{"id":7537,"date":"2012-08-03T22:32:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T06:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=7537"},"modified":"2012-08-03T22:32:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T06:32:27","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-equality-or-barbarism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-equality-or-barbarism\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Equality or Barbarism"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fightback!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Critical Theories In the Twenty First Century:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Conference of Transformative Pedagogies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2012 Theme:<\/p>\n

Critical Education Against Capitalism<\/strong> (call for proposals at web site)<\/p>\n

Sponsored by:<\/p>\n

Educational Foundations in the Department of Professional and Secondary Education at West Chester University of Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

Co-hosted by: <\/span>The Rouge Forum<\/em><\/p>\n

Proposal Due Date: <\/strong>November 1st<\/sup> 2012<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Conference Date: <\/strong>November 17th<\/sup> 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

Location: West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA<\/p>\n

Keynote Speakers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter McLaren (UCLA)<\/p>\n

Sandy Grande (Connecticut College)<\/p>\n

Closing Event:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Discussion: \u00a0 Critical Education Against Capitalism<\/p>\n

web site: \u00a0 www.ct21st.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The Coming Chicago Fubar <\/strong>The FUBAR is where Chicago’s schools are now headed as more than 400,000 children (including two in the family of this reporter) begin to prepare to return to classroom (or strike support work). At least Rahm knows the main words that will be used to describe the work of genius he has created by his prejudice against veteran educators, against real public schools, and against public sector workers and public sector unions. Under the quarter million dollar “Chief Executive Officer” of CPS, Rahm is replicating fuckups faster than …www.substancenews.net\/articles.php?page=3476#comments<\/a><\/p>\n

Boots and Oakland OWS <\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m not afraid to call myself a Communist,\u201d the rapper and activist Boots Riley told me one morning last spring in the kitchen of his weather-beaten yellow Victorian house in Oakland\u2019s Lower Bottoms section. \u201cI think some people call themselves everything but, because they don\u2019t want to associate themselves with the failures and mistakes that other folks who have called themselves Communists have made. But Christians don\u2019t stop calling themselves Christians just because some other Christians made some mistakes.\u201d \u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/08\/05\/magazine\/oakland-occupy-movement.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>above, the Coup CD cover pre-September 11<\/em><\/p>\n

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

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Killer Marines Try to Convince Teachers they are Really Touchy Feely Nice Folk \u00a0…<\/strong> they were high school teachers, guidance counselors and administrators from school districts in the Los Angeles and Sacramento areas. All had accepted the Marine Corps’ invitation to spend four days at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, watching the training and talking to recruits, enlisted Marines and senior officers.
\nWhile some areas of the state embrace the military, the Los Angeles Unified School District, second largest in the country, has been more reticent. It gives recruiters no more access to students or their information than is granted to any other potential employer. Parents and older students also are allowed to restrict the release of personal information to military recruiters.
\nSome teachers in the district have launched “counter recruiting” efforts, warning students of physical danger, regimentation and loss of privacy and individuality that come with military service. Others put students on “don’t call” lists.
\n“The U.S. continues to fight in wars that are opposed by the public, and yet the military can recruit with little opposition because working-class kids have few job options,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers and a critic of the Marine Corps program. \u00a0http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-marines-schools-20120729,0,4144935.story<\/p>\n

Common Core Jumps Up in Tenn. <\/strong> Teachers will change the way they deliver lessons to students when the school year begins next week.
\nTennessee is one of 46 states to adopt Common Core standards. The standards mean lessons will provide students with the most important knowledge and skills to compete in a global environment. The new standards will emphasize thinking, problem solving and creativity.
\nFor instance, before adopting Common Core, Tennessee third-graders were expected to learn 113 different lessons in math; core standards now call for 25. \u00a0 www.dnj.com\/article\/20120729\/NEWS07\/307290046\/BACK-SCHOOL-Common-Core-puts-emphasis-problem-solving-creativity<\/a><\/p>\n

AFT lets D.C. Fire 98 More Teachers <\/strong> D.C. school officials said Wednesday that 98 teachers were fired this week for poor performance, a large-scale dismissal that has become almost routine in the city but remains rare among school systems nationwide. \u00a0..Of the teachers dismissed this week, 39 were rated ineffective on IMPACT, and 59 were rated minimally effective for the second year in a row.
\n\u201cWe owe it to our teachers to provide them with more and better curricular resources and professional development to ensure their success \u2014 and we\u2019re doing that,\u201d Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said in a statement. \u201cBut we owe it to our students and families to continue to move out the professionals who are not up to this incredibly difficult task.\u201d
\nAbout two-thirds of all teachers were rated effective.
\nTeachers rated highly effective are eligible for bonuses of up to $25,000. This year, 988 teachers \u2014 or about a quarter of the teaching corps \u2014 earned that top rating, up from 663 last year….Washington Teachers\u2019 Union President Nathan Saunders, one of the fiercest critics, said the evaluation system is flawed but has been improved through recent revisions. If a teacher with promise appears headed for a poor IMPACT rating, for example, a principal can now ask to waive the consequences and give the teacher another year to improve.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been softened up. It\u2019s become more collaborative than when it was first introduced,\u201d Saunders said.
\nThe bonuses are expected to cost about $8\u2009million this year, funded by outside donors, …\u00a0 www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/education\/98-dc-teachers-fired-for-poor-performance-school-officials-say\/2012\/08\/01\/gJQAu67vPX_story.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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So Ubiquitous, it’s Boring–More Test Cheats <\/strong> Last Thursday, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and officials from D.C. public schools and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) held a news conference to crow about results on tests administered in April. Proficiency rates on both reading and math sections of the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System exams were up slightly for many grades in schools across the district, the mayor said.
\nHe took credit for those improvements \u2013 a 2.8 percentage point jump from 2011 to 2012 in the number of children proficient in math, a 0.5 point increase in reading proficiency. The results \u201care proof positive,\u201d he said, that a program he introduced to make pre-kindergarten more widely available is already having an impact.
\nOver the past five years, proficiency gains are even larger \u2013 up 18.1 percentage points in math and 9.5 percentage points in reading since 2007. But when you look closely at the school-by-school results also released last week, some are discouraging, particularly at the very schools celebrated in 2008, 2009 and 2010 for their soaring proficiency rates. Several schools have seen proficiency skid alarmingly, dropping by half or more while the rest of the district was inching upward.
\nThat\u2019s evidence that adults \u2013 principals, test coordinators, perhaps teachers \u2013 cheated at some schools in those years when proficiency rates climbed. Then, when Chancellor Kaya Henderson and OSSE introduced tighter security measures in 2011, it became more difficult for the adults to cheat, and the kids\u2019 scores and the schools\u2019 proficiency rates dropped from their prize-winning peaks. \u00a0http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/class-struggle\/post\/what-it-means-when-test-scores-plummet\/2012\/07\/27\/gJQAaorcEX_blog.html<\/p>\n

Florida Boss Quits as Test Scandals (yawn) Spread <\/strong> Gerard Robinson is resigning as Florida\u2019s education commissioner at a time of growing discontent with \u2014 and a series of blunders involving \u2014 the state\u2019s standardized test-based accountability system. \u00a0…recently embarrassed state officials miscalculated the grades given out to hundreds of schools and was forced to change them.
\nNot long before that, state officials panicked when only 27 percent of fourth-graders got proficient scores \u2014 down from 81 percent a year earlier \u2014 on a new FCAT writing test and students in other grades did poorly too. So what did they do? They lowered the passing score. \u00a0 www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/answer-sheet\/post\/florida-education-chief-resigns-amid-controversy\/2012\/08\/01\/gJQAT6oaOX_blog.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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above, a Detroit school in ruins. State takeovers built new schools, soon abandoned and stripped. <\/em><\/p>\n

Detroit exemplifies the Stark Choice: Equality or Barbarism <\/strong> The Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, Roy Roberts, replied to the American Federation of Teachers\u2019 President, Randi Weingarten, and the Detroit Federation of Teachers\u2019 President, Keith Johnson\u2019s request to restore DFT\u2019s collective bargaining rights with a simple, \u201cNo,\u201d on Thursday, August 2. Weingarten and Johnson had led a protest march and rally to DPS headquarters on the opening day of the recent AFT convention (as reported earlier at Substance). Although Weingarten created a small spectacle outside Roberts\u2019 office during the AFT convention last week (see Substance\u2019s extensive coverage) when she led a chant of AFT members, \u201cNegotiate! Negotiate!\u201d Roberts was apparently able to ignore the president of the 1.5 million member national union with no cost to himself or those who put him in power. \u00a0http:\/\/www.substancenews.net\/articles.php?page=3472&section=Article<\/p>\n

So Long, Counterfeit “Labor College.” Bankrupt AFL-CIO needs more dough <\/strong> Faced with diminishing membership and revenues, organized labor is selling the site of its accredited institution of higher learning, the National Labor College, on 47 prime acres ripe for development just off the Capital Beltway here.
\nThe campus, which was purchased by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. about 40 years ago, is 10 miles from the White House and a mile from the Food and Drug Administration, which recently consolidated its offices from 27 separate buildings elsewhere in Montgomery County.
\nThe decision to sell reflects the decline of organized labor\u2019s finances as well as the college\u2019s shift to mostly online courses. The college also has been having financial difficulties, which were worsened last fall when a partnership on distance learning with the for-profit Princeton Review came apart.
\nThe college has been running annual deficits of more than $6 million. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has heavily subsidized the college to keep it running, making the potential sale a welcome financial shot in the arm for the labor federation. \u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/08\/01\/realestate\/commercial\/national-labor-college-campus-owned-by-afl-cio-is-for-sale.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Above, half-wit AFL boss Richard Trumka pontificating before his “labor college” <\/em><\/p>\n

Hong Kong Protests Social Fascist Chinese Ed System <\/strong> The new curriculum would be similar to the so-called patriotic education taught in mainland China. The materials, including a handbook entitled \u201cThe China Model,\u201d describe the Communist Party as \u201cprogressive, selfless and united\u201d and criticize multiparty systems, even though Hong Kong has multiple political parties.
\nCritics liken the curriculum to brainwashing and say that it glosses over major events like the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square crackdown. It will be introduced in some elementary schools in September and be mandatory for all public schools by 2016. \u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2012\/07\/30\/world\/asia\/thousands-protest-chinas-curriculum-plans-for-hong-kong-schools.html?_r=1&ref=global-home<\/a><\/p>\n

More Powers for Campus Cops <\/strong> A new law that aims to address confusion over the authority of school district police departments has come under fire from some critics who say lawmakers have quietly increased school police powers under the guise of “cleanup language.”
\nThe law, which goes into effect in January, removes wording in the state Education Code that used to say that school police departments are not vested with general policing powers. That language caused confusion among the public because the Penal Code says just the opposite \u2013 that school officers are authorized to do general policing.
\nThe conflicting language created friction in Sacramento last year after accusations surfaced that the Twin Rivers Unified School District Police Department overstepped its authority by actively policing areas away from school campuses. \u00a0 www.sacbee.com\/2012\/07\/24\/4653573\/new-law-increases-school-police.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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above, the USS Maddox, centerpiece of the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident, August 4th, 1964, the excuse for the Vietnam War buildup. A Vietnam war unit \u00a0 www.richgibson.com\/vietnam\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K2Wl2M4yLkY<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Fisk on Syria <\/strong>Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I’m not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I’m referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion \u2013 eastern as well as western \u2013 in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.
\nWhile Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite\/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families \u2013 just as Bashar has done \u2013 and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan’s dark ages.
\nIndeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia \u2013 after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?…But what US administration would really want to see Bashar’s atrocious archives of torture opened to our gaze? Why, only a few years ago, the Bush administration was sending Muslims to Damascus for Bashar’s torturers to tear their fingernails out for information, imprisoned at the US government’s request in the very hell-hole which Syrian rebels blew to bits last week. Western embassies dutifully supplied the prisoners’ tormentors with questions for the victims. Bashar, you see, was our baby.
\nThen there’s that neighbouring country which owes us so much gratitude: Iraq. Last week, it suffered in one day 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilian and wounding another 235. The same day, Syria’s bloodbath consumed about the same number of innocents. But Iraq was “down the page” from Syria, buried “below the fold”, \u00a0http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/opinion\/commentators\/fisk\/robert-fisk-syrian-war-of-lies-and-hypocrisy-7985012.html<\/p>\n

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The US Proxy War on Somalia <\/strong>Nearly 20 years after U.S. Army Rangers suffered a bloody defeat in Somalia, losing 18 soldiers and two Black Hawk helicopters, Washington is once again heavily engaged in the chaotic country. Only this time, African troops are doing the fighting and dying.
\nThe United States is doing almost everything else.
\nThe U.S. has been quietly equipping and training thousands of African soldiers to wage a widening proxy war against the Shabab, the Al Qaeda ally that has imposed a harsh form of Islamic rule on southern Somalia and sparked alarm in Washington as foreign militants join its ranks.
\nOfficially, the troops are under the auspices of the African Union. But in truth, according to interviews by U.S. and African officials and senior military officers and budget documents, the 15,000-strong force pulled from five African countries is largely a creation of the State Department and Pentagon, trained and supplied by the U.S. government and guided by dozens of retired foreign military personnel hired through private contractors. \u00a0 www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/world\/la-fg-us-somalia-20120729,0,1426936.story<\/a><\/p>\n

US Formalizes Relationship with Syrian Jihadists, CIA assets, etc <\/strong> The U.S. government has authorized a U.S. group to provide financial and logistical support to the armed Syrian resistance, I report on the front page.
\nThe waiver was received from the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) last week, Brian Sayers, of the Syrian Support Group, told Al- Monitor in an interview Friday.
\n\u201cThe OFAC decision is huge,\u201d Sayers said. \u201cIt gets us the leeway to support the Free Syrian Army in broad terms.\u201d
\nA photograph of the OFAC letter seen by Al Monitor showed that it was signed by a Treasury Department official on July 23. (The document has since been removed from the Internet.)
\nSayers, an American who previously worked for six years in NATO operations in Brussels, was hired last spring by the Syrian Support Group to work Washington to \u201csupport the Free Syrian Army in different ways.\u201d
\nBut one Syrian source, speaking anonymously, suggested the Syrian Support Group\u2019s mission is not only about lobbying the US government to provide support to the FSA, but also the reverse: to help turn the FSA into a more organized entity that could receive intelligence and other assistance from Western security agencies. \u00a0http:\/\/backchannel.al-monitor.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/1464\/us-deepens-support-for-armed-syrian-rebels\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=us-deepens-support-for-armed-syrian-rebels<\/p>\n

Who Lost the Iraqi Coppers? <\/strong> A new audit reports that the US State Department wasted over $200 million on the Iraq police training program, building massive compounds and setting up an elaborate scheme without ever successfully getting Iraq to agree to the basics of the plan.
\nThe report says that one of the two compounds, in Basra, has been closed entirely while the other is open but scarcely used, as the State Department expressed \u201csurprise\u201d that Iraqis weren\u2019t interested in the program. \u00a0 news.antiwar.com\/2012\/07\/30\/audit-state-depts-iraq-police-scheme-a-total-flop\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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Send a Letter! War with China: Bad Idea <\/strong> Stealthy American bombers and submarines would knock out China\u2019s long-range surveillance radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the country. The initial \u201cblinding campaign\u201d would be followed by a larger air and naval assault.
\nThe concept, the details of which are classified, has angered the Chinese military and has been pilloried by some Army and Marine Corps officers as excessively expensive. Some Asia analysts worry that conventional strikes aimed at China could spark a nuclear war.
\nAir-Sea Battle drew little attention when U.S. troops were fighting and dying in large numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the military\u2019s decade of battling insurgencies is ending, defense budgets are being cut, and top military officials, ordered to pivot toward Asia, are looking to Marshall\u2019s office for ideas.
\nIn recent months, the Air Force and Navy have come up with more than 200 initiatives they say they need to realize Air-Sea Battle. The list emerged, in part, from war games conducted by Marshall\u2019s office and includes new weaponry and proposals to deepen cooperation between the Navy and the Air Force. \u00a0http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/what-is-air-sea-battle\/2012\/08\/01\/gJQAlGr7PX_graphic.html<\/p>\n

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

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3rd California City Bankrupt <\/strong>The City of San Bernardino – with over 200,000 residents on the eastern tip of greater Los Angeles – “filed an emergency petition for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy” with a regional U.S. bankruptcy court, according to a news release from the city’s interim manager.
\nThe other two to file recently were Stockton, with around 300,000 residents, according to 2010 U.S. census data, and Mammoth Lakes, a resort town, where visitors and seasonal residents outnumber the just over 8,000 permanent inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Afghan Reconstruction–Fubar’d <\/strong>Hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars may have been wasted on poorly managed infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, a report to Congress says.
\nJohn Sopko, special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, found that project “planning, co-ordination and execution” had been weak.
\nSecurity costs were likely to rise in the short-term, he added, as private companies hand over to Afghan forces.
\nThe US plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
\nThe quarterly report released on Monday also found that several construction projects were so far behind schedule that they were unlikely to be completed before US troops leave the country.\u00a0It said “a significant portion” of the US government’s $400m (\u00a3254m) investment in large infrastructure projects in fiscal year 2011 alone may have been wasted because of the poor planning.
\nThe report also says the US Army has accepted contract construction so poor it prevented multi-million dollar police bases from being used.
\nThe inspector general noted that one base was unoccupied because it has no viable water supply.
\n“Other deficiencies included leaking fuel lines, unconnected drain pipes, poorly built guard towers, and improperly installed heating and ventilation systems,” the report continues.
\nThe inspector general said there was still time to improve the outcome of the projects in Afghanistan, but warned that time was running out.
\nThe report notes that if Congress approves the Obama administration’s latest budget request the US will have allocated almost $100bn on Afghan reconstruction. \u00a0http:\/\/m.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-19052539<\/p>\n

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Second Israeli Self Immolates <\/strong> A second Israeli who set himself on fire in protest at economic difficulties has died of his injuries, the hospital treating him said on Wednesday. \u00a0Akiva Mafi, a 45-year-old, wheelchair-bound war veteran, doused his body in petrol and lit it at a bus station on July 30, after what friends described as a debilitating battle for welfare benefits.
\nHe was the second such fatality after Moshe Silman, a debt-ridden member of a grassroots movement to lower the cost of living in Israel, self-immolated during a July 14 demonstration in Tel Aviv and died two weeks later.
\nSilman, 57, left a note accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government of “taking from the poor and giving to the rich”. Local media later reported similar suicide bids among others suffering economic hardship. \u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/reuters\/2012\/08\/01\/world\/middleeast\/01reuters-israel-protests.html?ref=global-home<\/a><\/p>\n

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Solidarity Fornever<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n