Susan Ohanian: Sex, Lies, and SOS

 If I had to name the reasons I wanted to go to SOS so badly, seeing Susan Ohanian and Juanita Doyan again were right at the top. I only met them once before in March 2003 at the WOO in Birmingham AL where 20 activists (including John Lawhead who I roomed with - 6 months later we formed ICE) from around the nation gathered to give WOO director Steve Orel a Courageous Educator  award for his battles defending the poor students who were being pushed out of the schools based on high stakes tests. Steve (now deceased - and how wonderful it would have been to see him at SOS) was fired for his efforts. At that point we as a group took a strong and principled stand opposing NCLB (which the AFT/UFT supported) and high stakes tests in general. It took 8 years for the rest of the world to begin to catch up. To my mind Susan is the real superstar of the resistance because she has been doing it forever. And George Schmidt, her partner in crime, who was also at SOS.

So, I'm just about to start writing my magnum opus on my SOS experience when along comes this spider. Here Susan gives voice to some thoughts that kept springing into my head but I keep pushing away so as not to spoil a rousing aura of good will to all. I know, I know, one step at a time. But Susan and I are getting too old to wait much longer. Look for my mag op later or this weekend.

Sex, Lies, and SOS

Publication Date: 2011-08-04

By Susan Ohanian  

http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=958

For all the music and praise of teachers, the SOS march had a more troubling side.

We all know that Superman isn't going to rescue public schoolchildren. But let's face it: Neither is Action Hero Matt Damon. At his educator mom's request, Damon traveled from a movie set in Vancouver, British Columbia to speak out for public schools at the SOS march in Washington, D. C. on July 30. Inexplicably, most of the D. C. area teachers stayed home.

Longtime educator Gary Stager, who red-eyed from California, asked an important question : "Washington D.C. is less than a day’s drive from hundreds of thousands of teachers. Why was Matt Damon fighting for their profession while they stayed home?" A subway ride away and they couldn't make it?

Please don't say these hundreds of thousands of teachers were scared. What should scare them is the reality of their profession being systematically destroyed.

I'm naive enough to have been stunned by the low turnout at the SOS march, but I think I've figured it out. Both the NEA and the AFT made a show of donating $25,000 for necessary basics like lots of water, a medical station, and so on. But union leaders didn't come and they didn't bother to mobilize teachers to show up. A dozen or so people worked the crowd handing out souvenir fans (compliments of WTU/AFT Local No. 6 AFL-CIO) but there was no mobilization of DC teachers.

I didn't see thousands of New York City teachers either. I hung out with GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) a dissident activist group within UFT. They made the film "Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" which got a great reception Friday night before the march. I met Norm Scott, one of the GEM leaders eight years ago when we were in a group traveling to Birmingham, AL to pay tribute to the World of Opportunity (The WOO). I mention this because I also met my SOS roommate Juanita Doyon, the WA state mother who is national Button Queen, at the WOO in Birmingham. And John Lawhead, who rode his bike from New York City to the DC march. And Nancy Creech from Michigan who has had two salary cuts of $9,000 each in the last two years was also at the WOO. She told me, "Now they are after our pensions." With the price of gold up, Nancy sold jewelry to finance her trip to D. C.

I mention this WOO connection just to show the commitment of teachers and parents who showed up at SOS. It was very good to mingle with them and with new friends--a teacher who came alone from Norman, Oklahoma, a Colorado mom whose children were kicked out of charter school when she insisted on opting out of the state test (people on a very small discussion each donated $50 to get her there), two teachers from North Carolina, a Florida activist who is neither a teacher nor the parent of a school age child--but someone who knows that public schools are vital to democracy. And many many more. I now kick myself for not writing down names.

And here's a shout out to those young GEM teachers who recognized how hot this old lady got during the march itself. Where they got it I don't know, but they kept bringing me bags of chipped ice.

The march itself was short. Before that, I walked around for 4 hours at SOS, talking with earnest, hopeful, angry teachers and parents from across the country--people thinking they were going to an event that would be start of a resistance movement. They didn't realize the unions had sold them out from the get-go. They didn't realize the featured speakers had a limited agenda, speaking passionately but not moving beyond equitable funding, an end to high stakes testing, a richer curriculum.

Seems like we've heard this a few hundred times before.

Those speeches from the podium didn't clarify things, didn't even mention the deliberate and systematic plan in progress to destroy social and educational contracts made over the past decades. Teachers aren't going to be stirred to save themselves unless and until they understand why these terrible things are happening to them and the children they teach. Teachers need to understand the corporate plan progressing since the Business Roundtable first outlined it in 1988.

Why didn't anybody at the podium call out Barack Obama, whom Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford describes as the corporate Democratic Trojan Horse? Not only is Obama setting in motion "a rolling implosion of Roosevelt's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society," he's data bombing the principles of John Dewey, Paulo Freire, John Holt. . . and every thoughtful practitioner in the country today.

If you think that's harsh, take a look at this:

U.S. President Barack Obama is singularly the most dangerous, anti-democratic president in the history of this nation. He has used his pigmentation as as a shield for corporate fascism and the emaciation of everyday, ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and around the world.
--Larry Pinkney, BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board, Obama's Bait and Switch Game: Otherwise Known As B. S. Aug. 4, 2011

Maybe this is way over-the-top, but why did Obama get a pass at SOS? Ask the NEA. Ask the AFT. Ask the SOS speakers.

Maybe it's to be expected at an event underwritten by a union that has already endorsed Barack Obama for a second term that the only visible criticism of Obama at SOS was provided by someone in the crowd from LaRouche who showed up with a poster depicting the President with a Hitler mustache.

D. C. union (WTU) president Nathan Saunders welcomed the crowd to the SOS march. Last December, soon after his election, he told the Washington Post: "I've got more skills to solve problems than practically any president that's ever run WTU. I also have formalized training in problem resolution. My masters is in negotiation and management....Part of the Harvard Trade Union Program is conflict management. And so I think I have some unique skills to solve problems." He added that he absolutely does not believe in confrontation." He added that " confrontation is not the first order business."

How many teachers' careers have to be destroyed before confrontation does become the first order of business-- in DC-- and across the country?

Confrontation will be difficult. Teachers are by their nature people pleasers. We don't like to say "No." We like to cooperate. But to save the profession, teachers will have to be willing to ramp up the rhetoric a thousandfold from what they heard at the SOS. Ramp up the rhetoric and the collective action, too. Teachers must be willing to strike; they must refuse to give the tests. I'm not talking individual heroic acts here. I'm talking mass action, hundreds of thousands of teachers standing up and shouting that they're mad as hell and not going to take it any more.

More from Susan on SOS and Obama
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
A Letter to President Obama from the SOS March
Ruth Rodriguez
undelivered speech at SOS
2011-08-01
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=4173

I wish Ruth Rodriguez had been able to deliver her speech at the SOS march. It would have been the one statement from the podium that laid school woes directly at the feet of President Obama.


\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Ruin-Nation: The Obama Catastrophe
Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
2011-08-03
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1025

MUST read. MUST read.


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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

SOS Report and GEM In Action - 2010-11

UPDATED WITH NEW MATT DAMON VIDEO: Thurs. Aug. 4

See Julie's great report on SOS with video links at the GEM blog

SOS March
http://gemnyc.org/2011/08/02/sos-march/

AUGUST 2, 2011 BY GEMNYC
The SOS March in DC was an inspiring event.            
See pictures here:  http://sosmarchgem.shutterfly.com/4

GEMers did a fabulous workshop. Here are 2 video montages of the year's events we showed:


http://youtu.be/4UBisAVLilk



http://youtu.be/Vge-rx6QXgQ


Here is Matt Damon getting heated with a corporate deformer/reporter question as filmed by Gotham's Geoffrey Decker. Really must-see video since the libertarian reporter didn't put up all the footage that shows her to be a fool - esp when she claims to be just as educated ad Damon's mom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WIv7Xk8BjA

Da Wrist: A Surprising Turn of Events

Before I start - a shout-out to all the well-wishers. Thanks to NYC Educator for stopping by last Saturday to cheer me up for a couple of hours and leave me with a Bluegrass DVD and to the UFT's Michael Mendel for his get well call last week.

I also want to wish a blogging pal and friend, who underwent an extensive medical procedure yesterday that makes my travails look lite, the best of luck.
-------

CAST ASIDE

I can't even do this to Arne Duncan at SOS

If you asked me yesterday at this time if there was any possibility of my joining the GEM crew, most of whom are leaving tomorrow or Thursday, at SOS events in DC I would have looked at me throbbing wrist encased in a semi-soft cast and said "zero."

In my world view of broken bones, you wear a cast until the bone - in my case bones - knit, often a period of 6-8 weeks. When cast comes off you don't recognize your limb as it is half the size of the other one. Then you start weeks/months of torturous rehab.

Well, was I surprised when the doc yesterday just cut off my less than one week cast - and left it off. There was the ugliest looking scar running down the inside of my wrist that makes it look like I tried to off myself after listening to a 3 hour Randi Weingarten speech. My cell camera phone malfunctioned and my wife was too bummed looking at it to get a proper shot. I felt like Frankenstein.

There was my plate-laden wrist holding itself up. Of course, the plate is like an internal cast. "We'll get a removable brace on and start you on rehab." Amazing news to be able to stop schlepping the cast around.

The therapist built a custom brace right there and started me on exercises. I can remove it once a day to shower - "thank goodness", I know more than a few people are thinking.

I mentioned to the therapist that I was bummed about not going to SOS to be part of the festivities and our film. "Go," he said "as long as someone is driving." Checked with doc and it was ON. Secured a few possibilities for rides to and fro and the ball is in play. We're going to take my SUV for room - we have 5 - with Julie driving - biggest question - will her feet reach the pedals?

Look for some short live left-handed Blackberry blogs from the scene.

By the way - the uft bus on Saturday is pretty booked up. Yelena Siwinski (ICE) has done a great job organizing it. GEM's Bill Linville is bus captain and will try to show our movie going down. Word is that Al Shanker's widow Edie, from what I hear a very nice lady, will be on the bus.

Also note that many other cities are doing local SOS activities, with our film as part of them in places like Vegas and Tuscon and Sacramento.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

UFT Provides Buses for SOS in Washington

Click above for info

It is time to start focusing on the big 4 day Save Our Schools event in Washington starting in two weeks. You can go for the workshops/events - GEM is doing one on Thursday afternoon (July 28) and film is shown the night of Friday July 29 - or just go down for Saturday July 30. There's even a bloggers meet-up on Friday night.

The UFT is prepared to offer both options and they have asked Yelena Siwinski to coordinate the project  – she asked Mulgrew at the June DA about the buses and to his credit he responded positively. But the buses are only available of they can be filled.

No matter how you get there, GEM would love to have you march with them. The meet-up spot on Saturday is currently (re-check my side panel for updates) at 10:30 at Freedom Plaza, 14th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. A bunch of GEMers are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bethesda, the SOS HQ from July 27-July 31.

We are proud that Susan Ohanian and Washington State parent activist and button-lady supreme Juanita Doyon are marching with GEM. Juanita has already sent me a box of button to bring down for her. Some really good ones.

From Yelena Siwinski

The UFT will be providing 1 or 2 buses to the Save our Schools March in Washington, D.C.  We need 50 people to fill each bus.  The 2 travel options would be:     

1. Bus leaves New York around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 27th and returns Sunday, July 31st. This will allow participants to attend the activism workshops which will be given at American University all day, Thursday, July 28th and Friday, July 29th and on Sunday morning, July 31st.  There will also be keynote addresses given by Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch and a viewing of the film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. 

2. Bus leaves early Saturday, July 30th and arrives in Washington by 10:30 a.m. in time for speakers, performances and musicians.  The actual march begins at 1:30 p.m. and the bus will leave when it is finished.

If you need further information about the conference, accommodations and the march the SOS link is:  http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/

To reserve your seat either click on the link below or email Yelena Siwinski at ysiwinski@uft.org by Tuesday, July 19th to indicate your preference.  In your email please include your name, number of people you are reserving seats for, cell phone, email, and the borough you will be coming from so that we can determine the most convenient location for our departure and return.

Reservation link:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/gform?key=tRwzmU4yXHK3SBCG2B8w3WQ#edit

Thanks for your support and your willingness to take action to save public education in America!

David Greene - Why I ain’t ain’t marching anymore (with apologies to Phil Ochs) - Save Our Schools (SOS) March- July 30 in Washington

I march because of what this war on education will do to my former colleagues and the new teachers with whom I work.
I march for change.
I march for reform.
I march for academic freedom.
I march for curricula and methodologies to develop the best-informed, critical thinking, problem solving students in the world.
Most of all I march for our kids.


David Greene

MARCH WITH GEM ON JULY 30

 I said the following to an ed deform slug from CEC6 at Monday night's PEP - a guy who loves Joel Klein and anything the ed deformers do - he got up at the mic and attacked the NAACP and UFT law suit as a job protection program - he said to me why can't people be civil - I responded: "There is a war on. One side has the atom bomb and the other side - the side of truth, justice and the American way – has pee shooters and he has chosen to be on the side of the people with the bomb." Sort of shut him up.

As I reported this morning, at yesterday's DA Yelena Siwinski asked Michael Mulgrew about the SOS march in Washington DC on July 30 (http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/) and whether the UFT would support it. Mulgrew said they would support(we think he said that) and the AFT has already endorsed but that every major education leader would be in South Africa that day. I love that because we don need no stinkin leaders there – imagine Randi Weingarten preening in front of that crowd, though it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't figure out a way to be in 2 places at once.

I know people are asking for the UFT to provide a bus for those who want to go on July 30 and come back that night. Many of us in GEM are going to the pre- march 2 day conference on July 28 and 29 (our film is being shown in two auditoriums at the same time at American University on July 29 and we are doing a GEM workshop on July 28 at 10:30 AM). But if you want to go for the march only send me your name and if we get enough people the UFT may get that FREE - I repeat - FREE - bus.

Well, here are a bunch of good reasons to go in an absolutely brilliant post from David Greene.
(and read Diane Ravitch on Reasons for Hope).

David Greene On Why He Is Joining the "Save Our Schools" March in Washington where he makes an apt comparison to the Vietnam War. Instead of the military-industrial complex we have the edu-industrial complex.

Why I ain’t ain’t marching anymore. (with apologies to Phil Ochs)


The last and only time I marched on Washington D.C. was the Moratorium to end the Vietnam War in November 1969. Hundreds of thousands marched through the cold streets of Washington D.C. while FBI agents took pictures of us as we shouted “Peace Now” and waved our flags and signs. My friend and I had constructed a giant (we thought it novel) Peace Flag that was eventually used up on the speaker’s platform. We were so proud. We slept on the gym floor of a local parish church. When it was time to leave, at first we couldn’t find our bus to go back to NY, but eventually we did. Frankly, it is all a blur but a well worthwhile one.


I was not a joiner, a marcher or a protester. I was not much of an activist either. I had friends who were deeply involved in the movement but I was happy to get involved in conversations and do my little part to convince people, one at a time, that the War was wrong. However, when friends were deployed I felt it important to do more. So I marched.


Here we are 42 years later. I will march on Washington this July because again we must stop a war. This time it is the war against teachers, students, and education. Over the past 10 years what started as an intervention has become a full-scale assault. The parallels with Vietnam are astounding.


Now as well as then presidential decisions to begin by giving assistance in “the battlefield” became congressional acts to fund, arm and send troops. Corporations were enlisted to fund and manufacture the goods to fight. Escalation became the operating word.


This time I was content to argue against standardized testing, No Child Left Behind, and most recently, Race To The Top. This time I pointed out not how a military-industrial complex gained control of foreign policy, but how a new education-industrial complex had seized control of education policy, for their own profit.


In addition, what seemed like a good idea, TFA, had morphed into what I now call a 5th branch of the armed forces. At first it innocuously sent advisors in small numbers to educational “battlefields”. But now its power and numbers escalate as we idly sit by.


Not for nothing, but TFA recruits young men and women in a not so unfamiliar way. “Join the Army- Be All You Can be? Join the Marines- Looking For A Few Good Men? Join the Navy- It's Not Just a Job, It's An Adventure? Join the Air Force- Aim High? TFA- This could be the best career decision you make?”


TFA recruits are also thrust into a war zone, yet less prepared than my friends were 42 years ago. Often misled and naive 20 somethings, they are unarmed when they go to war to defeat the enemies of education: poverty, poor training, poor leadership, and a host of other saboteurs.


So now 42 years later I go to Washington to march again. But this time I go as more than a marcher. I go as an organizer, presenter, and activist. I do all this because the Chief Executive, Congress, and an Industrial Complex including TFA threaten the avocation I have loved for 41 years.


I march because of the high school kids and programs I see threatened by this assault.


I march because of what this war on education will do to my former colleagues and the new teachers with whom I work.


I march to teach how good high schools can be if we let professionals do the work.


I march to fix how we train new teachers (traditional and TFA) to be better able to fight the real war they and our students face day in day out.


I march to get TFA to change; to work with traditional teacher training institutions; to stop vilifying veteran teachers and actually recruit them to train their recruits; to help us recruit top talent to stay in teaching; to become "lifers". I march to get TFA to listen.


I march for change.
I march for reform.
I march for academic freedom.
I march for curricula and methodologies to develop the best-informed, critical thinking, problem solving students in the world.


Most of all I march for our kids.


David Greene

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

SOS March in Washington July 28-31 - GEM Participation

Members of the Grassroots Education Movement are excited to be participating in the SOS march and activities in Washington from July 28-July31. Our film will have a double concurrent showing on the evening of July 29 at American University, the night before the big march. We also found out that cites around the nation are supporting the event with their own activities. Our film will be shown on July 30 in Las Vegas and Tuscon. Here is an update from Julie Cavanagh, who is coordinating for GEM:

This week Diane Ravitch wrote a piece detailing why she is marching with the Save Our School Coalition this July:   http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/06/why_i_am_marching_on_july_30.html.  (Please share widely)

The weekend in DC, with the march set for Saturday, July 30th, is shaping up to be an exciting event with real education reformers from around the country lined up to give workshops and speak and there will be a film series as well:  http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/

The Grassroots Education Movement will be there presenting a workshop on Thursday, July 28th on building grassroots power and parent-teacher-student- community partnerships and our film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, will be screened twice on Friday evening.

Please consider attending the SOS march.  Visit the site, donate to the cause, and hope to see you there in July!

GEM has a committee working on plans for the march.  If there is anything we can do to support you in your plans to attend please let us know.  We are working on organizing a NYC contingent, more information to come.  In the meantime, Amtrak is offering discounts for the weekend of the march.  The information is below, make your reservation now!

To all SOS WASHINGTON DC Marchers:  Get a discount on your trip!!

*** AMTRAK OFFERING DISCOUNTED FARE ***

TO EVERYONE ATTENDING THE SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH....

Amtrak will offer a 10% discount off the best available

rail fare to ( Washington , DC ) between (July 25, 2011 – August 03, 2011).

To book a reservation call: Amtrak at 1 (800) 872-7245.

Ask for: Save Our Schools March Convention Rate-X08H - 929.

*** MUST BOOK VIA PHONE, NOT VIA INTERNET! ***

This COUNTS FROM ANYWHERE IN THE US.  YOU CAN USE IT FOR ONE WAY OR ROUND TRIP!!!!