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| Alaska school districts. |
For over a year now, I’ve watched how the anti-public school drama has played out in Alaska on multiple fronts. From the Municipality of Anchorage to the Legislature to the Governor’s Office to outside organizations, the forces at work are performing a complex dance in multiple venues…a dance that is impossible to follow unless one is a complete research nerd (and then, only tenuously). I’ve wanted to write about it all in that context…I’ve started a number of posts. However, I haven’t been able to figure out how to present it.
I started writing a list, like an outline… …and realized that was the best way to start.
This is a very complex, and time intensive post which I urge EVERYBODY in Alaska, and those whose public education in their state is under attack by the conservatives, to read.
I had started a post on this myself about a week ago but found myself buried under the research materials, and hindered by time constraints, so I am deeply grateful to Linda for doing the heavy lifting.
Please click the link at top to read the entire post.
Beware the small rural charters that are so desperate for cash they outsource to corporations like Pearson's Connections Academy or K-12. There are so many layers of responsibility here that there is no way to see where the cash is going or who is getting it.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is a horrible option. We have it here in my state and it is not really an option. Parents who are well -educated and students who have an illness might benefit. But essentially it is using the parents as unpaid teachers, allows or rampant cheating, and puts the states seal of public education credential on homeschooling, without objective testing to show what has been learned beyond the (usually dumbed down) state bubble test.
Her's the NY TImes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?pagewanted=all
After Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts, the state hit a budget crunch. One of his first and most drastic budget cuts was public education, which still hasn't recovered, because cities and towns are limited to an annual 2 1/2% increase in property taxes to pay for all their bills.
ReplyDeleteRomney is no friend of public education. Plus, look at his shilling for the voracious for-profit universities -- while he's campaigning! There's no boundary anymore between politics and lobbying and lining one's own pocket.
The funny thing is, Alaska generally the boasts some of the hardest working people in the nation, from teens on up.
ReplyDeleteI don't know your academic world but I do know is that it is custom for even high schoolers to live independently and have the confidence to take risks on their own. You dont see that down here.
I hope you're not condemning people who CHOOSE not to pursue traditional education. That mentality MUST stop. This is why I stay off liberal blogs...
And live by this: "While there aren't many things in our control, we can always choose to be happy. We can choose to share our lives with people who make us happy."
There is NO excuse not to be happy. If I of ALL People can say that, that tells you something.
-My mother was the victim of navy rape, dishonorably discharged
-impregnated by rapist
-chose life
-i was born and abandoned at hospital
-grew up with the ultimate blue collar working parents in upper class town
-molested at age 6
-raped at 14
-met my biological mother (random moment) about 4 years ago at age 30. She slapped me and shoved me down the stairs
- speak around the country to teens and am on 4 boards for various projects/orgs, all in advocacy
-have 4 beautiful, lovely children and an amazing second half
-would not change one thing in my life
I am not looking for sympathy, nor am I softening or undercutting others' true trauma or unfortunate circumstances. I seek to provide hope and am never without a genuine laugh or smile on my lips.
No excuse to be unhappy.
Alask anitbullying laws
ReplyDeletehttp://www.helium.com/items/2286907-laws-on-bullying-in-alaska-anitbullying-school-violence
This is happening all over the place. The regressive, corporatist, greed-driven fucktards at ALEC have been pushing for privatization for years now:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thenation.com/article/161971/starving-public-schools
Their most obvious goal is to find a way to make a profit from education. But there's another underlying motive. It's the whole, "Why should I have to pay for other people's education? Why should I have to pay for 'THEIR' (poor, other race, other nationality) education?" Yup, good old racism and xenophobia.
5:55 - look, it's the pollyanna troll. Wonder if it typed while it was farting rainbows.
ReplyDeleteTHIS is the problem with public education, NOT lazy teachers. The right wing fundagelical cousin fucks want to take over public education by stealth so they can dismantle it from the inside. THIS is a grave threat to us all. By dumbing down content, tilting political perspective to the right, and by including their fucked up religious content they are seeking to remake society in their own truly warped image.
ReplyDeleteIt ISN'T just Alaska that is undergoing this assault, it is national. These people are arrogant, they are stupid, they are liars, but most of all, they are mean. THESE are the type of buffoons that could gleefully support Palin, Bachman, or Santorum.
But, just like the cockroaches they are, they can only ply their fetid and festering trade under cover of darkness and they scurry when a bright light is shone upon them. As Justice Louis Brandeis noted: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Let's illuminate these fuckers and watch them run.
The attack on public education has been going on for quite a while. In Michigan it started with fundamentalists getting on local school boards as far back as the late 1970's and went on to a cap on local taxes given to us by a Republican governor - Engler - quite a few years ago now. Now the religious right wing and their cohorts, the Republicans, have taken to fighting anti-bullying policies in schools. Anything to make life more difficult for the 99% - that is the Republican motto for the twenty-first century.
ReplyDelete