What hath grade 8 English wrought?

My Dad

By C. R.

My dad is more gansta than your dad
He’s so gansta that his best friend is 50 Cent
and he wears his pants below his waist
He wears a do-rag that says “SUP FOO?”
He is soooo gansta that when he writes
he makes his S’s like this: $
My dad’s chain hangs lo’ and it wobbles
to tha flo
My dad is better than yoooouuu

Resisting the University (Conference at UBC March 3-7, 2008)

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SDS – UBC is hosting a Week of Resistance! We’ll be discussing the privatization and commodification of education with an anti-military, anti-gentrification and direct-action bent! Join us if you’re a student activist, a wanna-be student activist or simply intrigued by student activism and open to learn more about it! This conference is open to everyone as the issues explored are consequential for society at large.

email sds.ubc@gmail.com to get involved.

bookface group: http://ubc.facebook.com/event.php?eid=20667840135&ref=nf

SCHEDULEOF EVENTS:
MONDAY:
12-2 p.m. — Opening Ceremony:
Keynote: DAVID NOBLE – “From Whining to Winning: Winning the Battle with the University—Dummy Corporations and all!”
David Noble is one of Canada’s most famous professor-activists. He’s currently a history professor at York University. He’s flying all the way out here to share his experiences fighting the Corporate University – and winning!

5-7 p.m. — “Military-free UBC” panel
SDS Tacoma, UVIC anti-military recruiters and more discussing anti-military strategies on campus and what you can do about it!

TUESDAY:
12-2 p.m. — “Labour and Corporatization of Campus” panel
The issue of rising sessesional instructors, the connection between labor and race and the CocaCola bastards on campus will be addressed all in one sitting!
Presenters: Petra Ganzenmueller (sessional instructor—CAUT); Larry Ngoma (CUPE and issues of racism); Stefanie Ratjen, AMS VP external elect (tuition fee increases); Steven Klein, SDS (history of Coca-cola contracts on campus).

More to Come!

WEDNESDAY:
12-2 p.m. — “Unschooling Oppression” panel
Alternative models of education will be explored!
Presenters: Representatives from colour school, Indigenous free school, Windsor House, Bruce Baum.

5-7 p.m. –“Deconstructing ‘Progress’: Housing, Gentrification and Olympic Resistance” panel
No to the gentrification of the University/City!
Presenters: Gord Hill (No 2010 coalition), professor Chris Shaw (2010 Watch), Margaret Orlowski (Students for a Democratic Society), and Tom Malenfant (Anti-Poverty Committee)

THURSDAY:
12-2 p.m. – “Demystifying the Power Structure at UBC” panel + Lunch
Ever wondered what the fuck the AMS, BoG, Student Council, Resource Groups, GSS, AUS, and billions of other acronyms stand for? This is a student-directed workshop aimed at unmasking the power structure at UBC! Shit you actually need to know if you are a UBC student.
Lunch Will be Served!

5-7 p.m. — “History of Activism at the University” panel
Come listen to UBC and SFU activists from the APEC period and before! Let’s integrate the older narratives with the new ones and make the interconnections. Awesome workshop for any current or wanna-be activist!

FRIDAY:
12-2 p.m. March in solidarity for International Women’s day!

3-5 p.m. — Closing Keynote: DENIS RANCOURT – “Anarchism in Academia Now!”
Radical professors are needed to indoctrinate progressive students. Anarchist professors are needed to make sanity. If they’re not trying to stop you, then you’re not making a difference.
Denis G. Rancourt is a physics professor, environmental researcher, activist, and anarchist teaching at the University of Toronto.
http://www.science.uottawa.ca/~dgr/

7-11pm — RHIZOME CAFé (317 East Broadway)
Fundraiser, celebration of student art, music and resistance; entrance by donation

Full list of panel speakers and more activities on the way!

Poverty Olympics prosper on $6 budget

From NowPublic.com: Poverty Olympics prosper on $6 budget

The Poverty Olympics, a satirical event meant to bring awareness to Vancouver’s poverty issues, took place Sunday afternoon in front of Carnegie Theatre on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

While the 2010 Winter Olympics has a budget of about $6-billion, the poverty-focussed counterpart cost six bucks, according to organizers. Mascots were a giant rat and cockroach.

What makes a good teacher?

The BBC article published this past Saturday, “What makes a good teacher?”, says “sometimes the simplest questions in life are the hardest to answer.”

That’s true.

And one of the huge problems with mainstream discourse on educational reform is that it asks simplistic questions and offers simplistic solutions.

The testing craze in the USA and Canada illustrates the point. In BC, the Fraser Institute, a neoliberal think tank, and it’s allies at the Vancouver Sun promote the notion that schools can be ranked, good to bad, using standardized test scores. A practice that follows the lead of the NCLB induced test mania in the USA, where teachers in New York City are being judged based on their students’ test scores and Exxon-Mobil is now sponsoring a program in seven states that amounts to bribes for test scores. Other examples of the test score madness include:

•Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso last week promised to spend more than $935,000 to give high school students as much as $110 each to improve their scores on state graduation exams.

•In New York City, about 9,000 fourth- and seventh-graders in 60 schools are eligible to win as much as $500 for improving their scores on the city’s English and math tests, given throughout the school year.

•In suburban Atlanta, a pair of schools last week kicked off a program that will pay 8th- and 11th-grade students $8 an hour for a 15-week “Learn & Earn” after-school study program (the federal minimum wage is currently $5.85).

Test-driven educational reform is based upon psychometric malpractice, inhibits learning and deskills teachers.

What’s really interesting in the BBC article is the question of whether after years of deskilling (and an “apprenticeship of observation” in schools where they are little more than conduits for others’ ideas) if teachers are in the position to act like professionals and take control of their practice:

The new curriculum for 11-14 year olds, due to start in September, puts much greater emphasis on teacher innovation and local adaptability to pupils’ needs.

The big question now is whether – after 20 years of being told exactly what and how to teach – there are enough teachers ready to be “creatively subversive”?

Also, after years of being told in precise detail how to teach, will teachers feel ready both to devise their own way of teaching and engaging students and also constantly to evaluate and adapt their own teaching methods.

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil page is updated.

Of particular interest is the most recent piece from one of the few reporters in the Middle East who has a grasp of the “why” of these wars, Robert Fisk: http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/153837

Tonight (Sunday) on CNN, at 10 p.m. ET, the network promises a piece on Chicago’s school closings and the firing of teachers based on student test scores. Chicago teachers’ union president Marilyn Stewart is to be featured in the segment. The best way to begin to uncover the truth behind the CTU-AFT’s support for NCLB, and the disastrous results for not only its members, but kids and communities too, is to read Substance News now on the web at http://www.substancenews.net/

The wreckage of the United Autoworkers Union and the subsequent sellout of UAW members’ health benefits will reverberate on every person in the US who must work to live—especially school workers who are among the last people in the country who have fairly good health benefits. The UAW’s boss Ron Gettelfinger will be at the Detroit Athletic Club luncheon speaking to auto exec’s next Thursday, January 31 at noon. Rank and filers who are unlikely to ever be allowed to see the inside of the place might want to greet him. And here is some background on what happened to the once-mighty UAW http://clogic.eserver.org/2006/gibson.html

In California, education activists will meet on February 2 in Fresno to plan a spring opt-out of high stakes exams campaign. Time and place to follow next week. Here is one of many pieces on the NCLB demonstrating the schools to war pipeline from Rouge Forum activists
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/High-StakesGibsonRossCounterpunch.htm

Lots of friends of the Rouge Forum will be meeting and presenting at the Chavez conference in Fresno, March 28 and 29. Here is a link:
http://education.csufresno.edu/CesarChavez2_08.htm

And book Louisville, March 13 to 16, for the Rouge Forum conference, “Reform or Revolution?” with details updated at this link:
http://www.rougeforumconference.org

Thanks to Sean, Adam, Amber, Wayne, Gil, Penny, Jim, Perry, Marc, Susan, Ginger, Thatcher, Eric, Steve, Bob S., Rick, Theresa, Kelly, Sharon A, Kerin, Victoria, Bob, Dr K, Dave, Cal, and Carol.

All the best,

r

Paying cash for “results” in BC schools

Last week the Vancouver Sun reported that British Columbia experiment with incentive pay for school officials based for meeting goals beyond expectations.

The British Columbia Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA)—the bargaining agent for all 60 public schools boards in BC—announced that it will be offering a thousands of dollars in annual bonuses to superintendents and secretary-treasurers who are recommended by their boards of education for setting and meeting goals beyond expectations.

The BCSEA plan states that objectives and performance measures must align with the strategic plans of school boards and consider:

o Finances — Measures contribution toward achieving defined financial management goals.
o Processes — Measures contribution toward increased efficiency and effectiveness.
o People — Measures initiatives which have the potential to improve
performance levels for both employees and students.
o Clients — Measures contribution

Incentive pay tried for school officials
Bonus system aims to make K-12 education more successful and efficient

Janet Steffenhagen
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The province is experimenting with incentive pay for public school officials as a way of making K-12 education more successful and efficient.

Since the concept is new in this sector, the British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association says it will start small, offering a few thousand dollars in annual bonuses to superintendents and secretary-treasurers who are recommended by their boards of education for setting and meeting goals beyond expectations.

The association plans to send guidelines to B.C.’s 60 school boards in coming days describing what sort of accomplishments are worthy of incentive pay. Some boards have indicated they are keen to participate this year, although most are not expected to become involved until the 2008-09 school year.

“This is something very new. It’s not something that you’ve ever seen in public education,” Hugh Finlayson, the association’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

“It’s something that has worked in the private sector certainly, it’s worked in other elements of the public sector. Now we [want] to test it here.”

That test will begin with the two top positions but could expand in future to other non-union employees, including school principals.

The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation slammed the idea of merit pay last year after the Liberals made vague promises of financial incentives for teachers to reward improvements in student achievement.

The plan to offer incentive pay to superintendents and secretary-treasurers was hatched during recent negotiations to increase their overall compensation package for the first time since 2000.

That resulted in a 14-per-cent increase in the superintendents’ categories and a 12-per-cent increase for secretary-treasurers last year.

Salaries are calculated according to the number of students in their districts. Superintendents’ pay now ranges from $106,607 a year in small districts to $187,139 in large districts, while secretary-treasurers’ salary range is $94,468 to $159,646.

Although the ranges had not been adjusted for seven years, employees who weren’t at the maximum level were still able to negotiate pay raises.

In the Lower Mainland, salaries are frozen for about half the superintendents and secretary-treasurers because their pay exceeds the legislated caps.

Finlayson said incentive pay is not intended for employees who meet ordinary expectations, such as a secretary-treasurer who balances his budget. Nor is it intended to reward those at the helm when a district experiences an unexplained bump in student achievement.

Rather, the bonus will be for superintendents who identify an issue in need of attention (such as literacy or graduation rates), develop a plan in consultation with the community and co-workers, implement the plan and achieve measurable results.

For secretary-treasurers, it might mean finding new and innovative ways of building and maintaining schools or transporting students, he said.

The new chairmen of the two largest school boards — Surrey and Vancouver — said they are personally enthusiastic about the plan, although it hasn’t yet been endorsed by their boards.

Vancouver chairman Clarence Hansen said many superintendents would already qualify for incentive pay and they would set an example for those who aren’t performing as well.

Surrey chairman Reni Masi said he likes the idea but wants to know how performance will be measured fairly and whether bonuses will be paid by government or come out of a board’s annual spending allotment.

The association confirmed it will be the latter.

Sun education reporter

jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com

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