—to obey orders, and mind their own business, and be respectful to their superiors. Whenever by any chance teachers dare to have ideas of their own, or especially to ask for higher wages, these teachers are treated precisely as we have seen labor unions treated by the Black Hand of Southern California. www.amazon.com\/Goslings-Study-American-Schools\/dp\/1162796359\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428126994&sr=8-1&keywords=sinclair+goslings<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n
\"Schooling<\/a>\"Chicao<\/a>Ross: Taylorism and its influence on education www.academia.edu\/4778995\/Clockwork_Taylorism_and_its_Continuing_Influence_on_Work_and_Schooling<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Phonics\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Az pols to Ed Workers: Shut Up\u00a0 <\/strong>SB 1172<\/a>, which passed the House this week, doesn’t do a damn thing to help schools, but it does<\/em> make it illegal for education officials, including superintendents, principals and teachers, to speak for or against bills, plans or citizen referenda that affect their funding, that affect their ability to do their job. Will politicians put the same limits on police and firefighters? No, but<\/p>\n

The House gave initial approval Thursday to a bill with a provision blocking school or charter school employees from speaking or distributing information in an official capacity to influence an election. It now awaits a formal vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Proponents of the bill say they don’t want school employees, on the taxpayer’s dime, trying to influence elections and other funding decisions. The letter that 233 superintendents sent to the legislature would be illegal if the bill passes, since they wrote it in their “official capacity.” Hmm, last time I checked legislators are not prohibited from lobbying for their<\/em> pet programs, also on the taxpayer’s dime. Beyond direct advocacy, education officials point out<\/a> that the bill is written so broadly that it would even prevent a superintendent from distributing “factual information” to parents about topics that affect their children’s education.<\/p>\n

“This bill is basically putting a gag order on school officials when it comes to providing any kind of information that is factual to stakeholders.” … The provision would prevent school officials from speaking about issues even when they directly affect school funding, [school board representative] Vega said. “We wouldn’t be able to provide information on what programs would be cut.”\u00a0 www.dailykos.com\/story\/2015\/03\/28\/1374000\/-Arizona-school-officials-protest-education-cuts-so-the-legislature-makes-their-protests-illegal?detail=facebook_sf#<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"me_detroit_kids_03xx15\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Students, each representing precious $s, flee Detroit’s Broken schools\u00a0 <\/strong>Detroit can’t keep its schoolchildren: Each day, an estimated 25,000 school-age children go to suburban districts, leaving seats empty in classrooms citywide.<\/p>\n

More than 8,000 attend traditional districts in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties, while 17,000 are in suburban charters, state data from 2013-14 show.<\/p>\n

Some suburban districts, especially those in financial distress, now rely on Detroit’s children \u2014 and the state aid they bring with them \u2014 to survive.<\/p>\n

These reciprocal ties played out publicly this past week when East Detroit Public Schools, just north of Detroit’s Eight Mile border, reversed its decision to end participation in the state Schools of Choice program for students outside Macomb County.<\/p>\n

The district, in Schools of Choice since 2012, expects by June to eliminate a deficit that once was $8 million.<\/p>\n

Unionized teachers protested the plan to limit choice, saying the Macomb County district would lose up to $2 million in state aid if it refused students from Detroit and elsewhere in Wayne County. If the district could afford that, the union reasoned, it could return millions of dollars in concessions the union took in the last three years.<\/p>\n

The school board buckled.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 www.detroitnews.com\/story\/news\/education\/2015\/03\/30\/student-exodus-saps-detroit-school-finances\/70652450\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hall<\/a>Then-Atlanta superintendent of public schools Beverly Hall smiles after she was named the 2009 Superintendent of the Year at the American Association of School Administrators\u2019 National Conference on Education in San Francisco. Hall died in March, and on April 1, \u00a011 teachers were found guilty of racketeering and other charges. (Paul Sakuma\/AP)<\/span><\/p>\n

11 Atlanta\u00a0 School Worker Test Cheats Guilty as Charged under RICO <\/strong>\u201cGuilty,\u201d Judge Jerry Baxter read the jury\u2019s verdicts for conspiracy for 11 of the 12 defendants in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial. (All told, the state concluded that 178 teachers and principals throughout\u00a0the Atlanta school system cheated.)<\/p>\n

The conspiracy charge was the most serious and could bring sentences up to 20 years.<\/p>\n

Only one defendant, Dessa Curb, walked away with no conviction on any charge.<\/p>\n

The 11 convicted former teachers and administrators \u2013 21 others had already pleaded guilty<\/em> to lesser charges \u2013 were led out in handcuffs and face long sentences. The other felony charges could each bring five to 10 years in prison for each count.<\/p>\n

See charges and photos of the convicted teachers here<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0 www.ajc.com\/news\/APS-trial-verdicts\/<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As the first guilty verdicts were read the defendants and defense attorneys stood. Their faces fell<\/a> as they heard the \u201cguilty\u201d verdicts roll.<\/p>\n

The convictions close a long, troubling period<\/a> that tarnished the image of the school system and the city as educators and administrators chose their careers and bonuses over doing right by the children they taught.<\/p>\n

Investigators said the educators worked together, sometimes holding erasure parties or dinners, sometimes working alone, to correct answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. The cheating robbed students, who were passed up to the next grade without being prepared to succeed, and caused the schools to miss out on grants that could have provided tutoring or other help for those who were failing .www.ajc.com\/news\/news\/eleven-former-teachers-and-administrators-guilty-i\/nkkFX\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"cheating<\/a>Letter to Editor re: Atlanta Test Cheats and Unequal Justice: <\/strong>While appalled by the nation-wide test cheating scandals, it is impossible not to note that classroom teachers, who rightly feared for their jobs, face 35 years in prison on conspiracy charges while grifting bankers laundered money for terrorists and drug cartels were never criminally charged. Instead their banks were fined, big wrist-slaps, and nobody went to jail. Perhaps the greater guilt lies with the likes of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and others, who promulgate the test score fetishes, measuring little more than parental income and home language, as gate-keepers to employment and promotion for students and teachers alike. If we consider the teachers to be little more than bank robo-signers, we see the issue in the proper perspective. First graders know what, “No Fair!” is.\u00a0 Dr Rich Gibson, San Diego State University, emeritus.<\/p>\n

Ohanian Background on the Test Cheaters <\/strong>susanohanian.org\/outrage_fetch.php?id=1884<\/a><\/p>\n

Suburbs Prepare to Riot. Secret Commission with Romanian Counsel in Lead, says, “forgive Detroit Schools’ debt, and more \u00a0<\/strong> The community-led coalition that’s been working on Detroit education reform<\/a> proposals for the last three months released their ideas for Gov. Rick Snyder on Monday, with the state assuming Detroit Public Schools’ debt among them.,..<\/p>\n

One of the main points in the document is that the state of Michigan is responsible for, and should pay, the $53 million annual debt payments made by Detroit Public Schools, amounting to about $1,200 per student.<\/p>\n

John Rakolta (married to Ronna Romney’s sister and Romanian Counsel)<\/strong>, chief executive of Walbridge and another co-chair of the coalition, said Detroit Public Schools operated with a surplus in 1999, before the state took over the district. Its operational deficit is now $170 million and it has about $2.1 billion in accumulated debt, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Rakolta placed the cause of this operation deficit at the feet of state government and state policies, saying it has been accumulated under the state’s watch.\u00a0 www.mlive.com\/lansing-news\/index.ssf\/2015\/03\/coalition_recommends_state_tak.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Otis<\/a>One of the last superintendents of the democratically elected DPS Board, the notorious illiterate Otis Mathis, who had another problem….<\/p>\n

–Otis Mathis, Detroit Public Schools board president, is fighting for his job and is under investigation after being accused by the superintendent of fondling himself in front of her.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After submitting his resignation Thursday, Mathis sent a letter to colleagues Friday saying he wants to stay on the board and blaming “ongoing health problems” for his “poor judgment.”<\/p>\n

The letter came the same day The Detroit News published online a two-page complaint from Superintendent Teresa Gueyser that accused Mathis of touching himself during a private meeting this week. She called it his “usual habit” and wrote she’s documented his “inappropriate behavior for months.”<\/p>\n

“On many occasions, I have asked him not to touch himself,” she wrote in the Wednesday letter to Anthony Adams, board vice president.\u00a0 From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com\/article\/20100619\/SCHOOLS\/6190351#ixzz3W8FtEV3P<\/a><\/p>\n

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n