E Wayne Ross – Page 89 – Critical Theories in Education

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

The NEA (largest union in the USA, by far) Representative Assembly opens in the coming week in Philadelphia. More than 10,000 school workers will witness, if not really participate in, what NEA calls the “largest truly democratic body in the USA.”

But not much will happen at this RA, unless delegates take direct action. Rather than presenting a critique of the many crises in North American education (rising segregation, inequality, imperialist wars and the militarization of campuses, the routine racist criminalization of children in urban schools, use of regimented curricula and high-stakes exams as pipelines to war and voluntary servitude, schools as missions for capitalism) NEA’s mis-leaders are going to parade a series of Democratic presidential candidates, each as dedicated as the next to the empire’s wars and exploitation–each determined to retain and expand the essence of the NCLB.

Rather than a powerful plan of direct action uniting students, educators, parents, and community people, action that could demonstrate the central role of school in de-industrialized USA, action that could be sustained no matter what politician betrays working people next, NEA’s leaders will urge school workers to solve our problems at the ballot box, where we will choose who will oppress us least in the next decade.

This makes no sense unless we grasp that the leadership of every major union in the US seeks to fuse unionism with the interests of corporations and the national government, at every level a government clearly just a weapon of the rich. The union leaders do this for a simple reason: they live well off their quisling role, pay at the top of NEA being around $450,000 with plenty of benefits. They can live this well, they know, because they exchange support for the empire’s wars, for example, and support for the persistent degradation of workers’ lives, for the imperial bribe. Every top union leader in the country denies the reason people form unions in the first place: workers and bosses have contradictory interests. And the union bosses get rich off the idea.

A prime example of corrupt teacher union leadership was Florida NEA’s Pat Tornillo, once a darling of the AFT and the Miami teachers’ union. Not only was Tornillo one of the godfathers of “new unionism,” (the unity of union bosses, government leaders, and corporate big-wigs) he was completely corrupt, stealing more than 2.5 million dollars from the education union, living an obviously lavish life that was tolerated for decades by NEA and AFT despite repeated offers of proof of corruption from members and union organizers going back as far as the early 1980’s. AFT has a pattern of corruption that exceeds most unions.

Tornillo, while he was looting a union made up of many members who are so poor they live in house trailers, helped lead the scheme to merge NEA and AFT, not to build educator solidarity, but to fill the AFL-CIO coffers, to feather the beds of labor bosses with teacher dues, and to wipe out what remained of union democracy in NEA. When that failed, Tornillo led the merger of the Florida NEA and AFT. Now the Miami Dade local is mired in debt.

Much earlier, in 1968, Tornillo also managed to take the lead in breaking the largest state wide teachers strike in US history, sending Dade teachers back to work.

Tornillo died on June 24 just after the vile crook got out of jail. No flowers.

NEA will entertain RA delegates with plenty of parties (sponsored by anti-union Target Corp), opportunities to hook up, nice per diems and often some free luggage, but NEA’s anointed leaders will do all they can to prevent the kind of strategic planning that education workers must do if we are to preserve our integrity, our students very lives, and our own livelihoods.

Rouge Forum members will join organizers from other groups at NEA, seeking to build a movement inside and outside NEA. Look for us and sign on. If you see a group storming the podium, help them out; let them speak!

Rouge Forum members played a numerically modest, if leadership, role in the United For Peace and Justice conference in Chicago this past weekend. Here are two sides of the flyers we distributed, urging a serious strategy for peace and justice work.
“Why Are Things As they Are? It’s Class Rule”
http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/ClassRule.pdf
http://www.rohan.sdsu.edu/%7Ergibson/gotwar.pdf

Congratulations and solidarity to the radical leaders of the South African teachers’ unions who helped expose the policies of the Mandella-led African National Congress (Mandella is to the ANC what Tornillo was to AFT) by leading massive nation-wide strikes against the privatizing regime. Hundreds of thousands of South African workers shut down work places for 24 days.

Southern California grocery workers may strike again, as early as this week. Three years ago, the grocery workers carried out the longest and largest strike in the US in the last decade, only to see the strike systematically disorganized and sold out by the leadership of the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters. Here is a link to the history of that strike.

Rouge Forum members will be joining the picket lines, taking students to participate, and promoting a boycott of Vons, Ralphs, Albertsons, and related company Safeway–and we’ll bring strike literature to the picketers. An injury to one only goes before an injury to all.

We note the recent Supreme Court decisions demonstrate, again, that legal action, like electoral work, is a cul de sac, especially now, as the Supreme Court eradicates what little remains of civil liberties. The current demographics of the Court are especially worth examining.

On Monday, the Supremes voted to silence free speech for students, and to expand the sale of free speech to corporations, a clear indicator of the role of property rights in US jurisprudence.

Here is a current Harpers piece on the purchase of politicians:

For those with long memories, the trial of the Grenada 17 (now 13 as 4 have been released either for time served or humanitarian health reasons) is going on in Grenada now. The seventeen, the last prisoners of the cold war, were jailed and tortured after the illegal invasion of the island in 1983. Since then the political prisoners have turned their 17th century jail into one of the best schools on the island, often producing top scores on British exit exams—to the embarrassment of the US installed puppet government. The 17 made many errors as leaders of the New Jewel Movement, but they did not commit the murders their kangaroo court (judged bribed by the US, as documents released later revealed) convicted them of. We shall see if the retrial, ordered by the British high court, finally brings them relief.

Thanks to Judy P, Gil, Adam, Eric, John Dewitt, Kelly, Amber, Josh and Melissa (congratulations on the birth of Evelyn Skye), Sally, Beau, Sandy H., Laura C, Dave S, Sharon A, Connie and Doug, Tommie and Val, George, Big Al (just married), Beau, Rick J, Lynn G, Carol J, and Bill and Henry, Greg and Katie.

All the best,

Call me Wayne. Please

Kenneth Wayne Riley has articulated well the bane (or at least an irritant) of my existence—even though it comes after my first name, my second name is still a name. Wayne.

I’m sure this is problem for all the folks who happen to go by their middle name, but it seems particularly problematic when, as an ex-pat, every form I sign requires me to list my name exactly as is appears on my passport. So it’s “Welcome Eddie” when I sign on to expedia.ca to buy airline tickets, “Hello Eddie” at the bank, etc.

Thanks to (Kenneth) Wayne Riley for sharing my pain (and articulating it so well).

The Globe and Mail
Facts & Arguments: THE ESSAY

Call me Wayne. Please
Even though it comes after my first name, my second name is still a name. Wayne. It means wagon maker

WAYNE RILEY

June 18, 2007

When I was a kid, Clint Eastwood was the Man with No Name. You would think that would be a problem, having no name, but in the Italian wild west nobody really seemed to be too hung up about it.

I am the Man With the Middle Name. I’m beginning to believe that is worse than having no name at all. It’s not that I have no identity. I just usually have the wrong identity.

My name is Kenneth Wayne Riley. I go by Wayne. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem. Even though it comes after my first name, my second name is still a name. Wayne. It means wagon maker. I looked it up.

But on certificates, notices that I’ve won a million dollars, unsolicited return-address stickers and almost anything else that has a name on it, I’m Kenneth Riley.
Print Edition – Section Front

Section L Front Enlarge Image
The Globe and Mail

In today’s world, everyone is on a first-name basis.

Over time, I’ve learned to adapt. I’ve trained myself to stand up in waiting rooms when someone calls for Kenneth.

I give money to charities asking for Kenneth’s help.

I sign for Kenneth’s parcels.

As you can see, I live under an assumed name.

Not that I’ve given up.

When I fill out a form, and they ask for my first and middle name, I always underline Wayne, sometimes twice. It never seems to help. Usually, the people who devise these forms don’t even want to know my middle name. In the line of little boxes across the top, they will ask for my first and last name and my middle initial.

I always draw a line out from the box for my middle initial and spell out Wayne. That doesn’t help either. Computers do not like people thinking outside the box.

I asked my mom once why, if she liked Wayne more than Kenneth, she didn’t simply name me Wayne Kenneth Riley.

“I just thought Kenneth Wayne sounded better,” she said.

It was much simpler as a kid. There were no computer forms to fill out, no mailing lists to be on, no telemarketers calling me at home. People either knew my name or asked me what my name was.

Sure, there were some other names along the way, like Stretch and Wiener and … well, just go to the thesaurus and look up other words for skinny. But Kenneth stayed nicely tucked in the background.

I don’t even remember exactly when Kenneth Riley came to life. It was around the time I started getting identification and credit cards. One day I looked in my wallet and realized that it belonged to a spy who didn’t like to stray too far in the alias department. There were cards for K. Wayne Riley, Kenneth W. Riley, Kenneth Riley and Wayne Riley.

And what’s with the Kenneth anyway? It’s awfully formal. If you are going to write to tell me that I’ve won an instant prize of a million dollars in a contest I didn’t even know about, hey, call me Ken.

Of course, being a little unique has its fun side, too.

I love it when my insurance agent, who has looked at my computer file while I’m in the waiting room, comes out with great familiarity, pumps my hand, and says, “Great to see you again, Kenneth.”

And this is after I’ve corrected him the past 12 years.

But one recent incident left me feeling like I had a split personality.

I have medical coverage that allows me to get a chunk of my medical expenses back when I submit a claim.

In this particular instance, when I opened what I thought would be a cheque from the insurance company, it turned out to be a note saying that my claim had been turned down.

I phoned to find out why. I gave the person at the other end of the line my coverage number and he reviewed my computer file.

“Wayne Riley doesn’t have a plan with us,” he said.

“But I’m Wayne Riley,” I said.

“The file name for this plan is Kenneth Riley,” he said.

“I’m Kenneth Riley,” I said, and quickly added, afraid that this was going to become an Abbott and Costello routine, “and Wayne Riley, too. Kenneth Wayne Riley.”

I eventually got the cheque but I know that guy on the other end of the line thought I was trying to pull a fast one.

I was talking about this stuff to a friend of mine one day and she laughed at me.

“You want me to have sympathy for you? I have five names and I go by my third. Talk to me about identity crisis.”

Another friend asked me the obvious question.

“Why prolong the headache?” he asked. Why don’t you just fill out the form as Wayne Kenneth Riley or Wayne K. Riley.

I shrugged.

“I just think it sounds better the other way.”

Wayne Riley lives in York, PEI. So does Kenneth Riley

R.I.P. Punk Planet

Yesterday the publisher of Punk Planet, a fiercely independent source of information on music, culture, and politics, announced that is it closing it’s doors.

Ironically, I had just read the latest issue and made a note about blogging on two education related articles in the current issue (PP79), looks like PP80 will the last issue after 13 years of publishing.

Independent magazines always have a rough go of it, but bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers seem to have done PP in.

While not mentioned in the PP announcement, the new USPS regulations on periodicals, which were basically written by Time Warner, are having a dramatic impact on independent magazines. In its service to media conglomerates the USPS has essentially attacked threaten the dissemination of information and thus democracy.

Oh well, but PP79 is still on the newstands, check out the articles on the new SDS and on the No Child Left Behind Act.

New York City decides to pay students cash for test scores

Rather than investing money in improving the learning and teaching conditions in schools or addressing the systemic economic and social inequalities that are the root of the so-called “achievement gap” in schools, The New York Times reports today that the NYC school chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have decided to move forward with a pay for test score scheme in New York City Public Schools that could pay out as much as $500 a year to individual students.

The announcement came on the same day the University of California, Berkeley released a study finding that high school grades are the best predictors of academic success in college. The study by Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Santelices notes that “high-school grades provide a fairer, more equitable, and ultimately more meaningful basis for admissions decision-making” than standardized tests like the SAT.

Geiser and Santelices found that:

HSGPA is consistently the strongest predictor of four-year college outcomes for all academic disciplines, campuses and freshman cohorts in the UC sample;
surprisingly, the predictive weight associated with HSGPA increases after the freshman year, accounting for a greater proportion of variance in cumulative fourth-year than first-year college grades; and
as an admissions criterion, HSGPA has less adverse impact than standardized tests on disadvantaged and underrepresented minority students.

The NYC plan is based on the work of Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer, who has been meeting with NYC school officials pushing the program. Fryer has turned is research into a new job as the NYC Department of Education’s “chief equality officer,” a member of the chancellor’s senior staff.

The pay for test scores scheme is part of a larger antipoverty incentive program that Bloomberg has instituted, which also includes other cash payments, all raised privately ($53 million), to influence behavior and reduce poverty. Those in the pilot plan can earn up to $5,000 a year by meeting criteria related to health, education, and work, including: $150 a month for keeping a full-time job; $50 a month for having health insurance. Families will also receive as much as $50 per month per child for high attendance rates in school, as well as $25 for attending parent-teacher conferences.

See Sandra Mathison’s “Bribes for Tests” for a critique of the pay for test score strategy and Alfie Kohn‘s Punished By Rewards on why carrot and stick approaches in education are wrong-headed.

What ain’t to be, just might happen…

Remember watching Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton duets on The Porter Wagoner Show? I sure do and I tell you I’ve always wanted one of those Nudie suits.

Wagoner, now 80 years young, is known for his maudlin (and sometimes bizarre) country songs, has a new Marty Stuart-produced disc on ANTI- records and it might be considered one of those “what ain’t to be, just might happen” deals.

But, The Wagonmaster is back and following in the footsteps of country greats like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard with the release of a late-career album that is creating a serious buzz (if not among country-radio folks).

In what might be considered a sequel to Wagoner’s song “Rubber Room” he covers the Johnny Cash tune “Committed to Parkview.”

Check out the video:

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

Apologies for the interruption in RF updates. Illness intervened.

We have some outstanding material for those with energy during what, for many, is the last week of school. Congratulations to all who persevered!

We are especially happy to report that all the Rouge Forum educators are back from Oaxaca, where they participated in massive demonstrations in the last few weeks. We are pleased that all are safe and sound and look forward to a detailed report soon.

Here is a podcast with Alfie Kohn, an interview with Michael Baker.

The AFT is backing merit pay, a bosses’ dream, around the US, and it may be that NEA is not too far behind We are all witnessing employers attaching school worker pay and benefits to test scores.

And, given the bread and butter unionism of both AFT and NEA, it is not too surprising that there has been no formal outcry, other than from the Rouge Forum, about school policies which attack kids who cannot always afford the school lunch.

Importantly, here is a request from our colleague Doug Selwyn (doug.selwyn@plattsburgh.edu), seeking information on an action-research project:

These are some of the challenging questions Doug poses to all of us:

What does it mean to be well educated?
What do you need to know and be able to do to be successful (whatever that means)?
How are you served by your education?
What do you do that helps you to be successful right now?
What are the characteristics of an educated person?

Rouge Forum members will be leafletting and participating in the upcoming United for Peace and Justice conference in Chicago later this month, noting that UFPJ has no strategy, no analysis of why things are as they are, and therefore winds up with a series of disjointed tactics that, unless altered, will never challenge the class tyranny that typifies every governmental relationship in the world now. UFPj appears to fear naming the world social system, capitalism, and absent that grasp, can only lead people into participating in deepening their own oppression, but confusing that participation with resistance.

At issue is to build a mass base of class conscious people willing to take real responsibility for their own histories and to make sacrifices in order to transcend the system of capital, and reach toward a world where all can care for all, where freedom and creativity can be unleashed by forces of equality and reason.

We will also be at NCSS, the first weekend of December. We will be sponsoring a booth, a pre-conference clinic (a tour of the borders of San Diego), and several workshops. And a party to boot!! Be there or be square.

We expect the next Rouge Forum Conference will be in Louisville, KY, in March, next year.

The struggle in Palestine sharpens every day, as does Iraq and Afghanistan. Robert Fisk who is often featured on our www.rougeforum.org site has a fine short article in the Independent.

Last, remember the Rouge Forum discussion list is open for debate. Email: Rouge-Forum-Discussion@googlegroups.com

Thanks to Judy P (very much), Carolyn, Monty, Donna, Sean A., Wayne, Sheila S., Tommie and Bob, Kelly, Doug and Connie, Betty and Don, Carol J., Phil C and Tom T, Sgt. Carrie, and Dirty Edd.

All the best,