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- Tue 21 May 5:48 PMThought Experiment on Keystone Pipeline.
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by mike_cote - Tue 21 May 2:25 PMSen. Barry Finegold plots run for State Treasurer
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by merrimackguy - Tue 21 May 10:07 AMState audit confirms salary overpayments to DDS provider
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by dave-from-hvad - Mon 20 May 11:57 PMScott Brown released his military records. Why hasn't Gabriel Gomez?
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by seamusromney - Mon 20 May 7:40 PMRIP, Ray Manzarek
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by somervilletom - Mon 20 May 11:00 AMGomez disparages Rep. Markey's years in Congress while using 31-year Congressman McCain to raise funds
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by laurel - Mon 20 May 7:27 AMDear Colleagues, Do you get tired of emails you get from our organization do something about state budget cuts?
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by judy-meredith - Sun 19 May 10:46 PMSo What's Gomez's Position on the Assault Weapons Ban?
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by johnk - Sat 18 May 10:52 PMCitizens First: A Call to Create "Charter" Police and Fire Stations, brought to you by Democrats for Public Safety Reform (DFPSR)
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by columwhyte - Thu 16 May 11:00 PMBruins Open Thread
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by jconway
- Tue 21 May 5:48 PMThought Experiment on Keystone Pipeline.
cannoneo
Person #615: 15 Posts
Recommended: 26 times
Re: corporate ed reform (0 Replies)
The legal mechanisms governing how this public money is used (e.g., allowing charters to operate outside of negotiated labor contracts) are shaped by a reform movement that is funded by the philanthropic wings of major corporations and their super-wealthy execs/owners. E.g.:
http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/educationreform/shape-public-policy
http://www.dfer.org/list/about/board/
http://stand.org/national/about/board-directors
Charter schools exist to be non-union. Unionizing them would take an expenditure of time, energy, and conflict that is hard to imagine. If you don’t see this, you’re not really conscious of the reality of this issue.
The reasons we don't blame police are relevant (1 Reply)
“Personally I would blame access to guns for that but I digress.”
This isn’t a digression–it’s a relevant extension of the diary’s brilliant analogy, and a key to answering your ultimate question. For crime, we are willing to look at systemic factors instead of trying to demonize police officers or tear up their unions. We look to support them with the best training and technology we can, and we don’t blame them for higher crime rates in areas with more guns and more social dysfunction. While we expect professionalism and commitment, we understand that the fundamental factors which actually drive crime are beyond their control, and we reserve high praise for officers fighting the good fight in places where things don’t seem to get better.
“there is not broad advocacy for semi-privatizing public safety” because, beyond this recognition of the limits of public safety work, violent crime stats (like student test scores) have been improving for decades, and because (like education) safety is a basic right and a common good, such that chopping up access to it and pitting the recipients against one another is obviously, insanely unjust.
My theory of why this isn’t obvious in education is that the “crisis” exists to provide illusory solutions to deeper crises of inequality and democracy, the real solutions to which are not politically thinkable at the moment. And the reform evangelists maximize this inchoate anxiety for their own goals, whether financial or political.
Total red herring (1 Reply)
None of the security services or safety products you list are predicated on the diversion of public funds or the fragmenting of public access that corporate ed reform demands and achieves. They are all supplemental, like private schools, homeschooling materials, SAT prep courses, and the like. And further, they are almost all subject to inspection by public safety officials.
And ask any police or fire commissioner whether they approach public safety as a set of discrete events or as a process. It’s the ed reformers, in fact, who make education more like a series of events (“measurable outcomes”) than a process.
Economic incentives and core values would have to change (1 Reply)
I think you’re underestimating how much of their core values — and their funders’ goals — charter operators would be violating in such a collaboration. What the union movement won in the 20th century was more than protections, but a form of collaborative management incorporating the collective wisdom and values of workers into the very structure of the workplace and its operations. The careful, democratic process of making this a reality fits with stable public institutions, but goes against the culture of ed reformers, who see themselves as “entrepreneurs” able to bring about dramatic, transformative change in very short periods.
The best charter operators bring their faculties in on decision-making processes, but even they would not want faculty power codified, especially since the greatest sources of funding out there now prohibit it. The Waltons, e.g., in their philanthropy as well as their business, are committed to breaking labor’s back. Unions don’t exist in a vacuum–they are governed by the same web of labor laws, and big-picture funders and strategists on both the left and right tend to see labor power in a holistic way. Seeing a teacher’s union sidelined absolutely affects how lawmakers will respond to a labor conflict in the Walmarts in their state.
Yeh but charters exist precisely to be non-union (1 Reply)
And I don’t mean that as simply a slam–translated into ed reform language, it’s at the core of their movement. The freedom to hire and to “innovate” (make changes that alter work conditions and hours) is their raison d’etre and it requires freedom from established union protections.
Ha ha good one (1 Reply)
Try running that by a charter school “CEO” and then ask him about his hiring plans for the following summer.
Research isn't the only factor (2 Replies)
Let’s stipulate that the research on effects and outcomes is a wash right now. But we still have facts on the ground: laws that reward and punish schools based on test results; differences in student population such as the ESL and SPEd; funding mechanisms that don’t take into account the fixed costs of running established schools.
With these facts, the “tracking” effect that in (3) you agree charter trends promote is emerging in an environment that will explicitly punish the most unsupported, unprepared, and disabled students. These facts cannot be adjusted as quickly as the charter cap can be lifted. I.e., you can’t be neutral on the charter cap right now based on the research or based on the possibility that a two-tier system might, under different conditions, work. In the current system, the proliferation of charters will harm the most vulnerable students.
In re 1st Suffolk, this business of "calling" races only discredits news orgs (1 Reply)
I don’t get it–there’s no real upside (no one remembers who “called” a race first) but a huge, humiliating downside. It’s meant to be a kind of science, combining early results, exit polling, and remaining precinct demographics. But it should be treated with extreme caution, as almost something that tampers with the civic process. I feel like if you get one wrong, you should give up on the whole enterprise for good.
4th/1st Suffolk state senators (2 Replies)
John Powers (1940-64), Joe Moakley (1965-71), Bill Bulger (1971-1996), Stephen Lynch (1996-2001), Jack Hart (2002-2013), Linda Dorcena Forry (2013-).
Is this really so hard? (1 Reply)
Criticizing the police goes *against* that feeling. The call to delete EBIII’s posts is what “captures” it.
Like in that Scorcese flick, (1 Reply)
Don’t worry, those beautiful women are just pretending to ignore you because they are undercover cops who don’t want to blow their cover.
Tossed for your delectation (2 Replies)
If you don’t recognize that “the power of a unifying moment” refers to what Bostonians have felt and articulated all week, then you’re being obtuse. This post and its supporters are clearly invoking that power in calling for the erasure of posts that criticize the police in a tone they don’t like. They would not have the chutzpah to try such a stunt without it.
Muckraking is a progressive tradition. Nobility is not. (0 Replies)
That’s weird, I’ve never heard “noble” used as a minimal standard for dissent. Well, maybe in feudal times. As usual I don’t understand the rest of your point because your diction is obscure and your syntax convoluted.
This post is (GW) Bush league (4 Replies)
The people obsessed with EBIII can usually be written off as humorless schmucks who want every post on BMG to be as tedious and self-righteous as their own.
But this time they are trying to create a post-9/11 atmosphere by suggesting criticism of authorities or dissent from rah-rah patriotism is grounds for expulsion. They are using the power of a unifying moment to try to silence a voice they don’t like. I’m glad the editors are made of sterner stuff than that.
She's advocating for more (0 Replies)
She released a detailed statement the morning after the vote.
It was a case of believing that realistically there will not be an alternative to this process.
I live in the district and I'm for Dorcena-Forry (0 Replies)
She is vastly more experienced than the other candidates, with a record of progressive leadership and community bridge-building.
Lowest. of. the. low. (1 Reply)
I honestly didn’t think I could be shocked any more by this stuff, and the worst can usually be written off as “one nutjob filed a bill.” This cleared two committees. They are defending it. I don’t even think market dynamics play any real role in their thinking. At the level of contagious religious emotions where this “fundamentalism” lies, I think it’s directly about hurting vulnerable people. It’s as if they feel that there is something sinful or unnatural about a power imbalance whose potential violence is not brought to complete fruition.
My instinct is to think about this in terms of white Southern culture going back through slavery. But then, this religion is practiced in the national conversation around debt, deficit, and grand bargains. Respectable people in blue states have learned to feel in their bones that hurting the poor will placate our national demons too.
Radio and e-mail play vastly different roles (1 Reply)
The governor is not speaking to his constituents, he’s speaking to his e-mail list, a large fraction of which lives in districts with progressive reps anyway. Radio was ubiquitous in the ’30s, you could hardly avoid hearing FDR’s chats. This e-mail is not mass communication and it’s a piss-poor substitute for the kind of political legwork the governor disdains. But I’m probably reacting too much to what I see as hyperbole in Bob’s opening paragraph. I will be part of whatever response this e-mail generates and I hope it is effective.
Clicking send does not a "rally" make (1 Reply)
I’ve visited my rep in person to advocate for the governor’s proposal and will be calling more next week.
But calling an e-mail a superior form of politics is a joke. We are a minority of online, tuned-in, text-oriented people, so an e-mail speaks to us. If composing feisty, fact-filled e-mails was a political skill, the legislature would be filled with bloggers.
The governor is in this mess because he sucks at working the legislature, and always has.
Exam and charter schools play very different roles (0 Replies)
I didn’t imply that charters “can do nothing but harm.” I said that individually they can succeed, i.e. educate children very well. The question at hand is the lifting of the cap on more charters and what effect that will have on the provision of public education to all the city’s children.
A charter school could in theory commit to retaining whatever students arrive at its doors, and no doubt some do. What makes this difficult is that charters and the wider ed reform movement have defined success by raising the test scores and college placement rates of a general student population—outdoing regular public schools on these measures is the premise for their existence, as exhibited by Lehigh’s argument. The attrition rates show that many charters pursue this success in ways that belie the claim of general access and scalable results. What motive is there for charters to do otherwise if they are not called out for it?
BLS could change in the 1990s because the pressures on it were different. It is premised openly on the idea of taking in the most advanced students. With the help of alumni funding it can retain students who are struggling and still expect overall success. This meritocratic elitism is (contrary to your claim) controversial and its value has been debated. But right or wrong, by long, long-established custom, BLS plays a special role in the system. Its exclusivity is by definition not scalable.