Ed Notes Online: GEM's Mollie Bruhn Part of Move.On Event Thursday -

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

GEM's Mollie Bruhn Part of Move.On Event Thursday -

I haven't told you much about Mollie Bruhn who has worked with GEM from its earliest days. Mollie was a key player in putting together "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" and her apartment is the home of Real Reform Studios. (Her partner Darren Marelli did the amzing editing of the film.) Mollie, a former charter school teacher who was fired for asking too many questions, authored the GEM pamphlet "The Truth About Charters." She teaches kindergarten in Bushwick and is one of the Teach for America alums still in the classroom after 6 years.

Mollie sent this:

This past Friday, I was interviewed by a group of people working with Moveon.org. They are launching a new campaign, called "Rebuild the Dream," and will be live-streaming a program hosted by Van Jones this Thursday. (http://www.rebuildthedream.com/) Part of my interview will be included in this presentation. They interviewed a bunch of people who have had to deal with budget cuts/the economic downturn. I spoke mainly about class size increases and education funding cuts. Van Jones' presentation is going to be focused on exposing the truth about what is happening with our economy (We're not really broke!).
I randomly fell into doing this interview (Leonie recommended me and urged me to do it. Thanks Leonie!) and don't exactly know what shape the presentation/live stream on Thursday will take, but wanted to share the info below with all of you if you are interested in tuning in.

And Leonie this:

On Thursday, MoveOn is launching a new national campaign called Rebuild the Dream, with an ad that includes Mollie Bruhn, NYC teacher, talking about the effect that budget cuts would have on her school.
It will start w/ a concert/presentation by Van Jones at Town Hall on Thursday night; be sure to tune into the link below.
Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Be part of the movement to Rebuild the Dream!

READ THE MoveOn announcement below

Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:50:21 -0700
From: moveon-help@list.moveon.org

Thursday night, the revolution will be live streamed. So get in on the launch of Rebuild the Dream on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. ET. It will be part tent revival and part concert, featuring the truth about our economy from inspirational leader Van Jones. Click here to RSVP and catch it online in HD.

RSVP Now

Dear MoveOn member,

This Thursday night at 8:15 ET, we're hosting a one-of-a-kind online event, and you're invited!

It's the launch of a new organization called Rebuild the Dream, which is dedicated to creating an economy that works for ALL of us and to stopping the attacks on the middle class and working Americans.

The launch event will be An Inconvenient Truth for our economy—on steroids. It's equal parts tent revival, dance party, and gripping story about what's happened to our economy and how we turn it around.

It will be led by green jobs visionary and former White House advisor Van Jones. And while he lays out the truth about our economy, hip-hop megastars The Roots and world-renowned visual artist and DJ Shepard Fairey will back him up with some amazing music. I've seen the rehearsals, and it's simply astounding.

We'd love to have you join us for the live stream, in HD. And because a mass movement requires mass bandwidth, please RSVP to let us know you'll be watching!

Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Rebuild the Dream is an organization dedicated to building the American Dream movement—the answer to the question: Will we fight alone and lose, or will we stand together and win?

Young graduates and returning veterans who can't find a job shouldn't stand alone. Families losing their homes to the banks that they bailed out shouldn't stand alone. Seniors having their Medicare slashed and the poor and disabled having their Medicaid gutted shouldn't stand alone.

This is not a coalition—it's a movement of people standing together. It's a banner under which we can all be proud to march. It's a movement dedicated to the enduring values and principles that we share, not the election of any individual.

Those values and principles will be enshrined in a Contract for the American Dream, which we'll build together from the ground up. That starts in July with house meetings in every congressional district across the country.

And this Thursday night it all starts with the truth—live streamed into your home.

Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Thanks for all you do,

–Justin, Peter, Marika, Stephen, and the rest of the team

P.S. Over the past several weeks we've been spreading the "we are being lied to" message with creative and confrontational on-the-ground action. It's taken off quickly and generated a lot of attention. Click here to see the video that's creating all the buzz.

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

GEM's Mollie Bruhn Part of Move.On Event Thursday -

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