Sunday With Susan (Ohanian)

Yummy - new content from Susan. Her comments are what make these stories so yummy. Click on the links.

Nancy Bailey hit to the bone with 'Common Core and Close Reading: Shouldn’t College Work Stay in College?' I put her piece up on Twitter and it was passed on. A lot.

There's actually a Good News item, one that pulls at the heartstrings: Good boy, good adult mentor, good world sharing books.

I am not religious but every year I donate  to Camp Agape VT. Their mission is to provide a week of Christian camping to children who have a parent locked up in the Vermont correctional system. My understanding is that they give each camper a pack of books of high interest, a Bible, and a fishing pole. Who could top that?

Of course we have a couple of new cartoons. Check out:

http://susanohanian.org/cartoons.php

and

http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php

On to the Revolution,

For the sake of the children, REFUSE!


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To the editor
Susan Ohanian
New York Times
2015-07-31
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1809

The New York Times film critic is more observant of kindergartners' needs than is the editorial board.

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Who's In Charge?
Kate Taylor with Ohanian comment
New York Times
2015-07-31
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1996

Dirty money goes with dirty pedagogy.

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Groups That Back Bloomberg's Education Agenda Enjoy Success in Albany
Kate Taylor
New York Times
2015-07-29
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1995

Although this article is about the big money influencing New York City education policy,the story--and the money--certainly is not unique to New York.

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Utah boy reading junk mail gets thousands of books after mailman's plea goes viral
staff
ABC via Publishers Weekly
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=887

Here's a nice story about a mailman who noticed a kid needed some books.

Susan O Comes Packing

A midweek treasure trove from Susan, an original refusenik.

My hope is that one day soon, this will be the mantra of teachers as well as students:
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=1000

Refuse
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=1077

Another cartoon:
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=999

I'm so ticked that I didn't get a copy of the book for which I wrote a chapter that I'm posting the chapter here. In it I take on academics, the press in general and the NY Times in particular. As you will see if you read it, people who write chapters to accommodate the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation receive $30,000 and up. Yes, for one chapter.

http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1207

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Why some students are refusing to take the Common Core test
John Merrow with Ohanian comment
PBS NewsHour
2015-03-11
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=790

This NewsHour segment moderated by John Merrow featuring New Jersey OptOuts is worth watching. I provide transcript here.

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5 Crappy things about the PARCC
Julie Vassilatos
ChicagoNow
2015-03-06
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=787

Read this and ask yourself why any parent--or teacher--would inflict Common Core testing on children they care about.



And for whose well-being they accept responsibility.

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Digital Learning Companies Falling Short of Student Privacy Pledge
Natasha Singer with Ohanian comment
New York Times
2015-03-06
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=582

Cambium's data security called into question. If a child I cared about came home with an assignment to do anything associated with Cambium products, I'd worry a whole lot in addition to data security.
 
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When a Public Intellectual Speaks Out But No One Hears Her, Does She Exist?
Susan Ohanian

2015-03-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1207

This is a book chapter in which I take on the press and assorted academics.

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To the editor
Bruce Chadwick
New York Times
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1751

The New York Times publishes some criticism of standardized testing.

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Hedge fund executives give 'til it hurts to politicians, especially Cuomo, to get more charter schools
Juan Gonzalez
New York Daily News
2015-03-11
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1933

Here's documentation of Andrew Cuomo's big bucks ties to charter school lobbyists.

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Stop Spying on Wikipedia Users
Jimmy Wales and Lila Tretikov
New York Times
2015-03-10
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1932

Wikipedia is filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency to protect the rights of the 500 million people who use Wikipedia every month.
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Announce mailing list
Announce@susanohanian.org
http://susanohanian.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

 

Saturday with Susan O

Susan compiles some good weekend reading to snuggle up with.
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There are several new cartoons in each category. I'm tired and invite you to go to the cartoon index and click on links.
http://www.susanohanian.org/cartoons_index.html

Then you can do the same thing in NCLB cartoons:
http://www.susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php

There are also new quotes, some of which offer excerpts from Bob Herbert's new book, a book well worth reading.

Quotes
http://www.susanohanian.org/quotes.php

My husband and I don't talk much about education outrage. By the time I do research for what I post, I'm tired of it all. But tonight, we talked about Philip Kovacs' son's kindergarten experience. I brought it up because my husband failed the kindergarten DIBELS test. You can read more about it below.
One of the posts below provoked a fight on Twitter.

So it goes.

Susan

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Partners for Corporatiziing Schools: Naming Names
compiled by Susan Ohanian
blog
2015-02-19
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=580

The corporate mantra: Assess, assess, assess.

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Uncovering Security Flaws in Digital Education Products for Schoolchildren
Natasha Singer with Ohanian Comment
New York Times
2015-02-09
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=578

The companies that profited from Reading First are finding new money in digital learning--and still putting students at risk.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen, USC Professor Emeritus
Los Angeles Times
2015-02-17
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1745

This is one terrific letter.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Atlanta Journal Constitution
2015-02-09
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1744

Krashen points out that there's no special merit in finishing high school or college in a pre-determined time frame and I tell a personal story.

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To the editor
Don Perl
Greeley Tribune
2015-02-04
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1743

Speaking from a position of knowledge, Don Perl rebuts policy analyst at the Independence Institute.

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Is There School Today?
Philip Kovacs
Huffington Post
2015-02-19
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1926

Strategy is a good word. Read this post to find out why.

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US Department of Education Funds  Jazzed-Up Worksheets as Innovation
Susan Ohanian
blog
2015-02-19
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1925

The piece under discussion, traveling as education reporting from Hechinger, reads like a PR statement from the company selling the product under discussion.

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Broad Foundation suspends $1-million prize for urban public school districts, claiming real public schools are a complete failure and all-charter districts are the answer
George Schmidt  & Ohanian &  Howard Blume
Substance News and Los Angeles Times
2015-02-08
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1924

We could wish that axing of the Broad Prize might reduce the use of nomenclature of 'providers' and 'stakeholders' and other corporate
nomenclature such as calling children 'clients.


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Which Washington Think Tank Do Billionaires Love the Most? And Why?
David Callahan
Inside Philanthropy
2015-02-05
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1923

A summary of who backs American Enterprise Institute.

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Racing to College
Susan Ohanian
blog
2015-02-06
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1922

Poor six-year-olds are directed to forgo childhood and fill out college applications. Rich kids have makeovers at spa parties and go home to their $200,000 princess bedrooms. And Bob Herbert offers a call to arms.

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The Heavy Hitters Behind a Fund Focused on K-12 Blended Learning
L.S. Hall
Inside Philanthropy
2015-02-05
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1921

Look at who's pushing blended learning, the latest strategy to dump teachers.

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Why Inside Higher Ed Faces a Dubious Future
blog
Academe
2015-01-25
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1920

Some folk are figuring out it's more cost effective to buy up publications than to advertise in them.

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 Department of Good Stuff
Sam Smith
Undernews
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=875

Veteran political analyst chooses 'good stuff' in journalism and education.

Susan's Saturday Special

Ok, so Ohanian sent this out on Thursday. Why quibble? Lotsalinks for weekend perusal. And isn't today the longest day of the year? And I'm registered for a hot yoga class in Times Square with a few thousand people. I just me skip that one and stay home and read Susan's stuff.

A startling thing happened in the grocery store yesterday. I had the four pieces of fruit (at $3.99) a pound that I treat myself to once a year year. Gold dust. The clerk said, "Can I ask you what those are?"

I was so stunned in the moment about having to define apricots that it didn't occur to give one to the clerk. I mean, everyone should taste an apricot once in her life.

Thanks to Eric's good efforts, cartoons are back.

Universal Critical Thinking
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=940

Ad in USA Today Trashes Teachers
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=939

The other good news is that school is out, the weather is beautiful, and free reading abounds. Kids are finding books at the town library that they WANT to read. And I'm there to shelve the returns. Richard Allington's research shows that kids need access to 15 books of their choice over the summer to keep up their skills. Don't you wonder where kids in poverty are going to find those books? It would be a lot cheaper--and more beneficial--to give them those books than force them to go to summer remediation.

The Jindal item below has a slam on Arne Duncan than you probably won't read anywhere else.

Susan

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U.S. education secretary criticizes Gov. Bobby Jindal's Common Core turnabout, TV station reports
Danielle Dreilinger
Times Picayune
2014-06-17
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=716

Arne Duncan puts his foot in it, Petrilli attacks him on Twitter. And more.

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Over 80 PERCENT Of New York Residents Say Common Core Is A Disastrous Failure
Eric Owens
Daily Caller
2014-06-17
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=715

A poll shows a whopping 82 percent of New York state residents wanting to abandon the Common Core Standards Initiative.

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'Sit and Stare' to Prepare for Democracy?
John Merrow

2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1176

I take it as a hopeful sign that a mainstream reporter comes close to supporting those who opt out of testing.

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Seniority, Tenure and the Vergara Decision
Jack Gerson and Andy Libson

2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1175

In discussing the Vergara decision, the authors insist that the situation is long past the time when people should be calling for 'calm.'

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To the editor
Shlomo Groll
Wall Street Journal
2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1690

The Wall Street Journal publishes a letter that takes them to task.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Taiwan News
2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1689

A terrible New York Times article is reprinted in the Taiwan News, and Krashen takes them to task.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
The Guardian
2014-06-17
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1688

Good respond to an incredibly awful article.

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To the editor
Joseph Mugivan
New York times
2014-06-06
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1687

The author points out that kids spend a lot of time using grammar workbooks but not much time actually using that grammar in their own writing.

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Students of much-touted Success Academy charter school score too low on entrance exam for top city high schools
Juan Gonzalez
New York Daily News
2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1827

Shocking statistics from Harlem Success Academy 1.

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The Internet of very dumb things
Mark Morford
San Francisco Chronicle
2014-06-17
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1826

Morford posits all the app crap as  high-fructose corn syrup of the Internet.

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U.S. Warning New York State on Teacher Evaluations
Leslie  Brodie
Wall Street Journal
2014-06-18
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1825

The US Department of Education is threatening New York State over teacher evaluations. Your tax dollars at work.

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Tying high-stakes tests to teachers is harmful
Mark Henry
Houston Chronicle
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=857

Here's good news: a superintendent willing to speak truth to power.

Saturday Ohanian Special

I'm sending the  piece about the disastrous Vermont RTTT grant again because now it has a link to a cleaner version.

Big news today comes form Chicago, with two schools boycotting the ISAT, a low-impact. Don't miss the great videos the Chicago Teachers Union is producing.

Cartoon
Student-Teacher Relationship Advocated by the US Department of Education

Don't Let the Feds Destroy Child Wonder
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=888
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=889

Solidarity.

Susan

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donations help with Common Core push in TN
Joey Garrison
The Tennessean
2014-01-29
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=673

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made three donations in Tennessee near the end of 2013, totaling more than $1 million, to help the push the Common Core. Starting with that $90 million grant in 2009, Gates has  a lot riding on Tennessee continuing to toe the party line.

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Vermont Won a RTTT Early Childhood Grant & I'm As Mad As Hell
Susan Ohanian
blog
2014-02-23
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=672

Race to the Top Money comes at very high cost--to children and to democracy.

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Slicing and Dicing Curriculum Has Never Worked and Never Will
Marion Brady

2014-02-28
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1156

Marion Brady challenges ed reformers who support status quo, stale curriculum model.

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Your Kid Is Being Bullied ---But Not in the Way You Think
Susan Ohanian

2014-02-28
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1155

Jim Arnold makes a very good point  about who is bullying kids. New word: 'Accountabullies.' And he tells parents what they should do about it.

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Big Score When Mom takes the SATs
Elizabeth Kolbert

2014-02-25
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1154

This is an informative, highly entertaining essay.

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To the editor
Susan Ohanian
New York Times
2014-02-24
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1647

Kudos to Op Ed for warning about the preschool performance bandwagon.

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To the editor
Susan Ohanian
New York Times
2014-02-22
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1644

Concern with Olympic hype for winning, and what 1/2 second actually means.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Los Angeles Times
2014-02-24
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1644

Powerful letter. People who care about public schools in Los Angeles should flood the paper with similar letters.

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 Gates Foundation opposes release of teachers’ VAM scores in Florida
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2014-02-27
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1783

In ploy of cynical opportunism, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation tries to have teacher 'value' every which way.

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 CPS threatens to discipline teachers who won’t give students ISAT
Becky Schlikerman
Chicago Sun-times
2014-02-28
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1782

Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett has threatened to discipline any teacher who refuses to administer an annual state achievement test next week. There's a link to a short video on professional development in Chicago that you will not believe.

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Anatomy of a lesson on the Amplify Tablet
Shiloh Starners
Amplify
2014-02-26
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1781

Amplify commissions a teacher to say something good about the Amplify tablet.

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Need to Fund School Programs? Just Sell Your Kids’ Clothes
K J Dell'Antonia with Ohanian comment
New York Times
2014-02-26
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1780

Maybe it's an overreach to compare the moral of this piece with Melville, but so it goes. Don't worry, the piece is a light one. But I still the moral is a big one.

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Ugly News for Early Readers
Susan Ohanian
blog
2014-02-25
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1779

Big books go Common Core.

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A Primary Source for Ed Reporters
Susan Ohanian
blog
2014-02-25
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1778

Take a look at a primary source for ed reporters.
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Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

Susan O warms us up on a cold Xmas morn

UPDATED With cartoons.

The miracle of this season is that the Burlington paper actually printed an anti-Common Core Op Ed.
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=647

They promised to print one of mine but never did. I hope this is a sign of an editorial shift.

Elsewhere, the Corporate Rule abounds. Take this cartoon, where sugar plums aren't dancing in infants' heads. Instead they are watching their iPad apps from the comfort of their Fisher-Price Apptivity (TM) Seat, getting in step to be workers for the Global Economy.

http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=992

As usual, I can't remember if I sent the following cartoons. They are laugh-out loud funny: the wisdom of children.

Following Directions
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=991

Name the Quadrilaterals
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=990

NOTE: I call your attention to 'CPS says no to charter schools, but Michael Madigan says yes' by Dan Mihalopoulos. Yes, it's Illinois politics but important to us all.

1. Kudos to reporter to digging in and revealing it
2. My notes reveal the part the unions played in all this.
3. We need to stop supporting Democrats just because they aren't Republicans.

Hoping for The Revolution in 2014.

Susan

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The wrong choices on standards Vermont should opt out of the Common Core curriculum
Keri Gelenian
Burlington Free Press
2013-12-23
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=647

Here's a strong denunciation of Common  Core from Vermont school administrator.

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Connecticut Governor to drop a $1 million to persuade voters to support Common Core
Jonathan Pelto
Wait What? blog
2013-12-22
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=646

It's interesting that two governors who overcame dyslexia support 'solutions' shipped in from central headquarters rather than individualistic local decision-making.

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D.C. schools gave 44 teachers mistaken job evaluations
Nick Anderson
Washington Post
2013-12-23
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=532

One teacher was fired because of mathematical error in rating system. What can you expect from an outfit that talks of Teacher and School Dosage?

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Common Core and your family's data
Bob Confer with Ohanian notes
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
2013-12-23
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=531

The NY Times doesn't care but news  of the invasion of privacy and sharing of information across multiple sectors is getting to some local newspapers.

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Common Core in Kindergarten Class
a teacher
Diane Ravitch blog
2013-12-22
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=644

Close reading in kindergarten

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Testing Expert Calls for Moratorium on Common Core Testing
Fred Smith
Change the Stakes
2013-12-11
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=643

A longtime employee of the NY citytate board of education testing department calls for a moratorium on Common Core-aligned testing.

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    Orwellian Statements by Education Secretary Contradict Teacher Testimony to State Board of Ed
Susan Ohanian
Second  Vermont Republic
2013-12-18
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=642

Vermont Education Agency ignores kindergarten teacher testimony but touts hot air from praise of Common Core.

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Following David Coleman's Common Core Model: 17 Days on One Short Story
Reality-Based Educator
Perdido Street School
2013-10-19
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=641

Don't miss this close-up look at how 'close reading' works in Common Core, as well as the writer's conclusions of why this is happening.

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Millions in private money poured into Common Core promotion
Valerie Strauss and Carol Burris
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=640

Good information here but the vastness of the Gates influence is understated.

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SUBSTANCE EXCLUSIVE. 'While, I respect the right to opt out of testing, it is extremely important that all families understand that by doing so their child’s future could be negatively impacted...'
George N. Schmidt with Ohanian notes
Substance
2013-12-22
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=0

I take a look at some of the people running NWEA and their Chicago connections.

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CPS says no to charter schools, but Michael Madigan says yes

 Dan Mihalopoulos with Ohanian notes
Chicago Sun-times
2013-12-23
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1750

Some bloggers accuse Illinois Speaker of the House Madigan of incestuous relations with Concept Charter and Gulen. I offer some info on  union connections with Madigan.

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Mayor Bloomberg says Plight of Homeless 11-year-old is 'just the way God works'
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-12-20
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1749

Bloomberg attributes plight of homeless child to 'that's the way God works.'



Fisher-Price preparing worker for global economy. They call this the Apptivity (TM) Seat--for iPad device.

Newborn to toddler.

$79. iPad not included.

Download free apps for this product, created with child development experts. As baby gets older, age-appropriate (sic) apps introduce letters, numbers and more through sing-along songs, sounds and friendly characters.

Three-point restraint for safety (won't protect infant from adult stupidity).

Susan Ohanian's Saturday Morning Special

New Cartoon:
Found in a Standards-Struck Classroom
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=854

This one received so much comment, I'll mention it again.
Teacher Contemplating Common Core
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=851

You won't want to miss Duncan's recent remarks:

http://susanohanian.org/show_duncan.php?id=1889

http://susanohanian.org/show_duncan.php?id=1888

http://susanohanian.org/show_duncan.php?id=1887

I'm clearing my head tonight with a performance by classical guitarist, Xuefei Yang. I don't know how she did on PISA.

Susan


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Drinking the Technology-Enhanced Kool-aid
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-12-06
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=636

Quick! Somebody tell PARCC how much highlighters cost.

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Hey, There, Listen Up
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-12-04
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=635

Is anybody listening?

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It's official: No PARCC field tests for Florida
Jeffrey S. Solochek
Tampa Bay Times
2013-12-02
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=634

The Tampa Bay Times has been a vigorous cheerleader from the Common Core. There have been no editorials yet on this new wrinkle.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
San Francisco Chronicle
2013-12-03
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1626

Yes! We must say it again and again: Poverty. Poverty. Poverty.

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What’s Good For Bill Gates Turns Out To Be Bad For Public Schools
David Morris
Common Dreams
2013-11-30
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1742

Morris makes an especially important point ignored by the press: To qualify for Obama Race to the  Top Grants states had to march in step with Gates policies

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The Gates Foundation's Hypocritical Investments
Alex Park and Jaeah Lee
Mother Jones
2013-12-06
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1741

Contrasting what Bill Gates says with where the Foundation invests its money.

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The Googlization of the Far Right: Why is Google Funding Grover Norquist, Heritage Action and ALEC?
Nick Surgey
Center for Media and Democracy: PR Watch
2013-11-27
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1740

Google, the tech giant supposedly guided by its 'don't be evil' motto, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers.

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A Teacher Looks a Gift Horse in the Mouth
Sean Black  to John Stossel
letter exchange
2013-12-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1739

Sean Black explains why he's refusing Stossel's special offer to educators.
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Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

Susan Ohanian Reports, November 26, 2013

Ten  Top Reasons the U. S. Congress Would Be a  Good Place to Field Test the Common Core Tests
Susan Ohanian blog 2013-11-23 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=626

I usually post Susan's stuff on Saturday morning but call this a Thanksgiving special. Susan's point about Bill Clinton joining hands with Lou Gerstner should be amended with the 3rd party - Al Shanker, who led the UFT/AFT into the entire neo-liberal ed deform morass from the early 80s right through today. The Richard Kahlenberg Shanker bio has lots of stuff about the alliance between him and the Clinton's and the business community -- that sucked the AFT/UFT into this entire nonsense. Those chapters of the book about the 80s and early 90s are chilling.

Someone told me a story that when the Business Roundtable "A Nation at Risk" report came out in 1982, people in the UFT, including Sandy Feldman, reacted against it -- and were shocked when Shanker supported it -- but of course, Unity followed along like sheep. If the UFT were a vibrant democratic organization we could have put a stop to the madness well before the ball got rolling.

From here on it's all Susan -- even if you don't get to all the links -- we at least have them recorded for research purposes.

As noted for years, the Common Core exists to deliver the national test that business interests have pushed for ever Arkansas governor Bill Clinton joined hands with Lou Gerstner to spearhead the Business Roundtable version of ed deform. President Clinton tried to get a national test. Now Obama has two tests but opposition is skyrocketing. If the Common Core tests collapse,  the curriculum will crumble.
Let's listen to 'Joe Hill' again. And remember that we are all in this together--one class against Ed Deform, working for equity in the schools.
Susan
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More states delay Common Core testing as concerns grow
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=631
A national test was the goal of the Common Core and may now bring it down.
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Note to New York Times Columnists: Shut Up!
Susan Ohanian
New York Times
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=629
Once again a New York Times columnist exhibits total ignorance of the topic, and no it isn't Thomas Friedman this time.
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Where Is the Students' Lobbyist?
Senator Jack M. Martins
letter
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=628
New York Senator Jack Martins has a few words to say about the Common Core, with a link to a forum he called on the topic.
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Stop This Train: The Common Core and the Uncommon Student
Paul V. Hogan, with Ohanian notes
blog
2013-11-19 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=627
Read this and you'll know that we'd better start rolling on the Revolution today.
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Ten  Top Reasons the U. S. Congress Would Be a  Good Place to Field Test the Common Core Tests
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-23 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=626
Yes, there are 10 reasons.
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PARRC Task Prototype: Turning Literature Into Pedagogical Chop Suey and Cyanide
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-22 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=625
Sample PARCC questions. How long will educators, their unions, and their professional organizations keep their silence about this?
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Complicated, Imported Solutions Do Not Work
Jason Kass
New York Times
2013-11-19 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=624
You'll see why my letter about this article did not get published.
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N.Y. school principals write letter of concern about Common Core tests
Valerie Strauss and NY principals
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=623
I applaud this letter even as I worry that it seems to imply that what is needed is a better test.
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Education reform backed by the wealthy
James M. Odato, with Ohanian notes
Albany Times Union
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1737
New York Regents show us that you'd better look a gift horse in the mouth.
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LAUSD iPad program gets mixed review from committee
 Pasadena Star-News
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1736
Lots of controversy, not much sense.
------------------------------

----------------------
Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs) http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

 Nothing like starting the weekend with a batch of stuff compiled by Susan with a focus on the common core. I am so far from having been a teacher I can't focus on the educational reasons for opposing CC. I'm more interested in the politics. Like when every enemy of public education and teacher unions unite with these unions to push something down everyone's throats that's all it takes for me to say "Whoa." Yes, Virginia, I am suspicious and also a conspiracy theorist.

I'm working on a piece I'm calling "The Politics Behind the Common Core" and there should be a lot of meat in these links.



From here on it's all Susan -- and send her a donation.

I worked hard on two Common Core items--Common Porn and If You Lie Down with Dogs... I hope you'll read them. I have another piece in this mix--about progressive politicos who don't have time for a Teacher of the Year--but it's good news despite them.


There are new cartoons:
Say It
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=839

Meet Your New Teacher
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=838

Question of the Day
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=837


Tom Toles cartoon
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=971

Kindergarten Test Prep
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=970

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 COMMON PORN: Another school district pulls a raunchy Common Core-approved book
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=615

A school district rejects a Common Core book, but should we rejoice when nobody seems to have read it?

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If You Lie Down With Dogs. . .
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=614

Ed Week provides framework to look at Gates funding in education. I dig a bit deeper, showing how circular Gates grant-making is, and how members of the circle are devouring teacher professionalism and obliterating any notion of education for equality, justice, innovation, or. . . fun.



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The biggest weakness of the Common Core Standards
Valerie Strauss and Marion Brady
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-07
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=613

Marion Brady offers a radical and reasonable view of the Common Core. What are the chances that anybody is listening?

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Catholic scholars blast Common Core in letter to U.S. bishops
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-02
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=612

 130 Catholic scholars around the country have signed a hard-hitting letter to U.S. Catholic bishops denouncing the Common Core State Standards

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A Serious Flaw in Common Core
Alan Singer
Huffington Post
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=611

Referring to the way two very different Supreme Court justices read texts, Alan Singer offers a new and important look at the Common Core requirements as presented by David Coleman.

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Should Literature Be Useful?
Lee Siegel

2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1137

Warning us not to put too much stock in fiction's ability to deliver empathy, Lee Siegel  notes that 'Fiction's lack of practical usefulness is what gives it its special freedom.'

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University Researchers Are Seen as Enablers in Latest Major Drug Fraud
Paul Basken
Chronicle of Higher Education
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1730

There seem to be some parallels with the Johnson & Johnson case and Common Core producers, but the latter will never be prosecuted. The sound of one child vomiting just doesn't reach the Attorney General. . . or even the local school board

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Money Follows Values
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1729

Where the values are among some Alabama legislators.

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Investigators Confirm Test-Tampering At Hartford School
Kathleen Megan and Vanessa De La Torre
Hartford Courant
2013-11-06
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1728

Very bad policy in Hartford schools comes home to roost.

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Wristbands provide incentives for better performance at Land O'Lakes High School

Tampa Bay Times
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1727

What next, tattoos on the forehead?

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Chris Christie's demented 'you people' movement:
David Sirota
Salon.com
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1726

David Sirota does a rare thing: He actually researches education issues before writing about them.

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Poverty in America Is Mainstream
Mark R. Rank
New York Times
2013-11-02
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1725

Contrary to popular belief, the percentage of the population that directly encounters poverty is exceedingly high. Poverty is a mainstream event experienced by a majority of Americans. For most of us, the question is not whether we will experience poverty, but when.

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Teachers Can Be Bullied Too
anonymous blog/Teaching Tolerance Staff
Teaching Tolerance
2013-11-01
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1724

Certainly, now is the time to identify teacher bullying when it appears. Stand up. Speak out. Don't allow yourself to be bullied.

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A Major University and How It Works
Stephen Holden
New York Times
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=846

The New York Times film critic applauds documentarian Frederick Wiseman's magisterial examination of the University of California, Berkeley.

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 What Happens When Parents Stand Up and Say No to Testing?
Elizabeth G. Hines
AlterNet
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=845

Parents in one New York City school have decided to do more than complain about the perils of testing young children. They're taking action, en masse, and getting results.

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Ohanian: Where was the governor? Where was Bernie? Where was the press?
Susan Ohanian
VT Digger
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=844

I post this in Good News because I'm very happy that a teacher in alternative ed was named Vermont Teacher of the year. But the absence of the governor, our senator who sits on the Education Committee, and press was both typical and disgusting.

Nov. 3, 2013
------------------------------

----------------------
Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

 

 

New Content at SusanOhanian.Org, Sept.

As usual, Susan can keep you up all day reading her collection of stuff. Have fun.

I just received another birthday party invitation--this one from student about to celebrate her 40th birthday. She was in my 3rd grade class in 1982-83--10 years removed from the other student. She is the student to whom I gave more of my heart than any other. . . and the love continues to be returned. My only gratitude to Facebook is that's where she found me.

Cartoon: It may mean jail.
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=825

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Early Childhood Standards of Common Core are Developmentally Inappropriate
Truth in American Education with Ohanian comment
American Principles Project
2013-09-18
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=588

Thank you, Conservative Common Core bashers! May some Progressives follow your lead. Dr. Megan Koschnick makes some on-target observations about how inappropriate the kindergarten standards are. I very much appreciate her use of specific examples.

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 Common Core Standards: Conservative Victory or Debacle in the Making?
Anthony Cody
Education Week: Living in Dialogue blog
2013-09-23
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=587

Anthony Cody puts Michael Petrilli's feet to the fire.

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The Common Core money war
Nirvi Shah and Stephanie Simon with Ohanian commen
Politico ProEducation
2013-09-20
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=586

It's interesting that David Coleman is trying to reassure religious groups about the Common Core.

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Is it 'Parents Uneducated' or Press complicit in Misinformation About the Common Core?
Susan Ohanian
comment on NPR
2013-09-23
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=585

NPR's Claudio Sanchez says In Push For 'Common' Standards, Many Parents Left Uneducated

. I'd say the focus should be on he and his fellow journalists.

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New Buzz Words for Learning Common Core Vocabulary
S. Krashen & S. Ohanian comment on Marlene Sprenge
Edutopia
2013-09-20
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=584

11 Tips on Teaching Common Core Critical Vocabulary ignores reading; instead we get Critical verbs as a 3-act play.

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No More Carrots, Lots More Stick: The increasingly imperious Arne Duncan
Frederick M. Hess and Max Eden
Weekly Standard
2013-09-30
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=583

Duncan's increasingly imperious behavior may be our best hope for defeating Common core. As Hess and Eden point out, 'In legislating by fiat, Duncan is ensuring that partisan fissures over the Common Core are likely to grow and that conservatives will have to step in to push back on this supersizing of the federal role.'



Go, Arne!

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Parent Arrested After Asking Questions at School Meeting
Ann Miller
TruthDig
2013-09-22
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=582

Yours is not to reason why,

Yours is to do or die.



And get kicked out of a public meeting for asking uncomfortable questions about the Common Core.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Columbus Dispatch
2013-09-23
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1606

Krashen points out their IS a magic bullet to close achievement gaps.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus USC
Hartford Courant
2013-09-21
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1605

As people feel the economic stress, cost for implementing the Common Core tests is definitely something they can understand.

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Merryl Tisch: Chosen By God
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-09-23
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1698

Your refrigerator doesn't work? Call the president of GE. Problem with schools. Call on God's appointee.

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A Toddler on 3 Different Psychiatric Meds? How Drugging Kids Became Big Business
Enrico Gnualati
AlterNet
2013-09-10
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1697

Big pharma has discovered a lucrative new market in kids.  The monetary price of the pills is staggering, the physical cost to children much more staggering. As Common Core works to further standardize children,and parents worry about their children 'measuring up' to standard, there will be more demand for drugs to aid this process.

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Underpaid 83-Year-Old Professor Died Trying to Make Ends Meet by Working Night Shift at Eat an' Save
Daniel Kovalik
Pittsburgh Post=Gazette
2013-09-18
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1696

The final days of an adjunct professor reveals how badly adjuncts are treated--but the university involved won't admit it.

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Private Schools Jettison a Key Test: Concerns That Test Preparation Rendered Results Invalid
Sophia Hollander
Wall Street Journal
2013-09-20
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1695

You can bet your bippy that wealthy parents will find some other way to spend $568 (plus test prep grooming) to help their preschoolers perform.

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That’s not autism: It's simply a brainy, introverted boy
Enrico Gnaulati
Salon.com
2013-09-21
http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=532

Autism spectrum diagnoses are up 78 percent in 10 years. We're dramatically overdiagnosing it in everyday behavior. Here's a provocative excerpt from a new book on the topic.

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Youngest Kid, Smartest Kid?
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/201
The New Yorker
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=531

Very interesting research on red shirting here.

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It may mean jail


2013-09-23
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=0

Randi on Board of inBloom: AFT dues-paying members, how much will you stand for?

This is the question Susan Ohanian asks. Let the Unity slugs tell us how Randi is gone and MulGarten reigns while all of them go to AFT conventions and do whatever Randi wants. And they will push common core down your throats until you choke. How Vichy-like is Randi's being on this board?

Is this the crew you want running our union? But read on:

http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=443

About inBloom Inc.

inBloom Inc. is a nonprofit organization established to carry forward the mission of the Shared Learning Collaborative, which is to work to make personalized learning a reality for every U.S. student. inBloom provides technology services that allow states and public school districts to better integrate student data and learning applications to support sustainable, cost-effective personalized learning. inBloom is funded with initial philanthropic support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. For more information about inBloom, visit www.inBloom.org.

Old Secretaries of Ed just keep getting consulting gigs. Margaret Spellings is on the board of directors of the new inBloom enterprise. Here are the rest.

Take a look at the Governance and Organization Technical Advisory Group:

In addition to seeking advice from more than 100 education, technology and business advisors, inBloom benefited from a six-member governance advisory group with a range of expertise. This former group committed significant time to help design and set up the long term governance and organizational structure for inBloom, Inc.:

Michael Horn, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Education, Innosight Institute

Michael Lomax, President and CEO, United Negro College Fund

David Riley, President, Alembic Foundation

Andrew Rotherham, Co-Founder and Partner, Bellwether Education Partners

Cheryl Vedoe, President and CEO, Apex Learning

Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

AFT dues-paying members, how much will you stand for?

inBloom is nonprofit. All its providers are for-profits. inBloom Providers are the usual suspects.

If you can stand the horror, an inBloom white paper on standards alignment, providing chapter and verse of how they sequence learning.

This whole package provides a bit more information about what the Common Core Gates Standards are really up to.

You can see a small excerpt in Gates Foundation Anal-Retentive, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Strikes Again.

Here's an excerpt from an inBloom white paper Learning Standard Alignment in inBloom Technology, page 20. Copyright 2012 inBloom, Inc. and its affiliates. They want all the skill duckies in neat little rows. No one seems willing to put a name on this document. I don't think there's a human name in the whole paper. The paper describes:

Objective assessment results provide an important measure of student fulfillment of learning objectives. Again, for inBloom compatible applications to analyze student objective achievement, assessment results must be provided to the inBloom Data store. But assessment metadata, indicating standard alignment, must also be included in the inBloom Data store; assessment maintainers, vendors and educators will need to provide this alignment information.

 Oh, Susan, lay it on them.

http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=443

Susan Ohanian: The best rebuttal of the Common Core. The BEST.

Susan has a plethora of common core critiques. Now, not being directly involved in teaching anymore, I really don't pay much attention to the details of common core. "So why are you opposed," I am often asked? Because of the people and orgs who are supporting it: Every ed deformer and the UFT/AFT. When Tweed and the UFT are on the same side, watch out.

Susan also highlights an article by MORE candidate for UFT Secretary Brian Jones:

Teaching By the Numbers
Brian Jones

2013-01-22
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1068

New York City teacher Brian Jones explains  that standardized testing has more to do with controlling teachers than it does with improving learning.

Other bloggers like Ravitch and RBE have some CC pieces today:

• Perdido Street School

  How Damaging Will Common Core Be To Young Children?
  
• 
  Diane Ravitch's blog

  Special Education Teacher on Common Core

Here is a batch of Susan's CC stuff (Updated):

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A Weapon of Mass Distraction
Susan Ohanian with letter by Stephen Krashen
blog
2013-01-18
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=409

Here's a little quiz on the Common Core posted at the Christian Science Monitor.



Their side is winning.

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Sense of Urgency
L2Gura
Stories from School: Practice Meets Policy blog
2013-01-24
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=408

This teacher presents very clearly the harm Common Core rigor is doing to first graders--and then presents the only answer

 

Common Core State (sic) Standards: An Example of Data-less Decision Making
 Christopher H. Tienken
AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice
2011-01-01 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=400

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The Common Core State (sic) Standards Update on the Ten Commandments Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-01-25 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=406
Here's an update on the 10 Commandments.

------------------- Playtime's over, kindergartners: Standards Stressing Kids Out Susan Edelman
New York Post
2013-01-27 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=407
The Common Core Standards are making kindergartners cry. Small wonder.

--------------------
Where Bill Gates Got the Idea to Call CCSS 'State' Standards http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=706

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The Final Word on the Common Core http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=842

NON CC FROM SUSAN BELOW

Steve Krashen and I have a Test Your Public Ed Savvy quiz over at The Progressive. Please pass it on. The Progressive gives us a chance at talking to a different audience
http://www.progressive.org/test-your-public-ed-savvy
 
I have reprised my cover story for Phi Delta Kappan Goals 2000: What's in a Name? because it offers a quite thorough look at what brought us to where we are now. I am struck by how similar the language of ed reform is. I urge you to read this, definitely proof of that warning: Those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it.
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=404
I've overloaded you with grim news. Don't miss the Good News: Bob Gliner's film is coming to PBS: Schools That Change Communities. We should rally around this film. It changes the conversation. http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=799
Plus some cartoons:
Why Isn't That Ever On the Test? http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=844
Improving on Reading Tests http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=843

Follow the Money Trail on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CCSS Funding http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=707
Whew!
Susan
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Goals 2000: What's in a Name? Susan Ohanian
Phi Delta Kappan
2013-01-26 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=404
I wrote this piece in 2000 and even I am surprised by how very depressingly current it still is. It is actually informative about how we got to where we are today.
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ASCD  Poll About Arts as Handmaidens of Common Core Subjects Susan Ohanian
blog
2012-01-24 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=401
One more attempt to reduce the important of the arts.

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Parents Beware! Teachers Had Better Wake Up Too Susan Ohanian with extensive quotes from 2 Parent
Daily Censored
2012-01-22 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=399
This is the massive data system funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that will put your students' data up to the highest bidder and eat you alive. Why hasn't your union told you about any of this?

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To the editor Susan Ohanian
2012-01-23 http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1514
Sarcasm is undoubtedly a mistake in letters to the editor, but I like the letter.
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To the editor
Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus, USC
Education Week
2012-01-23 http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1514
GREAT letter.
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Go Team! Three Cheers!
Robert Bligh
2012-01-25 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1498
Go, Nebraska gadfly and true school reformer, Robert Bligh!
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Schools That Change Communities Film Coming to PBS Susan Ohanian
0000-00-00 http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=799
Schools That Change Communities

, a one hour documentary about schools that use their communities as classrooms has begun airing on many public broadcasting system stations across the country. Watch it. Order it for your school board and PTA.
------------------------------

----------------------
Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs) http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

 By the way, Susan is coming into town on May 4 to speak at a high stakes testing conference. I will keep you posted.

From Susan O and Khem I

Former NYC and now North Carolina parent activist Khem Irby who helped expose some of the charter scams here --- having had much experience as a charter parent writes on charters in NC. Examiner.com: Charter parents believe start early, start strong

And Susan Ohanian in her regular update has so much good stuff I'm putting it all in. Make sure to check out her comments by clicking on the links.

Do NOT miss Evelyn O'Connor. It is especially ironic to hear her words as the NEA Rep Assembly is meeting.

We have two new cartoons:
Circle the Wagons
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=791

Quiz
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=663

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Are the new national academic standards rotten to the (Common) Core?
Maureen Downey/
Atlantic Journal-Constitution  Get Schooled Blog
2012-07-01
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=294

A Georgia superintendent takes on the Common Core

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Test That Can Determine the Course of Life in China Gets a Closer Examination
Edward Wong
New York Times
2012-07-01
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9832

Here's another idea for Bill Gates.

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Summer Reading List
Claire Needell Hollander  & Laura N. Arneson
New York Times
2012-06-27
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=293

Read on for a cockamamie idea, verging on child abuse.

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Turnitin Partners with Education Council to Develop Common Core Grading Rubrics
Turnitin
Sacramento Bee Press Release
2012-06-25
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=292

See educators run to the Common Core money.

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Ghosts of PATCO and the Coming Battle for Teachers
Alan Morse

2012-06-30
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1028

About the coming CTU strike? Alan Morse, who lives in Maine, says we should ALL 'be ready.' Be ready to support Chicago teachers.

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To the editor
Laura N. Arneson
New York Times
2012-06-27
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1455

I am so glad that someone answered the outrageous opinion piece about the books necessary to gain 'world knowledge.' The author of that revealed only that she's drunk way too much Common Core Kool-Aid.

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Career test for kindergarteners in the works
Josh Lederman, Associated Press
Denver Post
2012-07-02
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1355

A new digital tool to test academic and behavioral skills will target students starting in kindergarten.

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MUST watch!!!
Evelyn O'Connor
Cooperative Catalyst
2012-06-30
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1354

Wowser. Wowser. Don't miss this.

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A Bar Exam for Teachers?
Steve Clemons
Atlantic online
2012-06-29
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1353

The kettle of fish at the  Aspen Institute sure stinks and dues-paying members of the AFT should certainly ask what Randi Weingarten is up to.

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Consultant reforming Algiers charter schools raised idea of displaying D grade on signs, memos and shirts
Mark Waller
 The Times-Picayune
2012-06-29
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1352

The consultant pushing to overhaul the Algiers Charter Schools Association raised the idea of prominently displaying the state-assigned letter grade of D on shirts worn by employees, memos and signs.

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Doubts persist on Memphis, Shelby County school merger plan
Gary Shorb & Michael Kelley, comments by Jim Horn
Memphis Commercial Appeal
2012-06-29
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1351

Jim Horn tears apart the Gates resegregation  plan for Memphis and Shelby County  Tennessee.

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Why Bother Educating the Poor?
Gerald Coles
Living in Dialogue blog
2012-06-27
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1350

Gerald Coles speaks truth to power and ticks off commentors at the Ed Week website. It is a tough message. It IS on target.

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Parents, Join the Resistance!
Nina Bishop

2012-06-26
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1349

Please join this Colorado parent in an effort to get the ACLU involved in supporting the rights of parents to opt their children out of oppressive standardized testing. All she is asking for is a letter from you.

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Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Schools network rolling in money but still wants 50% increase in management fees from state
Juan Gonzalez
New York Daily News
2012-06-25
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1348

Here we see more taxpayer support of private entrepreneurial  interests, while public schools can't even supply toilet paper.

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This abandoned Walmart has been reclaimed as a public library
Jess Zimmerman
Grist List
2012-07-02
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=770

Some good news from Texas.

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Mayor Bloomberg's School Closings Blocked by Arbitrator
United Federation of Teachers & Lisa Fleisher
Press Release & Wall Street Journal
2012-06-29
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=769

The Bloomberg reform plan, which is an attempt to capitalize on the Duncan plan, has been blocked by the arbitrator.

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Online Testing, and How Pearson Sent Wyoming Back to Paper
Jim Horn & Jill Barshay
Schools Matter blog & Hechinger Report
2012-06-26
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=4247

Even worse than the technical snafus imminent in online testing are these predictions of round-the-clock testing.
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Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

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
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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.


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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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