Comment in T&G on Clive's column criticizing high stakes testing for its effects on the quality of education:
................................
I agree with Maclear and Fitzgm that MCAS is a big problem. It distorts the curriculum by robbing it of many of the untested subjects, the ones that can give a high school education depth and beauty for the student. But more, it distorts the subjects it tests, freezing them in place like a finished product - or commodity.
Case in point, physics teaching. Because physics has been an untested subject, physics teachers have been free to innovate and explore new ways of teaching it, and even new ways of thinking about it. Working with university teachers, they've made huge breakthroughs in understanding how students learn and understand - and in measuring their results.
Out of this have come "research based" teaching approaches, like the Modeling Method out of Arizona State, which have enabled high school students to learn things that previously required spending several years as a physics major. These approaches have spread across the country, mainly from teacher to teacher. The Modeling Method alone is being used in 10% of America's physics classrooms. Teachers and students love it, and many achieve breakthroughs in math.
It also yields no revenue stream for the publishers.
Now around the country physics is becoming a "tested subject". The tests are coming out of the old physics and physics teaching, as reflected in the textbooks. They impose a pace and sequence of topics that is inconsistent with what we've learned. And from all over the country physics teachers are writing in distress about being forced to give up research-based instruction.
Knowledge is a living growing thing, the finest creation of our species, and acquiring it should be exciting. But these high stakes tests require defining the boundaries of subjects and transforming them into commodities that can be measured, sold, even speculated on. In the process they squeeze the life out of these subjects and make them unloveable.
As we love our children, we need to come together and say no to this commerce-driven assault on our children and the people who have dedicated their lives to teaching them.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Comment on Unemployment Insurance
While the official "unemployment rate" has been falling for the past three years, since the "Great Recession" officially ended, the "Participation Rate" has actually *fallen* from about 65.7% to about 64%! If the official "unemployment rate" really measured what was going on, it should be going *up*!
Meanwhile, because of the deal Congress struck in January - and because the official "unemployment rate" is going down - Massachusetts lost one of its "tiers" of benefit extensions, and 10,000 folk are having their benefits cut off this month. Homes will be lost. Families will break up. People will get sick and die because of this heartless math game.
Another 13 weeks will probably be cut in June. In December, unless Congress passes a new law, all the Federal Extensions will end.
At the beginning of the Great Depression (the last one that is, in the 1930's) there was no welfare, no unemployment insurance, no food stamps or food pantries. Millions took to the streets and demonstrated demanding jobs or income. The rich and powerful were terrified, and time after time police attacked peaceful demonstrations. But they helped win the New Deal jobs programs, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security and welfare. No one "gave" those to us!
The next generation won Medicaid, Medicare and Food Stamps.
Now these things that our grandparents and great grandparents won in struggle are being taken away, and we are being driven back to the "good old days" when you worked for what you could get or starved. It's a pit, with no bottom in sight until we learn how to organize and push back.
That's why some of us are organizing the Worcester Unemployment Action Group. We will have weekly legal clinics for the unemployed. We're going to Framingham on Friday to testify at the Job Creation hearings. By December we need to be a voice that can't be ignored, demanding that Congress keep the Unemployment Extensions and get serious about job creation!
Meanwhile, because of the deal Congress struck in January - and because the official "unemployment rate" is going down - Massachusetts lost one of its "tiers" of benefit extensions, and 10,000 folk are having their benefits cut off this month. Homes will be lost. Families will break up. People will get sick and die because of this heartless math game.
Another 13 weeks will probably be cut in June. In December, unless Congress passes a new law, all the Federal Extensions will end.
At the beginning of the Great Depression (the last one that is, in the 1930's) there was no welfare, no unemployment insurance, no food stamps or food pantries. Millions took to the streets and demonstrated demanding jobs or income. The rich and powerful were terrified, and time after time police attacked peaceful demonstrations. But they helped win the New Deal jobs programs, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security and welfare. No one "gave" those to us!
The next generation won Medicaid, Medicare and Food Stamps.
Now these things that our grandparents and great grandparents won in struggle are being taken away, and we are being driven back to the "good old days" when you worked for what you could get or starved. It's a pit, with no bottom in sight until we learn how to organize and push back.
That's why some of us are organizing the Worcester Unemployment Action Group. We will have weekly legal clinics for the unemployed. We're going to Framingham on Friday to testify at the Job Creation hearings. By December we need to be a voice that can't be ignored, demanding that Congress keep the Unemployment Extensions and get serious about job creation!
Venezuela, democracy and free elections.
"Jose de Cordoba’s February 14 Wall Street Journal article on Venezuela’s general election ... presents a class conscious analysis to declare that the upcoming election will be free but unfair, unfair because the electoral advantages normally enjoyed by the top one percent are, this time, all on the side of the bottom 99 percent. ...
[list]
"... Cordoba, as far as I know, has never complained about the owners of capital enjoying parallel advantages in other elections, so why complain about the other side enjoying the same advantages now?"
Beautifully put.
The pivotal event in Venezuela was arguably the failure of the coup following the 2002 election and the ruling class' loss of control of the armed forces. This fundamental rupture of their system of control is something the imperialists will never forgive or forget. And like it or not it is the foundation of Venezuela's popular democracy, the protective screen behind which it has been able to grow and flourish.
Similarly, while the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 was an utterly non-violent event, resembling nothing so much as the Occupy movement, support for it by the armed forces in the countryside, the militias, made the success of that non-violent revolution possible, protecting it from being snuffed out in its cradle by the local gentry and the military governor General Gage and guaranteeing that the British attempt to retake their lost colony by force the following year would be met with an effective and organized defense. It was the crucial screen behind which democratic institutions could advance from opposition to organizing and exercising state power. [See The First American Revolution, before Lexington and Concord, by Ray Raphael.]
Some of the forces around the Oathkeepers movement are scary, and I can smell the taint of the plans for a right-wing putsch against our constitutional government. Yet it also channels a vitally important impulse, a challenge from within the ranks of the uniformed and arms-bearing services to the right of their commanders to act against the people. That impulse is a two-edged sword, and no one can confidently predict which way it will cut in a crisis. If it cuts one way, we may well face a long dark night of fascism possibly ending in extinction; the other way, and democratic impulses like Occupy could find the space to blossom into a revolutionary transformation that will redeem our country and perhaps our species.
Is there a dedicated Oathkeepers watcher in the house?
[list]
"... Cordoba, as far as I know, has never complained about the owners of capital enjoying parallel advantages in other elections, so why complain about the other side enjoying the same advantages now?"
Beautifully put.
The pivotal event in Venezuela was arguably the failure of the coup following the 2002 election and the ruling class' loss of control of the armed forces. This fundamental rupture of their system of control is something the imperialists will never forgive or forget. And like it or not it is the foundation of Venezuela's popular democracy, the protective screen behind which it has been able to grow and flourish.
Similarly, while the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 was an utterly non-violent event, resembling nothing so much as the Occupy movement, support for it by the armed forces in the countryside, the militias, made the success of that non-violent revolution possible, protecting it from being snuffed out in its cradle by the local gentry and the military governor General Gage and guaranteeing that the British attempt to retake their lost colony by force the following year would be met with an effective and organized defense. It was the crucial screen behind which democratic institutions could advance from opposition to organizing and exercising state power. [See The First American Revolution, before Lexington and Concord, by Ray Raphael.]
Some of the forces around the Oathkeepers movement are scary, and I can smell the taint of the plans for a right-wing putsch against our constitutional government. Yet it also channels a vitally important impulse, a challenge from within the ranks of the uniformed and arms-bearing services to the right of their commanders to act against the people. That impulse is a two-edged sword, and no one can confidently predict which way it will cut in a crisis. If it cuts one way, we may well face a long dark night of fascism possibly ending in extinction; the other way, and democratic impulses like Occupy could find the space to blossom into a revolutionary transformation that will redeem our country and perhaps our species.
Is there a dedicated Oathkeepers watcher in the house?
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Worcester must think bigger
The airport is a gem, and could help revive Worcester as a city with a viable economic life of its own. The airport would make Worcester a prime location from which companies with national or international markets, connections or branches could do business. Plus a lot of Worcester travel dollars that end up in Rhode Island or New Hampshire could be kept here.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that what is stopping the Airport is lack of a good road. Yes, folks from Worcester will find their way to it, but most folks from the larger market, Worcester County, have no interest in driving Worcester's streets if they can help it. Moreover building the road could generate a lot of jobs.
Worcester failed to agree on an airport highway, and that was a political failure. The top-down model that worked so well in the 50's and 60's when we built the Interstate Highway system doesn't work anymore. What would be needed is a genuinely open and participatory model where the interests of the entire City and the interests of the folks whose homes or neighborhoods might be displaced by the highway can be worked out.
If we are willing to think big - and given this economy, with its high unemployment rates and ridiculously low interest rates, willing to think big about big projects that could put a lot of people to work is a good idea - what Worcester really needs to become a modern city is a belt highway. Looping around the city, connecting with the Pike in Shrewsbury and Grafton, passing near the Airport. People from downtown Worcester would still use Chandler St. or Main St. but the belt highway would open it to the rest of the County, and open up development opportunities for modern industrial, information tech and other companies the way Route 128 and I495 did.
Then if we still couldn't get a commercial carrier, we should start a municipal air line with no-frills service to major Eastern cities to jump-start it.
Worcester needs to think bigger!
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that what is stopping the Airport is lack of a good road. Yes, folks from Worcester will find their way to it, but most folks from the larger market, Worcester County, have no interest in driving Worcester's streets if they can help it. Moreover building the road could generate a lot of jobs.
Worcester failed to agree on an airport highway, and that was a political failure. The top-down model that worked so well in the 50's and 60's when we built the Interstate Highway system doesn't work anymore. What would be needed is a genuinely open and participatory model where the interests of the entire City and the interests of the folks whose homes or neighborhoods might be displaced by the highway can be worked out.
If we are willing to think big - and given this economy, with its high unemployment rates and ridiculously low interest rates, willing to think big about big projects that could put a lot of people to work is a good idea - what Worcester really needs to become a modern city is a belt highway. Looping around the city, connecting with the Pike in Shrewsbury and Grafton, passing near the Airport. People from downtown Worcester would still use Chandler St. or Main St. but the belt highway would open it to the rest of the County, and open up development opportunities for modern industrial, information tech and other companies the way Route 128 and I495 did.
Then if we still couldn't get a commercial carrier, we should start a municipal air line with no-frills service to major Eastern cities to jump-start it.
Worcester needs to think bigger!
Friday, March 9, 2012
Comment on New Unemployment Report in T&G
I agree the media should be reporting U5 and U6, not just the very limited U3 figure. Yes the Government has been using U3 for 45 years (and issuing U4 and U5) so in that sense it isn't "cooking the books", but the media knows better and should stop U3 is a valid measure of the pain and misery out here!
This problem has been building under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses. It was not created by Republicans or Democrats, and neither can solve it without taking on the power of the big banks, which trashed the economy, wrecked the housing market and got off scott free. Or the power of the War Industry and the New American Century crowd pushing us ever deeper into foreign wars we can't afford.
Some of you pointed out that wages and household income have been dropping sharply. That is critically important. Combined with the collapse of home equity and the housing market, there just isn't the purchasing power out here to fuel a real recovery. What we are seeing now is just new bubbles - student loans, derivatives again, carbon credits, and the mother of all bubbles, the Federal Reserve Bank. Like all bubbles, they will burst.
Folks, this isn't getting better until we get our government to seriously stand up to the bankers and the 0.01% and commit to full employment! And a Congress that's more afraid of losing the people than of losing their corporate sponsors!
Perhaps you or someone you know is out of work. Perhaps your kid graduated and never got a first job and now all they do is play computer games. Or you got laid off in mid career and never got rehired; or you got let go because you're too old and not stupid enough. If so, you should come to the next meeting and forum on Unemployment on Saturday March 17 (St. Patrick's Day), 2 pm, St. John's Church basement, 44 Temple St. We will share stories and facts about what's going on with jobs and unemployment, and talk about how we can make ourselves and our needs impossible ignore!
This problem has been building under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses. It was not created by Republicans or Democrats, and neither can solve it without taking on the power of the big banks, which trashed the economy, wrecked the housing market and got off scott free. Or the power of the War Industry and the New American Century crowd pushing us ever deeper into foreign wars we can't afford.
Some of you pointed out that wages and household income have been dropping sharply. That is critically important. Combined with the collapse of home equity and the housing market, there just isn't the purchasing power out here to fuel a real recovery. What we are seeing now is just new bubbles - student loans, derivatives again, carbon credits, and the mother of all bubbles, the Federal Reserve Bank. Like all bubbles, they will burst.
Folks, this isn't getting better until we get our government to seriously stand up to the bankers and the 0.01% and commit to full employment! And a Congress that's more afraid of losing the people than of losing their corporate sponsors!
Perhaps you or someone you know is out of work. Perhaps your kid graduated and never got a first job and now all they do is play computer games. Or you got laid off in mid career and never got rehired; or you got let go because you're too old and not stupid enough. If so, you should come to the next meeting and forum on Unemployment on Saturday March 17 (St. Patrick's Day), 2 pm, St. John's Church basement, 44 Temple St. We will share stories and facts about what's going on with jobs and unemployment, and talk about how we can make ourselves and our needs impossible ignore!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Rush Lindbaugh comes on as a regular guy with the courage to let it all hang out, the voice of everyman. Listen closer and you can hear the voice of the billionaires and the bankers in a working-class accent, appealing to our righteous anger, our need to feel better than someone else, corralling us into their mental straight-jacket where the rich are rich and the poor are poor because they deserve to be, any attempt to fix or change the system just makes it worse and anyone who tries is stupid, bad and wrong and deserves to be stepped on.
When you turn on the radio and you want to listen to talk about what's going on and you don't want to listen to high-brow talk on NPR by folks who mostly don't know what life's like for the rest of us, you usually get a choice between Rush or someone a lot like him, because the station owners and their corporate sponsors get to say what our choices are. Pressuring the advertisers to pull the plug on one of these shock jocks when they go over the line into pure hate talk is about the only power we have over the listening choices we get.
What we really need is a union person, one straight-talking union man or woman who's really on our side - not just trying to sound and talk like us - on the air for an hour or two a day to set the record straight and lead us in some honest talk about what's going on and what we need to do about it. When's the last time you heard something like that?
When you turn on the radio and you want to listen to talk about what's going on and you don't want to listen to high-brow talk on NPR by folks who mostly don't know what life's like for the rest of us, you usually get a choice between Rush or someone a lot like him, because the station owners and their corporate sponsors get to say what our choices are. Pressuring the advertisers to pull the plug on one of these shock jocks when they go over the line into pure hate talk is about the only power we have over the listening choices we get.
What we really need is a union person, one straight-talking union man or woman who's really on our side - not just trying to sound and talk like us - on the air for an hour or two a day to set the record straight and lead us in some honest talk about what's going on and what we need to do about it. When's the last time you heard something like that?
Monday, November 7, 2011
Occupy Worcester again
The conversation of regular people are very different from the one going on in Congress, Beacon Hill, City Council chambers - or the pages of the T&G. What we're saying around our kitchen tables, barbecue pits, lunchrooms and locker-rooms is not getting heard.
What we actually think about the core issues that affect our lives rarely finds its way into the circles of power. Our views about bank bailouts, foreclosures and student debt, foreign wars, their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, about how to fix health-care and the urgent need to create more jobs and put the people back to work, and about how bad things out here really are - those views are not getting heard and are having little effect.
We elect people who promise change - good people or phonies, Republicans or Democrats - and it never seems to make much difference. Issue politics doesn't seem to work anymore. Everyone is stretched to the limit on their own issue, no one has time or money or energy for solidarity on other issues. But they're all linked, because we're all up against the same juggernaut. The billionaire corporations and banks, with their almost unlimited ability to lobby, spread propaganda and buy influence, have overwhelmed our democratic system.
The young people who are trying to stake out a place in our Commons have their own issues and grievances - especially jobs and their crushing student debt. But, these are their piece of what we're all up against. The kids on the Commons understand that! They're trying to create a space where we can all come together, where we can all share the conversations we've all been having around our kitchen tables, where we can find each other and join together.
It is said that if you throw a pebble in the pond the ripples keep spreading, but so what? They're still just ripples. If we all throw pebbles in the pond, so what? They're still just pebbles and the ripples just cancel each other. But if we could all get together and throw in one huge rock ...
What we actually think about the core issues that affect our lives rarely finds its way into the circles of power. Our views about bank bailouts, foreclosures and student debt, foreign wars, their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, about how to fix health-care and the urgent need to create more jobs and put the people back to work, and about how bad things out here really are - those views are not getting heard and are having little effect.
We elect people who promise change - good people or phonies, Republicans or Democrats - and it never seems to make much difference. Issue politics doesn't seem to work anymore. Everyone is stretched to the limit on their own issue, no one has time or money or energy for solidarity on other issues. But they're all linked, because we're all up against the same juggernaut. The billionaire corporations and banks, with their almost unlimited ability to lobby, spread propaganda and buy influence, have overwhelmed our democratic system.
The young people who are trying to stake out a place in our Commons have their own issues and grievances - especially jobs and their crushing student debt. But, these are their piece of what we're all up against. The kids on the Commons understand that! They're trying to create a space where we can all come together, where we can all share the conversations we've all been having around our kitchen tables, where we can find each other and join together.
It is said that if you throw a pebble in the pond the ripples keep spreading, but so what? They're still just ripples. If we all throw pebbles in the pond, so what? They're still just pebbles and the ripples just cancel each other. But if we could all get together and throw in one huge rock ...
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