Obama Acts Like Reagan 1981, the Union-Buster

NCLB is a crock of shit.  It's interesting that "conservatives" who banty about "local control" vouch for NCLB, when this fateful law does anything but engender local control. 
 
If the "one room school" houses so many accomplished Americans graduated from were subject to NCLB imagine the intellectual fruits that would have never been picked? 
 
Teachers by and large know how to teach, all they need is support from "management" and parents and, most definitely, room to be creative.  NCLB sucks all of the creativity out of the classroom IMO, it saddles teachers with the task of "teaching to the test."  How soon we forget history, .. Standardized tests have historically been tools to limit the achievement and progress of lower class whites, blacks and others.  They are culturally biased and barriers to entry.   This opinion comes from someone who has frankly always excelled at them.  But my teachers didn't use the Iowa Test of Basic Skills to marginalize my classmates, on the contrary they were used to select those ready for "acclerated classes" which, btw, were conducted in the SAME CLASSROOM.
 
NCLB is no longer a shield to guard against a poor education, it's a sword to kill public education and local control.  If it were rescinded it would perhaps take some wind out of the sails of a neo-con, neo-liberal death march against egalitarian education and the ushering in of an era of more venal, self-centered class consciousness.
 
Teacher unions might want to consider, from a strategic standpoint, emphasizing the historical traditions and benefits of local control and thus revamp the relationship between the Dept. of Education and localities around the country.  The "anti-federalism" sentiment around the country might be capitalized upon.  Didn't once upon a time the Rethugs wanted to abolish the Dept. of Ed., under Ronnie Raygun??  Unions, think strategically and outside the box.

for a myriad of pretend reasons, propaganda galore. Union member teachers.   I keep hearing people on the radio, in so-called progressive arenas, talk about "getting rid of teachers in under-performing schools" while demonizing tenure. Some are allegedly pro-union.
Long ago, I was a public school teacher in NYC, in the first teacher strikes (for the right to a union and for the first contract: 1961 and April 11, 1962 - my sign and photo were on p.1, NYDaily News, "Don't Burn Us Again,  Joan of Arc JHS 118M).  Very young.  Teachers took a written and oral test in social studies. (I failed the oral exam because I "dissed" textbooks, but had a high enough grade on written exam to pass) to get a NYC license in the public schools. I had 33 grad school credits in American Civilization (under GI Bill from dead WWII vet dad, and working as sec'y at NYU for free credits). I started teaching in Sept. 1960 at a salary just under $5,000. a year.  Yup. 
As a junior high school teacher,  I was observed regularly by administration and given a written report several times a year.  After 3 years, I got tenure.  I left after 5 to be an artist, and also left town.  Teachers are being scapegoated on the way to privatization.  Teachers have to fight back.  Some are.  update: general strike in Greece by public and private sector workers to fight cuts. Story on the home page of the Guardian online www.guardian.co.uk/ It is telling, of course, that the story begins with a report of small amount of violence.  But, they eventually get to the story.  It's a long discussion on why the US workers have not been as outspoken as in other places.

union.  There were two groups: the older group (I can't recall the name), a group of teachers led by an older guy, called "lefties" by the centrist UFT starters (United Federation of Teachers).  There was no right to collective bargaining for teachers in NYC in 1960.  The first battle, not very big, was who was going to represent teachers.  I voted in the first election, for the "other guy" - the one who was called "leftie" and who was not Al Shanker, a former math teacher, who was the winner, the first UFT president.  In 1960, the very word "leftie" still could put fear into teachers.   Teachers had to sign a loyalty oath in 1960 to work.  I signed one.  Later, I marvelled at those who didn't and the battles.  The NEA was so moderate and not union that they never joined with the national evolution of UFT, the AFT.  There are some "lefties" with offshoot groups of teachers now, but it needs someone more versed in the Now, such as Bashir Mchawi, "Education at the Crossroads" (WBAI, note: there's been a coup at WBAI.  I support www.takebackwbai.org ) to discuss it.

How Precious is the Precious Barack Hussein Obama?
Let's count the ways:
Barack Obama explained his admiration of Ronald Reagan in an interview when running for the presidency. Here is what Obama the Precious said about his Hero---Ronald Wilson Reagan:
“I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure.  I think part of what's different are the times.  I do think that for example the 1980 was different.  I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.  He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.  I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.  I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.” ---Barack H. Obama, 2008
Thus, Obama states that he admired the human rights violating Ronald  Reagan because of the b.s. that there was full of excess in both the 1960s and 1970s, in which government grew too big and of course had lacked accountability.
Robert Parry wrote on January 19, 2008, in an article “Obama's Dubious Praise for Reagan,” that war crimes were committed and not held to “account.” Robert Parry wrote that:
“On the domestic side, Reagan oversaw the dismantling of regulatory structures that restrained the excesses of Wall Street investment banks, the energy industry and other economic powerhouses. Many of today’s problems – from the mortgage meltdown to the nation’s wasteful energy policies – can be traced to Reagan’s contempt for that type of accountability….Reagan’s clandestine dealings with Iran and Iraq remain shrouded in secrecy and deception to this day. Also suppressed has been the full story of how Reagan tolerated drug traffickers who operated under the cover of his favorite covert operations (Nicaragua and Afghanistan)….. Even more troubling, Reagan aided and abetted mass slaughters in Central America, including acts of genocide in Guatemala, but neither he nor any of his senior advisers faced any meaningful accountability for their actions…. Yet, even as the world community has sought to punish war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to Reagan’s horrendous record of the 1980s….Rather than a debate about Reagan as a war criminal, the former President, who died in 2004, has been showered with honors as a conservative icon. His name was attached to Washington National Airport as well as to scores of other government buildings around the country…. As part of this rosy view of the Reagan years, the U.S. news media rarely acknowledges the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America. When the topic does come up, it is usually a one-day story about how these little countries bravely are facing up to their violent pasts….. Though Reagan portrayed the bloody conflicts as a necessary front in the Cold War, the Central American violence was always more about entrenched ruling elites determined to retain their privileges against impoverished peasants, including descendants of the region’s Maya Indians, seeking social, political and economic reforms…. The worst of the Guatemalan violence – like the bloodletting in El Salvador and Nicaragua – came after the election of Reagan in November 1980…. Once in office, Reagan chipped away at an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by Carter who was offended by its ghastly human rights record. A fundamental part of Reagan’s strategy was to silence criticism of the atrocities whether the accusations were coming from the news media, human rights groups or the U.S. intelligence community…. If Obama really wanted to be a different kind of politician, he might instead stand for the truth, even when it is politically difficult and unpopular. He might acknowledge that while Reagan did put the United States on a “fundamentally different path,” it was not a path that led to either accountability or to justice.”
Read the entire article @:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/011908.html