Tuesday, April 23, 2013

THE COLOR OF SCHOOL CLOSURES

DOES IT LOOK LIKE

EDUCATION GENOCIDE YET?

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Collapse of Public Education in the USA

An 8 Yr Old Black Tennessee Child With Something to Say Is a "Prop" to Rabid Republican State Senator

Video Shows ‘Starve The Children’ Lawmaker Snubbing Little Girl, Calling Her A ‘Prop’

By Elisabeth Parker

2013/04/12- addictinginfo.org

TN State Senator Stacey Campfield accuses protesters of using eight-year-old Aamira Fetuga as a "prop" ... after using her as a prop in this photo.

Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield accuses protesters of using eight-year-old Aamira Fetuga as a “prop” … after using her as a prop in this photo. Photo from politix.topix.com.

Tennessee Senate Bill 132 — scorned by opponents as the “Starve the Children” bill — went down in flames today, after 60 outraged protesters led by a gutsy eight-year-old girl marched on the capitol and publicly shamed State Senator Campfield into dropping this controversial legislation. But first, things got reeeeeallly ugly in Nashville, as recorded in a shocking video uploaded to YouTube by Eric Patton.

The professionally produced video from the Tennessean, as shown in a previous AI article, is easy on the eyes, and tells a charming tale of a spirited little girl telling Truth to Power. Patton’s homespun effort, on the other hand, reveals the darker story of a lawmaker who pushes senselessly cruel and discriminatory legislation, who refuses to face the people he’s hurting, and who has no problem with brutally snubbing a little girl who’s scared that her family won’t have enough to eat or be able to keep the lights on. It definitely puts the “raw” in “raw footage,” and catches a lot of stuff the Tennessean‘s camera crew missed. Patton also helpfully added some captions to help viewers follow the proceedings.

The excruciating four minutes and twenty six seconds begins as people file out from a meeting in Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey’s office, trailed by Ramsey and Campfield. Off-screen, a woman chimes in a overly-cheery, lilting voice, “Look, someone wants to talk to you.” It’s not clear whether she’s addressing Campfield, or the little girl that roared. Campfield immediately gets his b*tch on, pats eight-year-old Aamira Fetuga on the head, and snarks, “Hey, thanks for coming to school today.” As the woman declares, “She’s got something to give to you,” Fetuga hands him a petition protesting SB 132.

amira Fetuga, 8, confronts Tennessee Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, in the hallways of the state legislature buildling about controversial bill that would tie welfare to grades..

Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield (left), Aamira Fetuga, age 8, and Protesters K. Chambers and R. Fetuga. The man in the background with the blue shirt and glasses may be Eric Patton, who filmed the video shown below. Screen captured image from the Tennessean‘s video footage.

Then, in an amazingly sleazy move that you’d have to see to believe, Campfield poses for the cameras while grinning and leaning in towards the eight-year-old, and then exclaims:

“Thank you! I LOVE it when people use children as props!”

The remaining video footage consists of the determined little girl and her band of protesters following Campfield and trying to get a word in edgewise, while the Senator marches imperviously through the dark, narrow, and claustrophobic corridors of power chanting in a creepily repetitive, sing-song voice, “I don’t use children as props.” The intrepid elementary schooler finally catches up with him on the escalator and declares, “I don’t like the way you take benefits from people.” Campfield then engages in a shouting match with the protesters and nearly knocks down a woman while desperately trying to escape the reporters, photographers, and film crew.

Other highlights include:

When Fetuga pleaded,”I’m worried about the lights getting cut off,” the lawmaker chirped, “Well that won’t happen as long as you have a DECENT PARENT.”
When a man chided the state senator, “I’m ashamed of what you’ve been doing, I want you to know that,” Campfield turned on him and snarled, “Dude, you’re a union thug! I know exactly what you are.”
When a woman identified as K. Chambers on the video objected that Campfield called Fetuga a “prop” again, the state senator triumphantly crowed, “PROP!” like a bully on a playground.
When a woman identified as R. Fetuga on the video pointed out, “He is a foolish man. He doesn’t like black people or poor people,” Campfield had nothing to say for himself. This writer suspects he didn’t like hearing the truth.

What is it about these Republicans?

As explained by my AI colleague, Stephen D. Foster, Jr., SB 132 would have tied welfare payments to grades, by cutting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) by up to 30% when children don’t perform well in school. To be exempt from these cuts, the parents would need to jump through all sorts of hoops, including attending conferences, taking an eight-hour parenting class, and — if necessary — hiring a tutor or putting the child in summer school.

Elisabeth Parker is a writer, Web designer, mom, political junkie, and dilettante. Come visit her at ElisabethParker.Com, “like” her on facebook, “friend” her on facebook, follow her on Twitter, or check out her Pinterest boards. For more Addicting Info articles by Elisabeth, click here.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Newark Students Plan to WALK OUT on Tuesday 9 April 2013!

On Tuesday, April 9th, 2013 @ 12PM All Newark Public High School Students Will Walk out of their Classrooms to March to the Rutgers Law School (located at 123 Washington Street, Newark) for the State Assembly Budget Hearings on Education. Students, Families, Education Advocacy Groups, and Community will Join in Solidarity to Demand that the State Assembly "FOLLOW THE LAW, AND STOP THE CUTS'.

Please JOIN us!

For Information Please contact the Newark Student Union at: NewarkStudentsUnion@gmail or NJ Communities United: Robert Cabanas, Lead Organizer: robert@unitednj.org

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Chicago FightBack School-Closings Rap

Published on Apr 1, 2013

"It's Time To Fight Back!" (words and music by Matt Farmer)

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The Coalition for
Public Education

Coalición por la
Educación
Pública

Who We Are
What We
Want

The Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública is an independent, non-sectarian, and non-governmental organization with short, middle and long-term educational and social goals. We believe that education is a human right and we want to ensure that New York City public schools are places of learning in which all stakeholders (parents, students, educators, non-pedagogical staff, administrators and the community) are engaged in a democratic process to provide a free and quality education to all its students, from Pre-school to College.

Our coalition is based on antiracist/antisexist democratic grassroots organizing concepts and not based on the idea that any one individual, politician, union leader, or political messiah will save us.

Our coalition will participate in election campaigns but will focus on mass action as a primary vehicle for social change.

Therefore, we will organize the distribution of leaflets, mass rallies, forums, civil disobedience, petitions, referendums, web-based actions, economic boycotts, and other grassroots tactics. We also understand that we are not alone in struggle and that we must unite with other groups and individuals who support democracy, self-determination and the empowerment of our communities.

What We Want:

I. A Peoples' Board of Education

II. Local control of our Public Schools not Mayoral Dictatorship!

III. Better Public Schools not Charter Schools!

IV. Power to Parents, Students and Educators!

V. Implementation of a mandatory Antiracist Curriculum!

VI. Recruiting educators from our neighborhoods to achieve racial parity!

VII.Money for Education Not War!

VIII. OUR Schools = Neighborhood School Control!

NYC EDSTATS You Can Use

New York City Schools by the Numbers

By John Tarleton
www.indypendent.org

$12.5 billion: Annual New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget (2002)

$21 billion: Annual New York City DOE budget (2009)

1,719: Number officials employed by the DOE central administration in June 2002

2,442: Number of officials employed by the central administration as of November 2008

2: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2004.

22: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2007.

5: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2003.

23: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2008.

944: Number of contracts approved by DOE in 2008, at a total cost of $1.9 billion.

20: Percentage of contracts that exceeded estimated cost by at least 25 percent.

$67.5 million: Annual budget of Project Arts, a decade-old program that was the sole source of dedicated funding for arts education. It was eliminated in 2007.

86: Percentage of principals who said in a 2008 poll that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes in their schools.

100,000: Number of seats DOE plans to provide for charter school students by 2012.

25,000: Number of seats DOE plans to build under 2010 to 2014 capital plan.

66,895: Number of K-3 school-children in classes of 25 or more during the 2008-09 school year.

15,440: Average number of seats per year built during the last six years of the Rudolph Giuliani administration.

10,895: Average number of seats per year built during the first six years of the Bloomberg administration.

27.2: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were Black.

14.1: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were Black.

53.3: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were white.

65.5: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were white.

76: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Latino students in 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) in 2003.

75: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic students in 8th grade ELA in 2008.

77: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2003.

81: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2008.

54: Percentage of New York City public school parents who disapproved of Mayor Bloomberg’s handling of education, according to a March 2009 Quinnipiac poll.

Sources: New York City Council, New York City Comptroller’s Office, New York Daily News, New York Post, Eduwonkette, Quinnipiac Institute, Black Educator, Class Size Matters, New York City Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein.