The Insurrection Moves to the States

 President Joe Biden.  Jan. 6, 2022.

 

“For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol. But they failed. They failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such attack never, never happens again.

 

…

This wasn't a group of tourists. This is an armed insurrection. They weren't looking to uphold the will of the people. They were looking to deny the will of the people. They were looking to uphold – they weren't looking to hold a free and fair election. They were looking to overturn one. They weren't looking to save the cause of America. They were looking to subvert the Constitution. This isn't about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure the past isn't buried. 

 

….

The former president's supporters are trying to rewrite history. They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection. And the riot that took place there on January 6th as a true expression of the will of the people. 

Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country, to look at America? I cannot. 

Here's the truth. The election of 2020 was the greatest demonstration of democracy in the history of this country. More of you voted in that election than have ever voted in all of American history. Over 150 million Americans went to the polls and voted that day in a pandemic. Some at great risk to their lives. They should be applauded, not attacked.

…

Right now in state after state, new laws are being written. Not to protect the vote, but to deny it. Not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it, not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former president lost. Instead of looking at election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections. 

It's wrong. It's undemocratic, and frankly, it's un-American. 

End of quote.

What we know today is that the insurrectionists have moved from Washington D.C. to state capitols, mostly in the South and swing states.  We must organize to defeat this insurrection.

Here is our plan. 

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/where-do-we-go-from-here-dsa-north-star-and-the-crisis

Are you ready to join us?

 

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/join-us.html

 

When Teachers are left out of Common Core

by Jeff Bryant

This act is wearing thin.

As implementations of Common Core State Standards falter around the country, supporters of the new academic benchmarks continue a sort of dog and pony show to reinforce the message to “stay the course.”

The latest such example came from the Center for American Progress who staged a panel recently on “A Roadmap for a Successful Transition to the Common Core in States and Districts.” Typical of these sorts of affairs, the panel consisted of two Beltway think tank execs and two former pols now firmly ensconced in the private sector. There wasn’t an actual practicing educator in sight.

The report bears out the superficial substance of the PR event, a view from 30,000 feet up with seemingly no input from practicing teachers and principals on the ground.

Did Bill Gates fund an "educational coup?"

Valerie Straus,   The Answer Sheet.

 The Washington Post.

Education historian and activist Diane Ravitch, in a post on her blog about Layton’s story, called the Gates involvement an “educational coup.”

This is the closest thing to an educational coup in the history of the United States. Our education system is made up of about 14,000 local school districts; most education policy is set at the state level. But Bill Gates was able to underwrite a swift revolution. It happened so quickly that there was very little debate or discussion. Almost every consequential education group was funded by the Gates Foundation to study or promote the Common Core standards. Whereas most businesses would conduct pilot testing of a major new product, there was no pilot testing of the Common Core. These national standards were written with minimal public awareness or participation, and at least one state — Kentucky — adopted them before the final draft was finished.

Read the entire column. Fascinating.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/08/did-bill-gates-fund-an-educational-coup/

Common Core Standards are change - not reform

The Common Core: Educational Redeemer or Rainmaker?

 by Julie L. Pennington ,Kathryn M. Obenchain ,Aimee Papola & Leia Kmitta — October 12, 2012

The Common Core State Standards are poised to guide U.S. educational practice and assessment for the coming years. This commentary examines the framing of the argument for the new standards by the constructors of the CCSS and how the alignment of resources during the implementation phase is tightly ensconced within the organizations who drafted the standards.

Framing education as in need of additional rigor and collective cohesion, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are now promoted as a redeemer for educational reform while No Child Left Behind quietly fades into the background.  As states are currently invited to pursue “relief from provisions of …(NCLB)” (http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility), the CCSS are poised to preside over a movement to (what are self-described as) more rigorous, more communal and more state-led standards and assessments (http://www.corestandards.org/).

26 States Cut Their Education Budgets For This School Year

26 States Cut Their Education Budgets For This School Year: pStates have made deep cuts to their education budgets in the years since the Great Recession, and as their budgets remained crunched by lower levels of tax revenues, more than half are spending less on education this school year than they did last year, a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [...]/p