no child left behind

BAMN: By Any Means Necessary. An Interview with Detroit's Shanta Driver on April 10 March and Rally Against Obama School Privatization Agenda

Wed, 03/31/2010 - 02:25 — Glen Ford

by any means necessary A Black Agenda Radio Interview by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

One of the Obama administration's clear, if unstated objectives, is to demolish public education in the U.S., and replace it with privatized, often militarized charter schools that put the “free market” and wealthy corporations rather than parents, teachers and communities in charge of education. Converting entire cities to charter schools pits every parent against every other parent in “competitiion” for the limited number of spots in what are supposed to be the best schools, and eliminates the neighborhood school as an anchor point for cooperation and social cohesion. So neighborhood public schools across the nation are being starved of resources to ensure that they can be labeled “failing” and their facilities handed over to charter schools, condominium developers, or whatever the “free market” will bear.

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Failing Children By the Numbers

Tue, 03/23/2010 - 18:44 — Anonymous

by Paul A. Moore

Florida’s public school teachers, like their counterparts around the country, were not prepared to defend themselves or their students from the cruel assaults of the testers. “They all went to school before punishment and psychological battering became official government education policy.” The state punishes its children “by fear and public humiliation.”

Eshu’s blues: The president holds forth on education

Tue, 09/08/2009 - 22:58 — michael hureaux...

by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez

Barack Obama has as much right as his predecessors to dispense bromides to children. “But there is a profound falsehood being told when he claims the families of public school students, or teachers have done 'everything we can' to make sure that kids have what they need to succeed in school.”

Eshu’s blues: Obama and Duncan’s “Race to the Top”

Wed, 08/19/2009 - 00:05 — michael hureaux...

by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are sold on charter schools and so-called “public-private partnerships.” In order to impose their corporate philosophy of education, the duo wave $5 billion under the noses of hard-pressed states, contingent on tying teacher job security to high-stakes test results and boosting charter schools. Duncan, in particular, makes extraordinary claims about his schooling fetishes while “lying through his teeth.”

Obama's Public Education Policy: Privatization, Charters, Mass Firings, Neighborhood Destabilization

Wed, 07/01/2009 - 10:01 — Bruce A. Dixon

arne duncan by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Last weekend in Chicago, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered the keynote address at Rainbow PUSH's annual conference and education roundtable. Duncan is the premiere executor of corporate instpired policies that have closed dozens of neighborhood public schools in Chicago without substantially improving educational outcomes and at vast cost to neighborhood stability and the careers of hundreds of good teachers. But are African American organizations standing up for their own interests, for public education? Or are we paralyzed because the corporate policies issue from the administration of a Black President?

Stanford U Study Shows Charter Schools Perform Worse Than Comparable Public Schools

Tue, 06/23/2009 - 12:19 — Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Glen Ford

Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.

The myth has been shattered: a new study shows charter schools perform worse than traditional public schools. In only 17 percent of charter schools do students surpass their demographically matched regular school peers in math and reading. More than twice that many charters rate worse than traditional classrooms, while close to half are about equal. Despite the data, the Obama administration "continues to demand that 5,000 schools be shut down, and their teachers fired" - a disproportionate share of them Black. Their "position is based on ideology, not empirical data."

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Teachers File Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama Administration's School “Turnaround” Plan

Wed, 06/17/2009 - 05:49 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Public-private partnerships between Chicago's City Hall, where two men named Richard Daley have ruled more than 40 of the last 55 years, and a gaggle of corporate bagmen from the Gates, Bradley, Walton and other foundations have honed a disastrous “education reform” agenda that is now national policy. In Chicago, where dozens of neighborhood public schools have been shuttered and hundreds of experienced, predominantly black teachers fired in mid-career and replaced by underqualified, underpaid, uncertified and ovewhelmingly white newbie instructors, resistance is brewing and spreading.

Obama Ordering States to Close 5,000 'Failing' Schools!... Chicago Lies Go National

Wed, 06/03/2009 - 09:02 — Anonymous

by George Schmidt arne bites his tongue

The corporate narrative that public schools in minority neighborhoods are "failing" and must be replaced by unaccountable but often highly profitable "charter schools" is an inheritance from the Bush era that the Obama administration intends to continue and intensify. Despite any proof of improved educational outcomes, and contrary to the democratic wishes of the American people the push to discredit and privatize public education appears to be a hallmark of the Obama era.

Obamanity: The Religion of Complicity

Wed, 06/03/2009 - 08:12 — Solomon Comissiong

by Solomon Comissiong

More than 100 days into Barack Obama's presidency, the "lives of the majority of African-Americans who voted for him are unchanged." Yet, his supporters continue to cling to a thin band of hope. Had John McCain become president and proceeded to vastly expand the "Af-Pak" theater of war, or boycotted a United Nations conference on racism, today's Obama supporters would be outraged. "But the first Black president's legions are caught up in religion: Obamanity."

Obama's First 100 Days -- The Black Agenda Report Card

Wed, 04/29/2009 - 12:22 — Bruce A. Dixon

honest Obama by BAR Managing Editor Bruce A. Dixon

Why a Report Card At All?

The hundred day report card is an enduring tradition in American journalism for a very good reason. It's journalism's job to help citizens make sense of the world, to seek the truth and tell it without fear or favor no matter where it leads. Three months and a week into a new administration, everybody knows where the mens and ladies rooms are, most of the key hires are in place, and the bus has definitely cleared the station. There's plenty of evidence by now to assess where it's going, and whether it's anyplace we really ought to be headed.

Should We Grade President Obama on What He Promised, or on What People Need?

The answer to this should be easy. It all depends on whether we imagine government derives its authority from the blessedness of anointed men and women in office, or whether legitimacy comes from the informed consent of the governed. Most of us who were not home schooled learned it the latter way: governments are legit only insofar as they serve the people. Limiting the scope of a report card to what politicians promise confers upon them the power to lock down our collective imagination and deny our hunger and thirst for justice before we can even express it.

Why These Categories?

Because these are the issues that matter to our people. As the journal of African American political thought and action, they are what our authors write about every week.

1. Health Care Reform (9 points)

2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones (5 points)

3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education (6 points)

4. War & Peace (9 points)

5. Transportation (5 points)

6. Caribbean and Latin America (4 points)

7. Obama's Africa Policy; Our Brotherman and the Motherland (5 points)

8. Wall Street Bailout (6 points)

9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises (6 points)

10. Investigating Bush-era Crimes (5 points)

11. Criminalizing Immigration, Militarizing the Border (5 points)

12. Broadband For Everyone and a Just and Fair Media (5 points)

13. Environment (5 points)

14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers (5 points)

15. Mass imprisonment (5 points)

16. Employee Free Choice Act (5 points)

17. Urban Policy (5 points)

18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services (5 points)

Eshu’s blues: “Can you defend yourself?”

Tue, 02/03/2009 - 18:00 — michael hureaux...

EshusBluesFeb4 by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez

The social disintegration endemic to late capitalism in America reaches new lows in the current meltdown. The purposely de-skilled classes turn on each other, as the "social Darwinist ethos carries the day." A young woman acquaintance of the author is informed that self-defense capability is part of the job description on temporary employment assignments. Folks are snapping. "There's just something about being treated like expendable products on the shelf that makes a lot of people full-blown batshit crazy in short time." Everybody is going bust. But "Obama thinks he has the money to fight wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Eshu’s blues: Obama’s message to the world: Let the U.S. ruling class pound you in the face

Tue, 01/13/2009 - 18:00 — michael hureaux...

by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez EshuBoojwahObama

Obama is silent as the grave - Palestinian graves - about Gaza, but shoots off his mouth in what appears to be a prelude to war against Social Security. The "Herald of Hope and Change" shows a "cowardice" on Palestine that "is beyond appalling," while huffing and puffing about how he'll solve the problems caused by "that seven hundred dollars a month the disabled collect from Social Security and the few hundred many people get from the ‘entitlement' programs of Medicare." As long as the "markets" are "soothed" by his ever-rightward policies, Obama is pleased.

Arne Duncan and Neoliberal Racism

Tue, 12/30/2008 - 18:00 — Paul Street

ChicagoMilitrySchools by Paul Street

Barack Obama likes to play basketball with his friend Arne Duncan, but does that make Duncan worthy of the nation's top education spot? If Obama's appointees are a reflection of the president-elect's own world view, this one is quite disturbing. Paul Street writes: "Privatization, union-busting (charter and contract schools operate union-free), excessive standardized testing, teacher-blaming, military schooling, and the rollback of community input on school decisions - these are the interrelated hallmarks of private school graduate Arne Duncan's six and a half years at the helm of" the Chicago Public Schools.

Eshu’s blues: Ode to Charles Rex Fisher/Christmas Night in Harlem

Tue, 12/30/2008 - 18:00 — michael hureaux...

by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez black_history_month

A teacher/activist offers some holiday ruminations on education: "Let us celebrate punitive testing, carved up tables and chairs, chain link fence in the stairwells and high strung civil servants who are just marking time until they can get away from the children of the great unwashed." Not cheered up, yet? Let's think of kinder times and inspiring educators, like Rex Fisher, who introduced the author "and my peers to the words of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Martin Delaney, WEB DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X - and that was a rare thing from teachers in the public schools of 1973."

The “Wait ‘Til He Gets In” Delusion: The President Elect is Not a Latent Lefty

Tue, 12/16/2008 - 18:00 — Paul Street

ObamaNotLefty by Paul Street

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, there are still those who think that Barack Obama "is a ‘true progressive' whose left and democratic orientation has been ‘squandered' or carefully hidden thanks to his national political ambitions and/or the influence of his political handlers." In reality, "Obama came to the political game with an already advanced and highly cultivated bourgeois taste for incremental change and compromise with concentrated power." Obama is tricky. "He posed for the liberal base as an ‘antiwar candidate' even while he signaled clearly to the foreign policy establishment that he would continue the Iraq occupation for an indefinite period."