Accountability or Inquisition? Chilling Video.

[teacher gal]

Yes, this is for real. The video below does something corporate media on both the right and the left simply will not do. It plunges beneath ed reform rhetoric to reveal its cold depravity. So cold. The reduction of children and their teachers, human beings, to data points for the global economy. As with NCLB, teachers who resist are labeled defenders of the status quo. Afraid of accountability. But in education, the control of people through fear and intimidation has become the real status quo. Punishment.

Are there some poor teachers? Of course. But ed reform, hijacked by power and wealth, takes a grain of truth and destroys a country with it. It is a cliche to say it but children are our future. They are our future leaders.

Bill Gates is putting hundreds of millions (pocket change for him) into video "evaluations" of teachers and is playing an enormous role in advancing the corporate agenda for our schools. Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpmQZ5MXs8c

[dsc]

1. great video

I didn't watch it all but what I did watch was all to funny and true.

[teacher gal]

2. Thank you dsc n/t

[Starry Messenger]

3. k&r

I'll watch it tonight. My partner is using bandwidth watching something else right now. I don't want to lose track of this link, so here's a placekeeper post. :)

[teacher gal]

5. Yeah, don't miss it!

It's funny as well as chilling.

[Laelth]

4. k&r for teachers. n/t

-Laelth

[xynthee]

6. K & R to counteract the sizeable anti-teacher contingent on DU n/t

[teacher gal]

7. Thank you.

Are you a teacher?

[txlibdem]

25. Hear, hear! - blame the teacher is the easy way out, the system is failing our kids

Not the teachers! The vast majority of teachers are dedicated, professional and highly skilled and it sickens me to see so many people on DU and in government trying get away with the easy way out: blame the teachers! That is the idiots road, the path to an easy victory and an easy checkmark for some idiot politician to use to get re-elected.

There are serious, foundational problems with our educational system in America. If anyone doubts that they haven't been paying attention or they are being disingenuous. But these problems were not created, nor perpetuated by teachers!

[teacher gal]

29. Wow, thanks! n/t

[bluestateguy]

8. First, it's time for us to crack down on deadbeat irresponsible parents

Sure, blame it all on the teachers that your kid is a dummy, who is fat and out of shape, hyperactive and anti-social.

Meanwhile, you parents pump out multiple kids that you cannot afford to raise, you don't enforce any discipline in the home, or help your kids with their homework (or at least make them do it at all), or read to your child, or make them understand the value of education in life. Deadbeat fathers who walk out on their families. No, it must be all the teacher's fault.

Morons.

[MichiganVote]

9. +1

[OhioBlue]

15. ya see.... that is the narrative that I have a problem with

While I agree with your position - that the education and development of a child is dependent in a large part on the parents... That issue needs to be addressed with public education, marketing, PSAs, etc. There is just not a feasible way to hold the parents accountable for test scores. Not all parents have the same education levels, IQs, employment situations, life experiences etc. for this to be realistic. And, we have to accept as a society that we will always have members and parents at different levels of the spectrum as far as child rearing and emphasis on education. It is just a given.

However, as a society, we do create and fund public schools of which teachers are employed. There is a mechanism to hold them accountable. I support teachers and teachers' unions. However, I don't support the position that it is "all the parents fault". As a society we have to accept that some parents are better than others in this regard and still look at the places in which we do have societal control over a child's progress.

[teacher gal]

16. Hello OhioBlue

Neither do I support the position that it is "all the parents fault". It isn't. You're right, the factors are many. Many parents are doing the very best they can under extemely harsh circumstances. Many people are in far more difficult circumstances than teachers. Yes, there are some totally irresponsible parents but that is just ONE factor among many.

I see ed reform working like disaster capitalism. It undermines strong education in almost every conceivable way, including pitting parent against teacher, teacher against parent, charter schools against public schools, public schools against charter schools, all the while giving only the superficial appearance of educating people (test scores).

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. I agree we can't put this all off on parents

But I am sick to death of parents who can't manage to get out of bed and get their kids to school and parents who don't even bother to make sure kids have homework and parents who can't find the time to have even a phone conference with a teacher.

Most parents are very supportive and want their kids to do well in school. But the few who appear to be incapable of being responsible parents can really do a lot of damage. Their kids are being held accountable when we should be penalizing the parents. No I don't have any ideas, just tired of the problem.

[madmax]

10. k & r

[teacher gal]

11. Note to Teachers-hope this doesn't offend you

Please note toward the end of the video the complicity of the teachers' unions in this. They have been wimps. We need lions. There is a time to compromise and there is a time to say no.

Randi Weingarten is even occasionally praised in the media for "compromising" with the corporates. She seems to speak out of both sides of her mouth.

Accepting dangerous concessions that are harmful to children and ultimately our entire country, for a seat at the table with the far more powerful Billionaires Boys' Club. No one in the media will help us except maybe Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post. God bless her.

If you give the corporates an inch, they will take a thousand miles. Look what has been done to testing. Everything has been corrupted.

The tests have become the curriculum. It will only get worse.

When a grassroots group formed in 2006 to seek the dismantling of NCLB, a law which should never have been passed in the first place, not only did the NEA's Reg Weaver not support us, he sent letters to state affiliates, directing them not to support the petition. Now look where we are today. NCLB continuess to wreak havoc in our schools and its very worst aspects are being intensified through Race to the Top bribery.

When a propaganda film like Waiting for Superman comes out, what are they doing to expose its lies and distortions? What are they doing with the dues teachers pay them?

The unions have been very successfully demonized and I know teachers need them. It is easy for me to criticize them and they are probably stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wasn't a union teacher. Maybe they are doing more than I am aware of.

[teacher gal]

33. Would like to get some discussion

on the topic of the teachers' unions.

[teacher gal]

12. Kicking

and thanking those who have supported this post.

[teacher gal]

19. Morning

Another kick for today.

[MisterP]

13. this brigns to mind Fernando Coronil: he noted that the neoliberal NWO not only treated everything--

humans and nature becoming "human" and "natural resources" and "human" and "natural capital." They're treated as means to an end--maximization of profit--Subsuming them under the abstraction of “capital,” they’re equivalent constituents of a “portfolio.” Treatment of people as capital leads to their valorization solely as a source of wealth. People can “count more” or “less” than natural resources only in terms of a perspective that equates them. Definition of people as capital means they’re to be treated as such, taken into account only insofar as they contribute to the expansion of wealth, and marginalized if they do not. The “portfolio” notion entails a requirement to maximize profits; development is to be managed by experts, rather than the inherently-political process of social contests over the definition of collective values. Market replaces politics. Charles S. Sanford, Jr., of Bankers Trust in 1993 proclaimed a “particle finance” will let all wealth and investments be consolidated into “wealth accounts” divisible into particles of risk derived from the original investment, which can be sold and bundled. Everything should be thought of as an opportunity, from distressed real estate in Japan to Russian oil futures, marketed and packaged by BankAmerica, Fidelity Investments, or the Vanguard Group—or Gabonese aroma futures, Cuban tourism, Nigerian foreign debt.

[teacher gal]

14. It's scary,

I suppose it has ever been thus to varying degrees. People used as a means to an end for those with power. And I think that's the real status quo in education reform. The last thing those in power really need is a very well educated and thoughtful citizenry.

[MisterP]

18. it also fits in with school reform: education becomes a product, students both consumers and units

of value--goods--held for the state and family money they bring in and as "frozen human capital" that strengthens the "body" of the education corporation in the same way that customers' savings can strengthen the "body" of a bank even if not invested by the bank

you get objectification and reification of humans and other forms of life, utilitarianism, and the terrifying process of making people interchangeable with each other or with something, like money

[teacher gal]

17. 'Nite.

I appreciate the recs received.

[teacher gal]

20. Asking for help today in

promoting this video.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. OMG that's great

[teacher gal]

23. Yea!

When I first heard it, I could've sworn that it must've been done by Susan Ohanian. It sounds like her. But she said she's trying to find out more about the man that did it. Note the Orwellian "iamcompucompu"

[truth2power]

24. It's not about accountability. It's about destroying the public education

system in this country. From my observations over the past few years I've determined that neither Obama, Duncan, nor Gates have the faintest idea what they're talking about with regard to the education profession .

Furthermore, to the best of my recollection I've heard nothing at all about the responsibility of the STUDENTS to be at least minimally involved in and responsible for their own learning. I'm talking about those in high school, here.

<puts on flame retardant suit> :hide:

[teacher gal]

30. Agreed

As for President Obama, maybe he is just doing what they have calculated is politically the most expedient. He inherited a colossal mess and maybe he has little time to study the issue and get a different perspective. He's very sharp. I'm more inclined to believe he knows exactly what he is doing. I voted for him but wasn't he the biggest recipient of corporate money during the election?

And then there are some behind this teacher bashing, public school bashing movement that have just plain been duped by the decades long national narrative.

Still others have legitimate complaints about our schools.

And so on....

[xchrom]

26. well done. nt

[YvonneCa]

27. Steven Krashen tweeted this...

...yesterday. I posted it too. :7 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x36552

[teacher gal]

28. Great! Good for Krashen.

I hope it gets thousands of views and that the reality of what is happening wakes some people up.

It is not good for children OR teachers for the pressure to be so intense. When teachers must live in fear, even despite their best efforts, some of that stress is going to filter down to the children.

When I taught, I always made a point of welcoming my kids' parents to my classroom and encouraging them to visit. That is only right because our schools are their schools. I wanted them there and I wanted them to feel welcome and appreciated.

But this is above and beyond. Teachers who study what is going on KNOW their profession and public ed itself is under enormous attack from multiple fronts. And they know nothing good will come of this.

But suppose I'm wrong? Suppose those videos work toward an opposite end and reveal some of the enormous challenges faced by teachers and students on a daily basis? Would the experts be so quick to cry, "FAILURE"!?

I feel that our schools need much improvement but the reforms need to move more in the opposite direction.

[teacher gal]

31. Last kick from me n/t

[maryf]

32. k&r nt

[YvonneCa]

34. Ravitch has been tweeting this. Great...

...video.