Charter Schools are Terrible

Charter schools are a huge mistake. The truth be told, conservatives have long fought against public education by slashing tax-support, forcing staff reductions, imposing impossible standards, and then claiming that our schools are failing. 

Conservatives across the nation were unable to get vouchers, so they went for charter schools instead- as the third leg of their educational reform: private schools, home-schooling and charter schools.

Denying millions of dollars to our public schools, they turn around and give millions of dollars to corporations to run the schools, and their track record is abysmal.

Time to dump charter schools and tell the conservatives to take a hike. Fund public education and support our teachers, and we will have fine schools all across the nation.

From Wall Street to Teachers - the Old GOP Switcheroo ...

From a very good friend, pastor and scholar and all-around thoughtful guy, the Rev. Dr. Bob Dahl.

My new bumper sticker would read:  I follow Jesus, Weiner and Kucinich.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/anthony-weiner-sarcastically-mocks-gop-npr-defunding-bill-video.php?ref=fpb.

On a more serious note, how did the GOP manage to switch the focus of our economic woes from Wall Street, multinational corporations and the super rich to public employees, public radio and public TV? Let's blame it all on school teachers, fire fighters, police officers, librarians, the people who keep the snow off the roads after a storm and Diane Rehm.  Yes, Diane Rehm. I knew that scratchy voice from a serious vocal disorder would ruin the economy.

Are there incompetent school teachers?  Duh?  Should attempts be made to improve our public schools?  Duh, again.  But do they and their collective bargaining union deserve the derision they are getting from GOP governors throughout the land?  

Think scapegoat.  Attack the ones who don't have much power.   Fool the American people by asserting that balancing the budgets rests on the back the public, the poor, the middle class as it slides, ever increasingly into poverty, the kids, the veterans who come home with broken bodies and spirits.  Pick on anybody but the rich who pay for the politicians' campaign largess.    

This would all be laughable if it weren't so scary.  This fragile experiment we call the United States of America, a representative democracy, is moving rapidly toward a plutocracy and oligarchy.

Bring back Marie Antoinette and let the rest eat cake. 

I hope there will be a groundswell of protest from the very public being attacked to help restore sanity and safeguard our precious experiment in governance.  

Bob

Wisconsin Governor Full of Baloney

Says the gov of Wisconsin: "We have to cut the budget. We can't raise taxes; that would cripple the economy even further."

The economy?

For whom?

The top 2%?

This is such a crock of bull, it's hard to describe.

To strip away bargaining rights, to decease benefits that have been hard-won over the years and are wel-deserved, to further jeopardize education (oh, that's right, he doesn't give a damn about that, what with homeschooling and private schools to further the asinine agenda of the far-right), to demean public workers and embarrass the entire state of Wisconsin, is unconscionable ... a shameless display of fiscal insanity furthering the transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

Healthy economies always utilize fair and reasonable taxation to sustain the economy and to insure that maximum numbers of families have access to good jobs and benefits.

Because the  money supply is NOT infinite.

Taxation is a form of regulation that keeps the playing field of life fair for the MAJORITY. Our current insanity is crippling the economy, not because of high taxes, but rather foolishly low taxes on the super-rich and the big companies.

Nations never prosper when the wealthy prosper alone. Nations prosper when the middle class prospers.

The madness of low taxation is just that - a madness, a disease, a great evil, part of a strategy long in the planning and dearly believed by t-baggers who have been fooled by the reactionary forces at the top of the food chain. Current fiscal policies are currently designed to kill off the middle class, bust unions, strip away working-class initiative, diminish hope and transform the nation into an oligarchy.

The GOP and its reactionary forces have been bent on dismantling the American Dream ever since Reagan, the Great Liar, took office and said "Government is the problem."

What a crock.

What a bunch of baloney.

What a pack of lies!

Wisconsin Fighting Teacher Unions

The new GOP dictatorship in Wisconsin is seeking to further destroy the middle class by going after the teachers and their hard-won benefits.

Here's a note I recently posted when someone suggested that it was "democracy" that put into place the curent governor and legislators:

It wasn't democracy in action, but fear. Unions have helped millions of people gain a middle-class life, the backbone of real democracy. Your financial situation is the result of conservative, reactionary forces, who despise the middle class, and have convinced people like you that the middle class is your enemy, and you should fight them, and bring them down. But will their downfall make your situation any better? And, yes, I quite agree about taxation - but only because the powerful and the wealthy pay next to nothing, and expect folks like you to pay for everything. The whole thing stinks. So I hope you can truly identify who the "enemies" are - they are not your teachers and their unions, but the powerful and reactionary interests who now have Wisconsin a death-grip, and these big boys and girls really don't like people like you, and are glad to see you doing their dirty work. Join hands with the teachers, and together, you might just make a better world in Wisconsin, where folks like you will enjoy a safer and more prosperous life.

Bad Teachers?

Just heard something on NPR - folks dissing teachers, blaming teachers for failed schools.

Wish it were that easy.

Blaming teachers for failed schools is like blaming the faucet for bad water.

So, blame the teacher; kill the messenger - feels good and absolves us of blame for a little while longer.

Sadly, in America, the mantra of the conservative press, a servant of the privatization of schools (???), has been a constant condemnation of our teachers, their unions and school administrators.

Once again, the issue calls for critical thinking, and it seems that Americans are terribly short on the necessary skills ... meanwhile, the real issues are ignored - like family life and the values we give to our children via TV and music - "American Idol" and "Fame," and all the other glitz and glamor, not to mention the junk food we're dumping into their bodies and brains - massive amounts of salt, sugar and fat in processed foods.

The teacher is at the end of the pipeline, just like the faucet. Neither harsh discipline at that point (like spanking the faucet - either the student or the teacher) or replacing the faucet (like getting new teachers) will solve the problems of classroom discipline, ADHD, the lack of ambition distorted by dreams of fame and fortune and chaotic family life - the craziness of the rich and the famous, and all their wannabees, driven by poverty of soul, and the desperate effort of the poor just to survive, driven by a poverty of the flesh.

Bullying and fighting, drugs and cheating, emotional and physical lethargy - this is the stuff of the life we chosen for our children - Enron and Madoff, needless prescription drugs, power and domination, to hell with the poor and, please, cut my slice a little larger; honk, honk, get out of my way; all the non-sense of being self-made and being bigger and smarter than all the rest; American militarism, saber rattling and tough talk. Our children have learned all of these lessons very well; they are a mirror of the American soul!

Shame on those who add to the problem by leading our attention away from the problems that make millions of students ineducable.

It's time to quit spanking the faucet and replacing it with newer models.

It's time to support our teachers, their unions and school administrations.

It's time to deal with the real issues confronting American education ... I think Jesus said, "The judgment of God begins with the church" ... we might well, say the judgment of God begins with American culture and the values we have nourished in our children for the last fifty years.

Painful as it is, that's worth looking at it!