E Wayne Ross – Page 108 – Critical Theories in Education

Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books

The New York Times: Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books

By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: September 1, 2006
BEIJING, Aug. 31 — When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country’s most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist template that had dominated standard history texts since the 1950’s. The changes passed high-level scrutiny, the authors say, and are part of a broader effort to promote a more stable, less violent view of Chinese history that serves today’s economic and political goals.

Supporters say the overhaul enlivens mandatory history courses for junior and senior high school students and better prepares them for life in the real world. The old textbooks, not unlike the ruling Communist Party, changed relatively little in the last quarter-century of market-oriented economic reforms. They were glaringly out of sync with realities students face outside the classroom. But critics say the textbooks trade one political agenda for another.

They do not so much rewrite history as diminish it. The one-party state, having largely abandoned its official ideology, prefers people to think more about the future than the past.

The new text focuses on ideas and buzzwords that dominate the state-run media and official discourse: economic growth, innovation, foreign trade, political stability, respect for diverse cultures and social harmony.

J. P. Morgan, Bill Gates, the New York Stock Exchange, the space shuttle and Japan’s bullet train are all highlighted. There is a lesson on how neckties became fashionable.

The French and Bolshevik Revolutions, once seen as turning points in world history, now get far less attention. Mao, the Long March, colonial oppression of China and the Rape of Nanjing are taught only in a compressed history curriculum in junior high.

“Our traditional version of history was focused on ideology and national identity,” said Zhu Xueqin, a historian at Shanghai University. “The new history is less ideological, and that suits the political goals of today.”

The changes are at least initially limited to Shanghai. That elite urban region has leeway to alter its curriculum and textbooks, and in the past it has introduced advances that the central government has instructed the rest of the country to follow.

But the textbooks have provoked a lively debate among historians ahead of their full-scale introduction in Shanghai in the fall term. Several Shanghai schools began using the texts experimentally in the last school year.

Many scholars said they did not regret leaving behind the Marxist perspective in history courses. It is still taught in required classes on politics. But some criticized what they saw as an effort to minimize history altogether. Chinese and world history in junior high have been compressed into two years from three, while the single year in senior high devoted to history now focuses on cultures, ideas and civilizations.

“The junior high textbook castrates history, while the senior high school textbook eliminates it entirely,” one Shanghai history teacher wrote in an online discussion. The teacher asked to remain anonymous because he was criticizing the education authorities.

Zhou Chunsheng, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and one of the lead authors of the new textbook series, said his purpose was to rescue history from its traditional emphasis on leaders and wars and to make people and societies the central theme.

“History does not belong to emperors or generals,” Mr. Zhou said in an interview. “It belongs to the people. It may take some time for others to accept this, naturally, but a similar process has long been under way in Europe and the United States.”

Mr. Zhou said the new textbooks followed the ideas of the French historian Fernand Braudel. Mr. Braudel advocated including culture, religion, social customs, economics and ideology into a new “total history.” That approach has been popular in many Western countries for more than half a century.

Mr. Braudel elevated history above the ideology of any nation. China has steadily moved away from its ruling ideology of Communism, but the Shanghai textbooks are the first to try examining it as a phenomenon rather than preaching it as the truth.

Socialism is still referred to as having a “glorious future.” But the concept is reduced to one of 52 chapters in the senior high school text. Revolutionary socialism gets less emphasis than the Industrial Revolution and the information revolution.

Students now study Mao — still officially revered as the founding father of modern China but no longer regularly promoted as an influence on policy — only in junior high. In the senior high school text, he is mentioned fleetingly as part of a lesson on the custom of lowering flags to half-staff at state funerals, like Mao’s in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping, who began China’s market-oriented reforms, appears in the junior and senior high school versions, with emphasis on his economic vision.

Gerald A. Postiglione, an associate professor of education at the University of Hong Kong, said mainland Chinese education authorities had searched for ways to make the school curriculum more relevant.

“The emphasis is on producing innovative thinking and preparing students for a global discourse,” he said. “It is natural that they would ask whether a history textbook that talks so much about Chinese suffering during the colonial era is really creating the kind of sophisticated talent they want for today’s Shanghai.”

That does not mean history and politics have been disentangled. Early this year a prominent Chinese historian, Yuan Weishi, wrote an essay that criticized Chinese textbooks for whitewashing the savagery of the Boxer Rebellion, the violent movement against foreigners in China at the beginning of the 20th century. He called for a more balanced analysis of what provoked foreign interventions at the time.

In response, the popular newspaper supplement Freezing Point, which carried his essay, was temporarily shut down and its editors were fired. When it reopened, Freezing Point ran an essay that rebuked Mr. Yuan, a warning that many historical topics remained too delicate to discuss in the popular media.

The Shanghai textbook revisions do not address many domestic and foreign concerns about the biased way Chinese schools teach recent history. Like the old textbooks, for example, the new ones play down historic errors or atrocities like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the army crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

The junior high school textbook still uses boilerplate idioms to condemn Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930’s and includes little about Tokyo’s peaceful, democratic postwar development. It will do little to assuage Japanese concerns that Chinese imbibe hatred of Japan from a young age.

Yet over all, the reduction in time spent studying history and the inclusion of new topics, like culture and technology, mean that the content of the core Chinese history course has contracted sharply.

The new textbook leaves out some milestones of ancient history. Shanghai students will no longer learn that Qin Shihuang, who unified the country and became China’s first emperor, ordered a campaign to burn books and kill scholars, to wipe out intellectual resistance to his rule. The text bypasses well-known rebellions and coups that shook or toppled the Zhou, Sui, Tang and Ming dynasties.

It does not mention the resistance by Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, to Kublai Khan’s invasion and the founding of the Mongol-controlled Yuan dynasty. Wen Tianxiang, a Han Chinese prime minister who became the country’s most transcendent symbol of loyalty and patriotism when he refused to serve the Mongol invaders, is also left out.

Some of those historic facts and personalities have been replaced with references to old customs and fashions, prompting some critics to say that history teaching has lost focus.

“Would you rather students remember the design of ancient robes, or that the Qin dynasty unified China in 221 B.C.?” one high school teacher quipped in an online forum for history experts.

Others speculated that the Shanghai textbooks reflected the political viewpoints of China’s top leaders, including Jiang Zemin, the former president and Communist Party chief, and his successor, Hu Jintao.

Mr. Jiang’s “Three Represents” slogan aimed to broaden the Communist Party’s mandate and dilute its traditional emphasis on class struggle. Mr. Hu coined the phrase “harmonious society,” which analysts say aims to persuade people to build a stable, prosperous, unified China under one-party rule.

The new textbooks de-emphasize dynastic change, peasant struggle, ethnic rivalry and war, some critics say, because the leadership does not want people thinking that such things matter a great deal. Officials prefer to create the impression that Chinese through the ages cared more about innovation, technology and trade relationships with the outside world.

Mr. Zhou, the Shanghai scholar who helped write the textbooks, says the new history does present a more harmonious image of China’s past. But he says the alterations “do not come from someone’s political slogan,” but rather reflect a sea change in thinking about what students need to know.

“The government has a big role in approving textbooks,” he said. “But the goal of our work is not politics. It is to make the study of history more mainstream and prepare our students for a new era.”

National School Testing Urged

This is a development that many opponents of standards-based reforms (which rely on high-stakes testing) predicted at the dawn of the movement during the George H. W. Bush administration.

The US Department of Education’s Higher Education Commission is laying the groundwork for NCLB-like, standards-based reform of post-secondary education, including, perhaps, individual tracking of college and university student performance. So national testing of college and university students, while perhaps far in the distance, is likely a predictable result. The results of which will have a similar effect on undergraduate education as it has had on K-12 education (narrowed curriculum, de-emphasis on critical thought, and loss of academic freedom).

Washington Post: National School Testing Urged

Many states, including Maryland and Virginia, are reporting student proficiency rates so much higher than what the most respected national measure has found that several influential education experts are calling for a move toward a national testing system.

The growing talk of national testing and standards comes in the fifth year of the No Child Left Behind era. That federal law sought to hold public schools accountable for academic performance but left it up to states to design their own assessments. So the definition of proficiency — what it means for a student to perform at grade level — varies from coast to coast.Maryland recently reported that 82 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or better in reading on the state’s test. The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the nation’s report card,” show 32 percent of Maryland fourth-graders at or above proficiency in reading.

Virginia announced last week that 86 percent of fourth-graders reached that level on its reading test, but the NAEP data show 37 percent at or above proficiency.

Some experts say it’s time to be more clear about how well American schoolchildren are doing.

“The more discontented the public is with confusing and dumbed-down standards, the more politically feasible it will be to create national standards of achievement,” said Diane Ravitch, a New York University professor who was an assistant U.S. education secretary under President George H.W. Bush.

The political obstacles are formidable, including a long tradition of local control over public education. But the approaching presidential campaign, a pending debate over congressional reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law and the wide gaps between assessments have raised hopes among proponents that the issue will gain steam. Some say gradual steps toward a national system would be better than none.

A recent study by Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, found that states regularly inflate student achievement. In 12 states studied, the percentage of fourth-graders proficient in reading climbed by nearly two percentage points a year, on average.

The NAEP (pronounced “Nape”) data show a decline on average in the percentage who were proficient over the same period, Fuller said.

Another Fuller-led study found only three states — Massachusetts, Missouri and South Carolina — with proficiency standards that come close to NAEP’s. (A similar rating by the journal Education Next showed that D.C. school standards have been stringent. It showed 14 percent of D.C. elementary school children reading proficiently on the D.C. scale and 11 percent on NAEP’s.)

Unlike state tests, which are used to help rate public schools and measure achievement of all students in certain grades, NAEP has a more limited mission. It tests selected pools of students in key subject areas to produce data on long-term educational trends.

NAEP standards were designed to establish what students ought to know to do well in the next grade and beyond, said Mark D. Musick, former president of the Southern Regional Education Board, who helped draft them. State standards, he said, more typically reflect what teachers say are the levels good students reach in their classes.

Although classroom experience varies across the country, Musick said, what students should know to be proficient in Algebra I is clear to most educators, and a national test would help set that standard.

The argument over national standards splits both major political parties. Many Republicans defend each state’s right to set its own standards, but the Bush administration includes advocates for a stronger federal role.

No Child Left Behind, which President Bush signed into law in 2002, struck a balance: It required a major expansion of state testing programs but left standard-setting authority to the states.

Many Democrats supported President Bill Clinton’s effort in the 1990s to encourage national standards, which was blocked by a Republican-led Congress. Other Democrats, particularly those allied with teachers unions, oppose judging schools by standardized tests.

Charles E. Smith, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, said many state officials tell him they are moving toward the national benchmarks.

A senior Maryland education official, for instance, said the state’s standards are aligned with some of the NAEP benchmarks. Some, he said, but not all.

“The gaps will generate differences in performance,” said Ronald A. Peiffer, Maryland’s deputy superintendent for academic policy. “If NAEP were the national test to which all states taught and tested, then there would be no gaps, and I would expect Maryland students to do much better on NAEP.”

Last week, the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation released a report from several experts, including advisers to Republican and Democratic administrations, that outlined ways to move toward national standards.

First, the federal government could order a new national testing program. The report said that surely would raise standards but would be unlikely to win congressional approval. Second, Washington could fund an expanded, voluntary national testing system. The report said that probably would raise standards and could be passed.

Third, states could build on efforts to share test items among themselves. That would be less likely to raise standards but politically feasible, the report said. Fourth, the federal government could take steps to ensure that state standards and test results could be easily compared with one another and with NAEP.

The experts in the report include Texas lawyer Sandy Kress and former deputy U.S. education secretary Eugene W. Hickok, both key education advisers to Bush, as well as Ravitch and former Clinton advisers Michael Cohen and Andrew J. Rotherham.

Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Foundation, a former Reagan administration official and one of the architects of the NAEP standards in 1990, said creating a national test would be difficult. “But I think it’s a manageable hurdle, especially with presidential leadership,” he said.

“There’s an assumption around that national standards are political suicide even if they make educational sense,” Finn said. “We need to bust through that.”

Musick said he believes the best way to introduce national tests would be in a few high school subjects, such as first- and second-year algebra.

Some educators see comparisons with NAEP as unrealistic. Gerald W. Bracey, an educational psychologist who writes frequently on testing, noted that 1996 NAEP results found only 30 percent of fourth-graders to be proficient or better in science, even though an international study that year ranked American fourth-graders third in science among 26 nations.

Others want to cut back on standardized testing entirely.

Deborah Meier gained fame for starting schools in low-income areas of New York City’s Manhattan that had experts rate students by viewing their schoolwork and discussing it with them. The schools did not rely on standardized tests. Instead of a national test, Meier said, the country should adopt “a combination of in-depth local instruments, independent review of schools and student work.”

She also said there is value in limited testing to sample student progress.

Skeptics of national testing have long noted the influence of politics on proficiency standards. Put simply, how many kids will voters allow to score below proficiency? Some policymakers are tempted to keep standards low so that schools will look successful; others seek to set them high to spur schools to improve.

Rouge Forum Update: Focus on Oaxaca (August 27, 2006)

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil web page is updated, with articles from Robert Fisk, Seymour Hersh, and others.

Two school workers’ struggles are highlighted in Rouge Forum Broadsides this week:

The Detroit Teacher Strike, set to begin Monday, August 28.

And a warning to the people of Oaxaca about an incoming Trojan Horse, filled with union bosses, from the USA.

In addition, The Rouge Forum now has its latest links posted to the delicious site at http://del.icio.us/rougeforum.

Take note of the cool antiwar posters available cheap on the Rouge Forum web page!

All the best for a great school year

YaleShmale

BBC: Canada university in campaign row

A small Canadian university has sparked controversy with its recruitment drive by using posters and a website mocking US President George W Bush.

Lakehead University in northern Ontario set up www.yaleshmale.com in a bid to attract potential new students.

It shows a picture of Yale graduate Mr Bush with the caption: “Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.”The president of Lakehead’s student union called the campaign “repugnant”.

The university has issued posters bearing the black and white image of Mr Bush, who graduated from Yale in 1968, encouraging people to visit its campaign website.

It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention
Frederick Gilbert,
Lakehead University president and vice-chancellor
Once there, users are invited to click on a link if they agree with the caption, and are taken through to a page promoting Lakehead, which is based in Thunder Bay and has 7,600 students.

“There are universities and then there are universities. So let’s not beat around the bush,” it says.

“Lakehead is different. We believe the person you become after you graduate is even more important than the person you were when you enrolled.”

There is then a further link to take users through to Lakehead’s official site for potential students.

‘Inappropriate’

The university has defended its campaign, which also includes prizes of a car lease and handheld computer games consoles, saying it has had a positive effect.

“It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention,” university president and vice-chancellor Frederick Gilbert told Reuters news agency.

The website had received more than 7,000 hits, he said on Monday, and online comments had been 95% positive.

But he acknowledged the university had received e-mails which were “running in the opposite direction”, which was a concern.

“Older generations” and some of Lakehead’s students considered the campaign inappropriate, he said.

The university would not retract its campaign, however, although it would try to respond to individual concerns, he said.

Student union president Isabelle Poniatowski told Reuters the campaign was low-brow and lacked class.

“It still strikes me as being very repugnant,” she said. “Lakehead has so many positive attributes that you could really sell to people that live down south.”

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5294690.stm

Published: 2006/08/29 11:22:17 GMT

Texas football coaches paid more than teachers

This is an appalling, if not particularly surprising finding…

Houston Chronicle: Football coaches still paid way more than teachers

Football coaches at schools in the state’s two largest classifications average $31,404 more in salary than teachers, slightly less than they did 10 years ago, the Austin American-Statesman reported Sunday following an examination of public records.

The Statesman reviewed the salaries for the 2005-06 school year from schools in Classes 5A and 4A through documents obtained under the Texas Public Information Act. The findings were very similar to a similar study done by The Associated Press in 1996, using records from the 1995-96 school year.

The latest numbers show coaches making an average of $73,804, compared to $42,400 for teachers.

A decade ago, the AP survey showed coaches making $54,000 and teachers making $31,000.Teachers have seen their salaries go up 36.8 percent, compared to 36.7 percent for coaches.

The Statesman reviewed the total compensation paid to the head football coaches and salaries of their highest-paid teachers, high school principals and superintendents for all school districts with schools in 4A and 5A. To be classified in 4A or above, schools had to have at least 950 students; that covered 461 schools. There were 428 schools in 4A and 5A during the AP review.

Among the new findings:

— Five coaches earn more than $100,000, topped by the $106,004 salary for Sam Harrell of Ennis High School. The leader in 1995-96 was Stephenville’s Art Briles at $82,658.

— The lowest-paid coach is Cornell Gray at Houston Furr. His salary of $42,300 is a tad below the average teacher’s salary. The lowest-paid last time was Dallas Wilson’s Damon Miller at $34,474.

— There are 27 coaches who earn more than their school’s principal.

— Southlake Carroll coach Todd Dodge, whose teams are 63-1 with three state championships and a mythical national title the past four years, ranks 36th among coaches at $90,510.

— Coaches in large school districts such as Austin, El Paso, Houston and Fort Worth are bunched toward the bottom of the pay scale.

— In Houston, the district’s highest-paid teacher makes $95,191 — far more than the $76,913 drawn by the district’s top-paid coach, Tom Nolan of Houston Lamar.

“The state sets a minimum salary, and paying teachers anything above that is a district by district decision,” said Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, a former superintendent at Galena Park North Shore.

“Not everything is going to be equal,” she added, noting that math and science teachers tend to make more than English and history teachers. “I’ve been in the public school business for 35 years now, and it’s just the way it is.”

Donna Haschke, president of the Texas State Teachers Association, was glad to see teachers keep pace, but she’d like to see them narrow the gap much more.

“Sports has its place, and it’s an important, positive place in the curriculum,” she said. “But I think that we should be putting some of that time and money into education.”

Coaches receive a base salary, plus a coaching stipend that ranges from $1,000 to the $35,000 paid to Dodge. Their contracts usually are based on a 226-day work year, while teachers’ contracts are based on a 187-day year. It’s common for football coaches to log 70 to 100 per week during the season, including time on Saturdays and Sundays, compared to 40 to 70 per week for teachers.

“My wife is a teacher, and she doesn’t want to work the schedule I work,” said Lufkin coach John Outlaw, third on the salary list at $103,500. “She’s told me numerous times she doesn’t want to do it. And I don’t blame her.”

Coaches’ jobs are more scrutinized, with thousands of people in the stands watching them and results posted in the newspaper and debated within the community. Neeley noted that successful coaches also produce more college scholarships for players.

Over the last decade, D.W. Rutledge has gone from one of the top-paid coaches while at Converse Judson to executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association. His view remains that coaches deserve what they are getting.

“I believe a coach has two tasks,” he said. “One is a minor one, and that is really teaching techniques of the game and skills of the game. The major task is the intangibles that coaches bring to the table. Good coaches teach leadership skills and sacrifice and dedication and unselfishness.”

Harrell, 49, is making 65 percent more than he did during the AP study. That’s the biggest bump among the 46 coaches still at the same school. And he’s among the rare high-earners who is merely the football coach and not also the coordinator of all athletic programs in either the school or school district. Few 5A and 4A coaches are classroom teachers.

“I consider myself the luckiest guy in the world,” said Harrell, whose teams won 4A state titles in 2000, 2001 and 2004.

Ennis superintendent Mike Harper said the football program generated $260,000 last year, making Harrell “worth everything we pay him.” Harper said administrators keep upping Harrell’s paychecks to prevent him from being lured away.

“Some days I think I get overpaid,” Outlaw said. “But then you have to deal with knucklehead boys and knucklehead mommies and daddies, and you realize that everybody in education is underpaid.”

Warning to Our Comrade Teachers in Oaxaca / Cuidado a nuestros profesores del camarada en Oaxaca

A Rouge Forum Broadside / Un Costado Del Foro Del Colorete

Cuidado a nuestros profesores del camarada en Oaxaca

Warning to Our Comrade Teachers in Oaxaca

Beware the Trojan Horse Filled with US Teacher Union Leaders
There are several Rouge Forum members and readers who are now involved in the struggles in Oaxaca. Some are indigenous people who became friends of Rouge Forum visitors to the region, and some are N. Americans who are now part of the struggle there.

The struggle in Oaxaca has always been more than the struggle of school workers for better teaching conditions, wages, and benefits. The lessons of Oaxaca can be learned everywhere.

It has been a community-wide battle against the connection of exploitation and the systematic ruin of education, against racism and sexism. In many instances, the Oaxaca struggles have pointed to the use of the Mexican government as a weapon of the rich, and to the secrets of capitalism itself, from the need to divide people along religious or other lines in order to use those divisions to demolish us, to the key secret: capitalism demands exploitation, injustice, inequality and war–and capital’s greatest fear: we can learn to live beyond capital, peacefully and free, equitably and democratically.

The struggle in Oaxaca has come under sharp, deadly, attack. Lives have been lost to further the battle to live in a better world. Even so, courageous people have stayed united, and have taken direct action, from seizing territory to seizing radio stations. Elites have used force, but so far in limited ways, because they fear the people’s response.

Now, however, the rich and powerful may be about to try another tactic; a Trojan Horse offered to Oaxacans through well-meaning, but completely uninformed, people, a Trojan Horse filled with bosses of the teacher unions in the United States. Some US professors are about to bring US labor leaders to Oaxaca, and introduce them as “allies.” That is wrong.

The leaders of the US teachers unions are reactionary dangerous people. They hold to an idea that they call “New Unionism.” What they mean is they support the unity of US union members, the US government, and US corporations, in the “national interest.” That is what they think is the main reason for having a union; not because working people and their bosses have little but contradiction in common, are on opposing sides, but because working people in the US will do better if working people outside the US do worse.

There is nothing new about their kind of unionism, though. It’s the same kind of idea that was the foundation of Mussolini’s Corporate State: fascism.

But “New Unionism,” is not just a bad, old, idea. In practice, it means that the leadership of the US teacher unions have been involved, for decades, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), seeking to destroy workers’ movements all over the world.

The two major US teacher unions are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the National Education Association (NEA). Leaders of both unions are deeply involved in this activity, but few of their own rank an file members know about it.

How does this work? Both NEA and AFT (and the umbrella organization of nearly all US unions, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations; AFL-CIO) operate through front groups like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD).

NED and AIFLD are funded by secret money from the CIA, the US State Department, and they are supported by funds and personnel from US unions, especially from NEA and AFT. Nearly one-half of the dues income the AFL-CIO receives is spent outside the USA, in conjunction with campaigns led by the CIA.

They use the same divide-and-conquer, reward-and-punish, befriend-and-betray methods that any elite might use to keep people in line.

For example, they identify and recruit local leaders, bring them to “training” sessions in the USA, bribe them, threaten them, and turn them back to be used to destroy the movements they once could have led.

They pay people off, and threaten others. They pretend to be allies, and work behind the workers’ backs to deceive us.

They use force. They have been involved in US attempts to overthrow governments, and massacre since even before the Allende days in Chile, right up to the recent attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela. They do not play. These people are killers.
Why do they do this? US labor leaders live off the fruits of US imperialism. Leaders of the NEA and AFT, at the top, earn nearly $500,000 a year, about ten times the average wage of US teachers. It is a lot. In addition, they create the illusion of not only power for themselves, but they get to pretend they are being creative and patriotic, when in fact all they are is selfish and corrupt.

Over time, as US labor leaders separate more and more from the rank and file, their lives become like the bosses in the industries they represent, and unlike the workers. The union bosses shop and live in different places, play golf with the bosses, dine at fancy restaurants, and, at the end of the day, literally join the other side.

These labor mis-leaders know that their many privileges are rooted in the betrayal of, not only their own members, but workers all over the world. Their incomes depend largely on the success of US imperialism, the struggle of capitalists in the US to find cheap labor, raw materials, markets, and social control, all over the world. That is why nearly every major US union backs the failed oil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Caspian region. US unions supported the wars on Vietnam as well.

Many US working people, including teachers, support the unions because they do not know what their own unions are doing, and because they find it hard to believe that their unions would turn around and deceive them, but that is what is happening. Many union members do not grasp that the unions are theirs, and not ours.

That does not make rank and file union members entirely innocent. While it is hard for many people to learn what goes on outside the US, it is easy to see that US unions are segregated unions. That is especially true of the teacher unions, which, taken together, are about 90 percent white.

These are apartheid unions and, wittingly or not, they work on the same basis that the AFT-NEA operate internationally, that is, the idea that white workers (teachers and other school workers) will do better, if school workers of color do worse. If entry into the job can be segregated, that means less people will compete for work, and, inside this theory, pay will go up.

Really, this is just racism, and as a divide and rule tool, it works only for employers over time. Teachers who are isolated from kids and parents (now about 50% people of color), are much less powerful than teachers in an integrated movement. But rank and file teachers have allowed their union leaders to pile up restrictions that make it hard for people of color to become teachers. So the teachers’ unions are, indeed, isolated from the people who they need most, working class kids and parents.

Solidarity is key to winning any workers’ battles, and it is key to the fight going on in Oaxaca now. It is true that working people all over the world need to unite, to take direct action to change the way we all live, for democracy and equality. But we do not need to unite with those who pretend to be our friends, but who will betray us.

If a national “labor leader” from the US approaches our comrades in Oaxaca, it would be best to tell them to go home, get out of Mexico, and fix the racism inside their own unions.

Then, take pictures of them and paste them up everywhere, with the caption: Judas.

Rich Gibson for the Rouge Forum (www.rougeforum.org)

August 2006

Un Costado Del Foro Del Colorete

Cuidado a nuestros profesores del camarada en Oaxaca

Guárdese del Trojan Horse llenado de los líderes de la unión de profesor de los E.E.U.U.
Hay varios miembros y lectores del foro del colorete que ahora están implicados en las luchas en Oaxaca. Alguna es la gente indígena que hizo amigos de los visitantes del foro del colorete a la región, y algo es N. americans que ahora son parte de la lucha allí.

La lucha en Oaxaca ha sido siempre más que la lucha de los trabajadores de la escuela para condiciones, salarios, y ventajas de enseñanza mejores. Las lecciones de Oaxaca se pueden aprender por todas partes.

Ha sido una batalla a nivel comunitario contra la conexión de la explotación y la ruina sistemática de la educación, contra racismo y sexism. En muchos casos, las luchas de Oaxaca han señalado al uso del gobierno mexicano como arma de los ricos, y a los secretos del capitalismo sí mismo, de la necesidad de dividir a gente a lo largo de líneas religiosas u otras para utilizar esas divisiones para demolernos, al secreto dominante: el capitalismo exige la explotación, injusticia, desigualdad y guerra — y el miedo más grande del capital: podemos aprender vivir más allá de capital, pacífico y liberar, equitativo y democrático.

La lucha en Oaxaca ha venido debajo de agudo, mortal, ataque. Las vidas se han perdido a más futuro la batalla a vivir en un mundo mejor. Incluso así pues, la gente valerosa ha permanecido unida, y ha llevado la acción directa, de agarrar el territorio agarrar las estaciones de radio. Las élites han utilizado la fuerza, pero hasta ahora en maneras limitadas, porque temen la respuesta de la gente.

Ahora, sin embargo, el rico y el de gran alcance pueden estar a punto de intentar otra táctica; un Trojan Horse ofreció a Oaxacans con el bien-significado, pero totalmente mal informado, gente, un Trojan Horse llenó de los jefes de las uniones de profesor en los Estados Unidos. Los profesores de los algunos E.E.U.U. están a punto de traer a E.E.U.U. líderes de trabajo a Oaxaca, y los introducen como “aliados.” Eso es incorrecto.

Los líderes de las uniones de profesores de los E.E.U.U. son gente peligrosa reaccionaria. Sostienen a una idea que llaman “Unionism nuevo.” Qué él significa es apoya la unidad de los miembros de unión de los E.E.U.U., el gobierno de los E.E.U.U., y las corporaciones de los E.E.U.U., en el “interés nacional.” Eso es lo que piensan son la razón principal del tener una unión; no porque trabajan la gente y sus jefes tienen poco pero contradicción en campo común, esté en lados de oposición, pero porque la gente de trabajo en los E.E.U.U. hará mejor si la gente de trabajo fuera de los E.E.U.U. hace peor.

Hay nada nuevo sobre su clase de unionism, aunque. Es la misma clase de idea que era la fundación del estado corporativo de Mussolini: fascismo.

Pero “Unionism nuevo,” no es justo un malo, viejo, idea. En la práctica, significa que la dirección de las uniones de profesor de los E.E.U.U. ha estado implicada, por décadas, con la agencia de inteligencia central (Cia), intentando destruir los movimientos de trabajadores todo sobre el mundo.

Las dos uniones de profesor principales de los E.E.U.U. son la federación americana de profesores (A POPA), y la asociación de la educación nacional (NEA). Los líderes de ambas uniones están implicados profundamente en esta actividad, pero pocos sus el propios fila que los miembros de un archivo conocen sobre ella.

¿Cómo este trabajo? NEA y A POPA (y la organización de paraguas de casi todas las uniones de los E.E.U.U., la federación americana del Trabajar-Congreso de organizaciones industriales; AFL-CIO) funcionan a través de grupos delanteros como la dotación nacional para la democracia (NED) y el instituto americano para el desarrollo de trabajo libre (AIFLD).

NED y AIFLD son financiados por el dinero secreto de la Cia, el departamento del estado de los E.E.U.U., y son apoyados por los fondos y el personal de uniones de los E.E.U.U., especialmente de NEA y A POPA. Casi una mitad de la renta de las deudas que el AFL-CIO recibe está pasado fuera de los E.E.U.U., conjuntamente con las campañas conducidas por la Cia.

Utilizan igual dividir-y-conquistan, recompensa-y-castigan, befriend-y-traicionan los métodos que cualquier élite pudo utilizar para mantener a gente línea.

Por ejemplo, identifican y reclutan a líderes locales, los traen a las sesiones del “entrenamiento” en los E.E.U.U., los sobornan, los amenazan, y les dan vuelta de nuevo a se utilicen destruir los movimientos que habrían podido conducir una vez.

Pagan a gente apagado, y amenazan otras. Fingen ser aliados, y trabajo detrás de las partes posterioras de los trabajadores para engañarnos.

Utilizan la fuerza. Han estado implicados en tentativas de los E.E.U.U. de derrocar gobiernos, y masacran desde uniforme antes de los días de Allende en Chile, hasta que las tentativas recientes de derrocar el gobierno de Venezuela. No juegan. Esta gente es asesinos.
¿Por qué ella hace esto? Los líderes de trabajo de los E.E.U.U. viven de las frutas del imperialismo de los E.E.U.U.. Los líderes del NEA y EN POPA, en la tapa, ganan casi $500.000 por año, cerca de diez veces el salario medio de los profesores de los E.E.U.U.. Están mucho. Además, crean la ilusión no solamente de la energía para sí mismos, pero consiguen fingirlos están siendo creativos y patriótico, cuando en el hecho todo están es egoísta y corrupto.

En un cierto plazo, como líderes de trabajo de los E.E.U.U. separe más y más de la tropa, sus vidas se convierten como los jefes en las industrias que representan, y desemejante de los trabajadores. Los jefes de la unión hacen compras y viven en diversos lugares, juegan golf con los jefes, cenan en los restaurantes de lujo, y, en el final del día, ensamblan literalmente el otro lado.

Estos mis-li’deres de trabajo saben que sus muchos privilegios están arraigados en la traición de, no solamente sus propios miembros, pero los trabajadores todo sobre el mundo. Sus rentas dependen en gran parte del éxito del imperialismo de los E.E.U.U., de la lucha de capitalistas en los E.E.U.U. para encontrar el trabajo barato, de las materias primas, mercados, y del control social, todo sobre el mundo. Ése es porqué casi cada unión importante de los E.E.U.U. mueve hacia atrás las guerras falladas del aceite en Iraq, Afganistán, y la región caspia. Las uniones de los E.E.U.U. apoyaron las guerras en Vietnam también.

Mucha gente de trabajo de los E.E.U.U., incluyendo profesores, apoya las uniones porque ella no sabe lo que están haciendo sus propias uniones, y porque ella encuentra duro creer que sus uniones darían vuelta alrededor y lo engañarían, solamente eso es qué está sucediendo. Muchos miembros de unión no agarran que las uniones son las suyas, y no el nuestros.

Eso no hace a miembros de unión de la tropa enteramente inocentes. Mientras que es duro que mucha gente aprenda qué va en fuera de los E.E.U.U., es fácil ver que las uniones de los E.E.U.U. son uniones segregadas. Eso es especialmente verdad de las uniones de profesor, que, tomadas juntas, son cerca de 90 por ciento de blanco.

Éstas son uniones del apartheid y, wittingly o no, trabajan sobre la misma base que los AFT-NEA funcionan internacionalmente, es decir, la idea que los trabajadores blancos (los profesores y otros trabajadores de la escuela) harán mejor, si los trabajadores de la escuela del color hacen peor. Si la entrada en el trabajo puede ser segregada, ese los medios menos gente competirán para el trabajo, y, dentro de esta teoría, la paga irá para arriba.

Realmente, éste es racismo justo, y como herramienta del dividir y de la regla, trabaja solamente para los patrones en un cierto plazo. Los profesores que se aíslan de cabritos y los padres (ahora personas del cerca de 50% de color), son mucho menos de gran alcance que profesores en un movimiento integrado. Pero los profesores de la tropa han permitido que sus líderes de la unión llenen encima de las restricciones que hacen duro para la gente del color sentir bien a profesores. Las uniones de profesores, se aíslan tan de hecho de la gente que necesitan la mayoría, de los cabritos de la clase obrera y de los padres.

La solidaridad es dominante a ganar las batallas de cualquier trabajador, y es dominante a la lucha que entra encendido en Oaxaca ahora. Es verdad que trabajando a gente todo sobre la necesidad del mundo de unir, a la acción directa de la toma para cambiar la manera todos vivimos, para la democracia y la igualdad. Pero no necesitamos unir con los que finjan ser nuestros amigos, pero quiénes nos traicionará.

Si un “líder de trabajo nacional” de los E.E.U.U. acerca a nuestros camaradas en Oaxaca, sería el mejor decirles ir a casa, sale de México, y fija el interior del racismo sus propias uniones.

Entonces, los cuadros de la toma de ellas y las pegan para arriba por todas partes, con el subtítulo: Judas.

Gibson rico para el foro del colorete (www.rougeforum.org)

Agosto de 2006

Casero | El escribir de Gibson | El escribir por otros | Ninguna sangre para el aceite | Foro Del Colorete

War in Iraq and Across the Middle East! American Civil Liberties Under Siege! An Urgent Call for Nationwide Teach-Ins, October 17, 18, 19, 2006

From Historians Against the War:

War in Iraq and Across the Middle East!
American Civil Liberties Under Siege!
An Urgent Call for Nationwide Teach-Ins, October 17, 18, 19, 2006

As the violence in Iraq and across the Middle East intensifies, with
the accompanying attack on civil liberties here at home, the need for
an informed public debate is vitally important. However, since the
initial invasion of Iraq, too many of our schools and campuses have
been silent.

In the absence of a draft, the fighting abroad and the changes in our
constitutional order can seem remote. However, as historians we are
acutely aware that the transformations now occurring have far-reaching
implications for our current lives and for future generations.

With mid-term elections scheduled for November, we have the
opportunity to focus campus attention on the vital issues of war and
peace. Why is the United States still occupying Iraq? How and when
can we withdraw? How does the Iraqi occupation relate to the current
crisis in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon? And what are the prospects
for a new war in Iran or Syria? How is the Bush Administration
expanding the powers of the Executive Branch? And what are the
domestic effects of its commitment to a prolonged ?war on terrorism??

Historians Against the War is urging our colleagues across the country
to organize or participate in National Teach-In Days, October 17-19.

If you can help arrange an event at your school on any one of these
three days, please email us at teachin@historiansagainstwar.org so
that we can begin compiling a listing and assisting with resources.
If your organization can endorse this call, please contact us. We
will post this call and additional information on our Teach-In page on
our HAW website. http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/teachin/

While the exact format and themes will reflect the particular needs of
your institution, Historians Against the War will be lining up
speakers, preparing a web-page with helpful ideas, and establishing
connections with national organizations (such as Military Families
Speak Out, Gold Star Parents, Iraq Veterans Against the War!).

The tragedies now unfolding in Iraq and across the Middle East
underscore our responsibility as educators and citizens to enhance
public knowledge, to stimulate thoughtful inquiry, and to end the
American occupation of Iraq. We hope that you can join this urgent
effort!

Retaliation Alleged for Teaching on Iraq War

As schools turn into test prep centers and teachers’ professional autonomy is severely restricted in the scamble for test-scores, there is mounting evidence that critical thinking and analysis of social/political issues in social studies (and other) classrooms is under attack. Last year there was the high profile media spectacle around Jay Bennish, who expressed views critical of George W. Bush in his social studies class.

In the past few days, we’ve seen teachers sanctioned for using object lessons to teach about free speech and for hanging flags of foreign countries in their classrooms. Now, here’s an alleged case of a principal persecuting a social studies teacher for including multiple points-of-view on the U.S.’s imperialistic adventures in Iraq.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Alberto Gutierrez, a 33-year-old social studies teacher at San Fernando High School, “who is known on campus as a passionate educator with a left-wing tilt, says in a suit filed this week that after he ‘offered objective discussion … regarding the United States’ involvement in the war in Iraq to his students,’ then-Principal Jose Luis Rodriguez began filling Gutierrez’s personnel file with negative reviews and surreptitiously encouraging parents to complain about him.”

Los Angeles Times
Retaliation Alleged for Teaching on Iraq War
By Jessica Garrison
Times Staff Writer

August 26, 2006

Among the students at San Fernando High School, a sun-baked campus in a poor, mostly Latino area on the northern fringe of the San Fernando Valley, the issue of military recruiting looms large.

The school sends hundreds more students to college than it does into the military, but still, according to senior Erika Preciado, “more recruiters are here for the military than for colleges.”

The 17-year-old is co-editor of the school newspaper, El Tigre. In her journalism class this week, almost all of the students said they had been contacted by a military recruiter, and several said recruiters had been guest speakers in their classes or had talked to them at school events, such as one where recruiters brought a chin-up bar onto campus.

Seven of the 28 students said they knew someone who had died in Iraq while serving in the U.S. military.

The issue concerns the school librarian, Kitty Kroger, so much that she banned recruiters from placing their literature in the library and has waged a campaign to “make kids fully aware of what it would mean to be in the military.”

Now the issue figures in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District by a San Fernando High teacher who says the principal retaliated against him because he urged students to think critically about the military and the war in Iraq.

Alberto Gutierrez, a 33-year-old social studies teacher who is known on campus as a passionate educator with a left-wing tilt, says in a suit filed this week that after he “offered objective discussion … regarding the United States’ involvement in the war in Iraq to his students,” then-Principal Jose Luis Rodriguez began filling Gutierrez’s personnel file with negative reviews and surreptitiously encouraging parents to complain about him.

The teacher says he received only glowing performance reviews until two years ago, after he began teaching about the war.

At the same time, according to the suit, Rodriguez didn’t object when another teacher required students to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, designed by the Department of Defense to measure aptitude for military service.

The suit contends that Rodriguez “strongly supports the United States’ involvement in the war and adamantly opposes any other opinions.”

Rodriguez, who has since been promoted to director of secondary services for one of Los Angeles Unified’s local district headquarters in the Valley, denied those claims. He said he limited military recruiters’ presence on campus to Wednesdays at lunch.

And he said his concerns about the teacher “weren’t specific to the war in Iraq.” Rather, he said, he spoke to Gutierrez because of complaints from parents that the teacher had required students to visit a cafe in Sylmar to watch movies including “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore’s 2004 antiwar film, and “Crash,” which won the Academy Award this year for best picture.

District policy requires that students have their parents’ permission to see such adult-oriented movies, Rodriguez said. He added that Gutierrez is a committed teacher and called it unfortunate that he had chosen to sue.

Gutierrez responded that he did not require students to visit Tia Chucha’s Cafe; he only offered them an extra-credit opportunity.

As for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Gutierrez said, he showed it to students in his classroom in response to unannounced and uninvited visits from military recruiters.

“I had military recruiters walk into my class two times in one week,” he said. After those visits, he said, he decided to show the movie, which includes scenes of recruiters — one of whom was later killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq — before allowing recruiters to address his class. He also said Rodriguez placed limits on the recruiters only after Gutierrez and other teachers exerted pressure.

Gutierrez, who grew up in North Hills, said he was once affiliated with a gang but has dedicated himself to improving conditions in his community and at San Fernando High.

“As a teacher, my goal is to bring awareness and make the connection between the textbook and the real world,” he said.

Military recruiters’ visits to high schools have led to disputes around the country in the last few years, with some teachers and parents complaining that they use overly aggressive tactics and target schools with low-income and minority students.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act allows the Pentagon to gather the home addresses and telephone numbers of public school students.

An opt-out clause lets parents sign a form preventing information about their child from being released.

In addition, the law says any school that allows college recruiters must also allow military recruiters if it wants to keep its federal funding.

At San Fernando High, Kroger, the librarian and sponsor of the now-defunct Peace Club, said she was taken aback when some of her students talked of joining the military and bombing Middle Eastern countries.

“I think we should have separation of the school and the military,” she said. “It’s become much too enmeshed in the school.”

But Kroger said she blames the federal law that allows recruiters on campus — not the former principal.

“I personally haven’t seen any crackdown on dissent,” she said.

Flag flap teacher remains suspended, will move to another school

This story still blows my mind. One would think that other teachers as well as parents would be outraged at the inanity of a a teacher being suspended for having flags of different countries in her or his classroom.

This instance illustrates not only the severe lack of commonsense amongst some school folks, but more importantly, it points up the lack of academic freedom for K-12 teachers.

View the video story from 9news.com here and note that at least one other metro Denver school has a huge display of foreign flags. Makes one wonder about the Jefferson County Public Schools’ claim that the Hamlin case is merely about “insubordination.”

Eric Hamlin was suspended after refusing to take down three foreign flags.
Flag flap teacher will move
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
August 26, 2006

Carmody Middle School geography teacher Eric Hamlin will be reassigned to another school, at his request, following a dispute over foreign flags in his classroom, Jefferson County school officials said Friday.

Hamlin has decided that his presence at Carmody would be divisive, the district said.

Hamlin, who taught seventh grade at the Lakewood school, was suspended with pay Wednesday after he refused to take down three foreign flags that he had hung in his room. The principal believed that Hamlin was in violation of a Colorado law barring the display of foreign flags in state buildings.

School district officials concluded that Hamlin’s display fell under an educational exception to the state foreign flag law. But Hamlin had hinted Thursday that he might not feel welcome at Carmody because some workers there resented the media attention he brought to the school.

Hamlin had been with the district for nine years, but was on his first day of a new assignment at Carmody when the flag issue arose. Hamlin could not be reached for comment Friday.

A statement by the district quoted him as saying, “I want to do what’s in the best interest of the Carmody family which includes the students and my fellow teachers. It is my hope that Carmody will move forward towards a successful school year, and put this incident behind them.”

The district will seek another assignment for Hamlin. Meanwhile, he remains on paid leave.

Jefferson County school district spokeswoman Lynn Setzer said a new assignment for Hamlin could open within a few days as administrators determine where more teachers are needed for the new semester.

The flap started when Carmody Principal John Schalk determined that Hamlin was violating the law. Schalk is not being reprimanded, Setzer said.

Church Fires Teacher for Being Female

Okay, what’s up with the news today. I had to check and see if the rapture had happened or if it was Friday the 13th, but there seems to be more IRRATIONALITY in the news today than I have seen in a long time.

The Associated Press has reported that a Watertown, NY Baptist church has fired a Sunday School teacher for being a woman.

The minister of a church dismissed Mary Lambert after she had taught Sunday School for over 50 years! Seems Rev. Timothy LaBouf’s church as decided that the Bible says women cannot teach men and should stay the hell out of church affairs.

LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city’s day-to-day operations is a woman.

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city’s day-to-day operations is a woman.

“I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to” outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert’s dismissal.

“If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age,” Graham said. “Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now.”

Lambert has publicly criticized the decision, but the church did not publicly address the matter until Saturday, a day after its board met.

In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert’s dismissal, but it did not say what they were.