Recent spontaneous and unprecedented high school student protest movements are causing a growing panic among the wealthy investor class who want to convert much of American education from public, democratic control to corporate investor control for their profits. It is showing that high school students are finding their own voice distinct from just joining in with adult protests.
Continue reading High School Student Protests Create Headaches for Some, Hope for Others
Activism becomes easier if there is a big figure who is openly defiant and antagonistic toward the position of the activists. Think Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon during the end of the anti-war protests and the Watergate hearings.
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Janet Barresi has been that bigger-than-life, openly hostile, antagonistic figure for anti-reform education activists in Oklahoma. Rather than coming from some experience of education in her background, she is a dentist who suspended her practice to run for the position.
Continue reading Barresi Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving for Anti-reform Education Activists
In June, as the primary was getting closer, I suggested a series of questions that anyone should ask our Oklahoma State Superintendent candidates.
The questions were raised across two posts, one on June 16th and the other on June 25th, and represented issues about campaign finance, the influence of ALEC, and charter schools.
Continue reading Hofmeister Answers Questions About Contributors-Charter Schools-ALEC
First, let’s acknowledge that those school A-F rankings that came out this week are bogus, and both candidates clearly say so.
Second, let’s also acknowledge that the drastic drop in rankings for so many schools after Barresi’s primary loss shows just how the Barresi-led OKSDE has been jiggering the grades all along. Leading up the election? The scores keep improving. Barresi’s point is, well, we are doing great! These reforms are kicking in and we can see it, even though there is room for improvement.
But now, the point she’s making is: These public school leaders who didn’t support me? What do they know? Look how dumb they are! They are doing just awful, aren’t they? They should have listened to me.
So now those bogus grades are out, and the two candidates for State Superintendent were expected to make statements, which they did in print, but also on camera for Tulsa TV station KTUL.
A closer look at those videos, one after the other, show some interesting contrasts.
Continue reading Hofmeister’s “Have-to”s Leave Even More Questions
Leaders in the corporate, hedge fund controlled, charter outfits love to use the phrase “disruptive change” as code for “we are taking over from those slow, stupid public school administrators and teachers because we can do it better.” But judging from their last few years’ track records, it’s looking like they are past due for some “disruptive change” within their own operations to root out the theft of tax dollars and short-changing of students in dire need of a true education.
Continue reading It’s Time for “Disruptive Change” Within the Ranks of Charter School Profiteers
In just three weeks, employees of Market Basket, a regional chain of grocery stores based in Massachusetts, pulled off an upset in the world of labor relations: They successfully drove that company’s board of directors to re-hire their loved CEO who had been fired by other distant family members in a boardroom squabble over control of the company.
This successful strike organized by managers, supervisors and workers has much to teach educators about how the power of numbers can offset the power of the rich.
Continue reading What the Market Basket Grocery Strike Can Teach Educators
My students are from lots of places: Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Taiwan this year. The mix is always changing. My two classes are adult-ed, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
I am lucky to have such a good part-time job working for an awesome community college. This is only my second semester to teach in this program.
Continue reading It Takes Practice to Become This Kind of a Rainbow
This is the 3rd in a series of three posts pointing out how corporate, investor-owned charter school organizations have chosen to experiment at the expense of children who are mostly from poor families.
Continue reading The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark
Part 1 of this series focused on New Orleans and the radical experiment there with ALL charter schools serving the city this year. I showed that New Orleans is an example of how investors and hedge fund managers see “reform” experiments as an option only for the poor. We really don’t see much, if any experimentation being proposed in the upper economic sectors of this country right now.
Next, let’s look at another example of the callous disregard for the future of poor children to serve the business desires of investors and edu-corporations.
Continue reading The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 2 — Detroit
