Time for Valor; Time for Illinois School Vouchers

Catholic Baby Boomers will remember this Text- a full study of Valor. Something Illinois elected officials lack aplenty. It is time for Valor;time for vouchers!

Schools Apps First Year Performance at Illinois Public Universities and Colleges
Go to the related story »
By Diane Rado, Jodi S. Cohen and Joe Germuska
August 31, 2011 The newly-released High School-to-College Success Report shows how Illinois public school graduates fared when they became freshmen at the state’s universities and community colleges. The ACT company tracked more than 90,000 students who graduated from public high schools between 2006 and 2008, and then enrolled full-time at an Illinois university or community college that fall. The data do not include students who went to a private college or out-of-state. For each high school, families can look up average high school GPAs and grade point averages earned at each public university and community college that students attended.


Leo High School raised its ACT score by 4.5 points in under two years. It did so the old fashioned way, by teaching - that and the fact that retired CPS Math Teacher Denny Conway and Dr. Jack O'Keefe of Daley College (ret.) come in and coach ACT Prep -gratis.

According the Urban Myth -Catholic Schools have selective enrollment and admissions. Correction: Leo High School's enrollment is highly selective -Leo High School turns no student who wants to succeed away. If the student's family can not meet the costs of tuition, Leo Alumni and the Big Shoulders Fund provide the money.

Teachers work at Leo because they love the guys, not in the Sesame Street manner, but like Ditka loves football.

If a public school employee saw the 2011-2012 salary and benefit pay-out to the Leo Administration, Faculty and Staff they'd get the twizzles, the miseries, the conniptions and the vapors.

The pay-off for these teachers is the kids. No riots, no disrespect, no incidents.

Our guys are adolescent males, let's not kid ourselves. The trick is that the teachers here at Leo, like most Catholic school, are here because they want to be here. Doing what makes you happy can not be legislated in Springfield or Washington D.C..

The Parents of kids in Catholic schools are people carrying the burdens. The Teachers sacrifice to be sure, but the parents carry the load. They pay for public education and then get pounded with the ever increasing cost of Catholic Education. Catholic education delivers and public education always has reason for failure -'not enough tax-dollars'

Everyone got misty-eyed over the Superintendent who declined his $ 800,000 per year salary. Lovely gesture, that; but, how in the name of Ward Bond does anyone in education get to a salary of $ 800,000. I venture to say, that the generous gent socked a away more than few shillings and will re-coup any loss accrued on Speaker Circuit and television appearances.

The Superintendent of Chicago Catholic Schools, the energetic Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, is a Dominican nun with a vow poverty and her salary goes directly to the Order. Talk about a tax!

Indiana now offers real school reform -Vouchers. It is working. Illinois is still controlled by Planned Parenthood, teacher PACS, SEIU and other political money 357 Magnums. Those Magnums helped elect State Governors, Senators and Representatives and remain pointed at the temples of the elected.

A few independents,like my former State Representative Kevin Joyce(D.), fought the PACs and managed to retain his seat with heart and honesty alone.

School reform will never happen until Vouchers become available to parents.

All you need for proof, is the violence, vandalism and vociferations tossed at Catholic Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee, WI. - that is a disgrace. The Teachers Unions, SEIU and their pals attacked the school.(click my post title and read more about this disgraceful event)

It is time for courage. It is time for School Vouchers in Illinois.

Rahm, Chicago Needs Catholic Schools - Vouchers Would Be a Great Help

As much as the Gentry Class* ( affluent, professional, college-diploma Progressives) hate to recognize it, Chicago is a Catholic city. Catholics tend to vote Democratic even though Catholics are about as welcome in the Progressively controlled Democratic Party as a Lesbian Methodist Minister at a Taliban goat-roast after Ramadan.

Catholics belong to a Faith that remains committed to the sacrament of marriage and defends life from conception to the Hospice. Ethnic Catholics tend to go into the military, take careers in Law Enforcement, become home-owners and tax-payers. Catholics are saddled with a Church hierarchy that until only recently took its eye off the ball where children are concerned and almost universally kissed the botox-ed fannies of Planned Parenthood and its Democratic Party minions;too many in the Catholic clergy tried to become Unitarian ministers with better perks, tax-loop holes, residences and cover from accountability.

Nevertheless, the pews remain full in Catholic neighborhoods and the children go to Catholic schools that out-perform public schools across the board.

Charter Schools fit nicely in the Progressive pattern of John Dewey education, but aped the veneer of the hall-marks of Catholic schools: selective enrollment, uniforms, uniform discipline codes, Mission Statements, teacher accountability, and do more in the classroom with few dollars. Charter Schools, even the very best ones like the Noble Street models, are not Catholic Schools.

Charter Schools get tax-dollars and Catholic Schools do not.

Because Charter Schools get State tax-dollars, Public Service unions directed by SEIU pushed teacher unions to agitate for unionization in Charter Schools. The door to that was kicked wide open in 2009. Charter Schools are public schools and over the years to come will be dominated by the teachers unions who helped create the mess that is public education.

Catholic Schools and the fewer Lutheran, Dutch Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Independent Schools operate on tuition and money from fund raising. Catholic cops, firemen, streets and sanitation workers, skilled trades union members, nurses and public school teachers in tax-targeted middle class neighborhoods send their children to Catholic Schools - because their kids will receive faith-rooted moral instruction, discipline, accountability, feed-back, and self-esteem.

Empirically speaking, I see thousand of teens wearing Mount Carmel, St. Rita, Marist, Notre Dame, St. Gregory, Gordon Tech, Leo, Maria, and Our Lady of Tepeyac sports wear.

N.B. I must give a shout out to the Green and Gold of St. Patrick High School on the north side in celebration of its Centenial and a Half of service to Chicago!

I have yet to experience the sight of young people sporting Simeon, Dunbar, Hubbard, or Whitney Young caps, hoodies, or t-shirts.

Kids represent. When they are proud of the association with their school's history, record of achievement and street cred they brand themselves, Mom and Dad, Grannie and Gramps and the extended family and neighbors with Maroon and Orange of Brother Rice, Brown and Vanilla Mount Carmel, the Blue and White of Maria, Red, White and Gold of Mother McAuley, Blue and Crimson of St. Rita, the Orange and Grey of Gordon Tech and of course the Orange and Black of Leo.

Today in a very cogent and practically articulated article John Kass of Chicago Tribune offers a sound bit of advice to Mayor Rahm Emanuel - get behind School Choice Vouchers and now. Here is the impact point - Chicago's tax-base send their kids to Catholic schools -middle class families black, white and Hispanic - with great personal sacrifice: they pay tuition twice, because they are required to live within the City limits:

. . . And under the restrictive — and selectively interpreted — residency laws, Chicago schools have a captive middle class. Cops and firefighters and city workers and teachers must live in the city to keep their jobs.

They can't leave town and raise their kids in the suburbs, even if they keep a house address in Chicago. The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a presidential chief of staff, living in Washington, with kids in Washington, can be considered a resident of Chicago. But don't be naive enough to think this standard would apply to others.

So if students can't be squeezed into top magnet high schools, the parents are compelled to fork over more than they can afford for parochial education. Or leave the city.

This sets up an unequal, two-tiered system, with limited resources. And in a city so historically corrupt, the dispensing of limited resources has predictable and cynical outcomes.

In March 2010, for example, the Tribune reported on the VIP list maintained by Chicago Public Schools. A nephew of former Mayor Richard Daley's lobbied to get a political supporter's two daughters into an elite high school. And there were other reports that Chicago politicians — including a so-called reform alderman — tried to clout their own children into select schools.

Those who win a spot in the excellent magnet schools sing the system's praises and lavish the politicians with praise and votes. And those who don't are abandoned to fate.

Certainly Rahm knows this. And, I'd like to think, it's what truly angers him.

jskass@tribune.com

John Kass is a public school guy, but John Kass is not a member of the Gentry Class. He is a blue-collar ink-slinger.

The Gentry Class control the Media. The Gentry Class controls Democratic Party and very sizeable number of GOP elected officials. The Progressive agendas present a steady diet of empty rhetorical memes - a Buffet of Bullshit.

Most people take a pass on the offerings under these sneeze guards, but their elected officials for whom they continue to vote wolf the offerings down.

Rahm Emanuel needs to serve up Vouchers, Chicago needs Catholic schools and their non-Catholic cousins: Lutheran, Dutch Christian, Hebrew, Muslim and Independent schools.

Chicago is still a Catholic city and Chicago Catholics have had enough from the Gentry Class Progressive Buffet.

* from Joel Kotkin:

Gentry liberalism combines four basic elements: faith in postindustrial "creative" financial capitalism, cultural liberalism, Gore-ite environmentalism and the backing of the nation's arguably best-organized political force, public employee unions. Obama rose to power on the back of all these forces and, until now, has governed as their tribune.

Obama's problems stem primarily from gentry liberalism's class contradictions. Focused on ultra-affluent greens, the media, Wall Street and the public sector, gentry liberalism generally gives short shrift to upward mobility, the basic aspiration of the middle class.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/02/opinion/op-kotkin2

Crawlspaces and Boxes? School Choice is the Only Way to Reform Chicago Schools.

The elegant and brilliant Joe Morris is trying to keep a lid on the Rahm Emanuel residency hearings - Frankly, I think Mr. Emanuel belongs on the ballot for Mayor. The issue du jour is "What's in the crawlspace?" Que Lastima!

All the while Senator James Meeks has tossed down the gauntlet to Chicago's Public School Lobby - the folks who demand the same-old/same old disaster that is Chicago Public Education. Senator Meeks tried to get a genuine Chicago School Choice bill through Springfield but was betrayed by the very same Illinois Republican legislators who huff and puff about wasted tax-dollars.

The Chicago Tribune reported on the Meeks Reform Plan:

One of the major aspects is a voucher program Meeks said would allow up to 50,000 low-income students in Chicago to receive at least $4,500 per year to attend schools of their choosing.

Meeks passed a similar plan through the Senate earlier this year but it failed in the House. The candidate was asked what would be different if he were mayor.

"I like (my chances), because our school system is failing now, and I believe a plan that's being pushed by the mayor of the city of Chicago -- I passed that bill out of the Illinois Senate as a senator," Meeks said. "I'm sure that as mayor, we will be able to pass that plan through the entire General Assembly."
Meeks also said he would give the Chicago Teachers Union one year to develop a program "with teeth" to identify and fire teachers who aren't performing. If the union does not do so, Meeks said he would call on the General Assembly to pass legislation to deal with it. Such legislation has not passed during Meeks' tenure in Springfield, however.

"I don't think most of our teachers are bad. I think that most of our teachers are good, but we don't have a way to weed out the bad ones," Meeks said at a City Hall news conference outside the mayor's office.

Now, as a very viable candidate for Mayor of Chicago Senator/Rev. Meeks has iisued a challenge to the Chicago Teachers Union to come up with a plan to discharge bad teachers . . .long silence . . .wait for the howls.

Here it is! In the Huffington Post (chicago):

Meeks, also the minister at the massive Salem Baptist Church, was able to push a school voucher bill through the State Senate earlier this year. It passed by a 33-20 vote, before failing in the State House.

Under the plan, students at the lowest-performing schools in the city would be able to transfer to private or parochial schools, with money in their pockets to help pay for the tuition.

Such a program faces stiff opposition from teachers' unions, which argue that vouchers would deplete resources from already ill-funded public schools. They also object that public resources should be devoted to programs that will improve the lot of all students, not just a few, and that a voucher law could be unconstitutional if it gives public funds to sectarian purposes.

Here are some of the daffier HuffPo aficiandos and their thoughts.

That is the reason chump you will never be mayor of the windy city, so crawl back where u came from.

Mr. Meeks sees nothing wrong with ramming Jebus down your throat while vilifying all the gays that live in the city.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/james-meeks-would-push-sc_n_797307.html


Every candidate for Mayor needs to get School Reform - Real school Choice -Vouchers - out of the crawlspaces, unpacked and put into place ASAP.

Sue ACLU? Racist on School Choice and Rev. James Meeks and Voucher

Ed Yohnka and ACLU needs to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars in a class action brought by Reverend James Meeks, every Church that operates a school for the benefit of all Illinois Tax-payers, every parent of every child of every color and ethnic origin.

Ed Yohnka's ACLU is always anti-Catholic and now ( on the pages of SEIU's Progress Illinois by Angela Caputo) appears to be intrinsically racist in its powerful objection to Senator James Meeks legislation concerning School Choice Vouchers.

Mr. Yohnka offers this noose-like threat to poor black kids in Chicago on the pages of Progress Illinois!

Those schools would be free to use these funds to pay for religious indoctrination, including the construction of worship spaces, the purchase of religious books, and the hiring of religious instructors.

That is an insult to the Baptist, AME and Muslim children who attend Leo High School.

Is Ed Yohnka ( spelled YONKA by Angela Caputo at Progress Illinois) telling these black kids that they are brain-washed; ignorant; unable to think for themselves?

Mr. Yonka, I have not witnessed one conversion to Catholicism. Not One, Sir! 85% of Leo's 100% black young men are not Catholic, Mr. Yohnka. However, all 100% of our young men are impoverished. So, are the many hundreds of poor black young men who want to have a Choice in Education find themselves lynched by the ACLU! Again!

Indoctrination?
It is simply inappropriate to use state taxpayer dollars to fund religious indoctrination.

Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.[2] As such it is used pejoratively, often in the context of political opinions, theology or religious dogma. Instruction in the basic principles of science, in particular, can not properly be called indoctrination, in the sense that the fundamental principles of science call for critical self-evaluation and skeptical scrutiny of one's own ideas. In practice, however, a certain level of non-rational indoctrination, usually seen as miseducative, is invariably present. The term is closely linked to socialization; in common discourse, indoctrination is often associated with negative connotations, while socialization refers to cultural or educational learning.

Good Old ACLU Catholic bashing aside - Ed Yonka accuses parochial schools of being miseducative and also says that black kids are easy prey for indoctrination.

Sue the ACLU! It is what they do! To everyone with Common Sense.

Dear Friend,

Since the founding of our country, Americans have believed that entanglement of church and state was a bad idea. Senate Bill 2494, which passed out of the Senate last week, would do just that.

Urge your State Representative to oppose SB 2494!

Sponsored by Senator James Meeks, this bill would allow payment of public taxpayer funds to private religious schools, by means of tuition vouchers to certain parents. Those schools would be free to use these funds to pay for religious indoctrination, including the construction of worship spaces, the purchase of religious books, and the hiring of religious instructors.

It is simply inappropriate to use state taxpayer dollars to fund religious indoctrination. Tell your State Representative that SB 2494 is a really bad idea.


Sincerely,


Edwin C. Yohnka
Director of Communications
and Public Policy

Illinois Entrenched School Lobby Ain't Ready for Reform

Senator Meeks is out in front for Genuine School Reform. That is a reform that begins and ends with Vouchers - the only means of getting real Accountability and Competition for Public Schools. Public Schools are Un-Accountable and Compete with no one.

Public Schools are enthralled by the Illinois Public School Lobby - a Gordian knot of Teachers Unions, Ralph Martire Industries ( Pie Charts=More Taxes R Us), Public School Vendors, Bus Companies and hundreds of tax-funded satellite Education sucker fish - our Cook County Superintendent Charles Flowers* in their many manifestations.

Yesterday, Chicago Daily Observer's President John Powers posted a great report on the legislation by Illinois Senator James Meeks to reform Illinois Public Education.

His voucher proposal would allow parents of students in the academically lowest 10 percent of Chicago Public Schools to have the option of sending their children to a private school, if space is available.

Meeks, formerly a strong advocate for improving Illinois’s public schools, said his plan comes as a result of violence and increasingly poor test scores in CPS schools.

“Right now, our General Assembly rules actually lock a kid into a low-performing school,” Meeks said. “And we have no plans to get the kid out.”

Teachers unions and parents are opposing the proposed legislation, saying that taking the students out of public schools will hurt the school system. When Meeks outlined his legislation last week to a Senate committee, the opposition was ready to speak up.

Opposition to the Meeks efforts come not from African American Legislative leaders who in the past have supported the Illinois School Lobby,. . .

State Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, serves on the Senate committee and supports Meeks’ plan. Although vouchers have historically been a Republican idea, Hendon said he believes the city of Chicago needs this option.

Hendon said CPS is failing the students in the bottom 10 percent of schools, and that he is tired of seeing the violence.

“We’ve been saying we’re going to educate out babies. We’re going to fix the schools. We’re going to find solutions,” Hendon said. “And nothing has changed. Absolutely, positively nothing.”

State Sens. Bradley Burzynski, R-Sycamore, and James Clayborne, D-East St. Louis, also voted to move Meeks’ proposal forward. It now goes to a Senate education subcommittee, where it is scheduled for a hearing on Wednesday.

. . . but from the Blue Stocking Lobbyists.

Ben Schwarm of the School Management Alliance said the program is not realistic because of funding issues. He said there is no way to know how many students will participate in the program until the school year starts.

“We don’t know how many of our students are going to leave our district,” Schwarm said. “We don’t know how many students from other districts are going to come to our schools on enrollment day because they don’t live here. And for planning purposes, setting a budget and so forth, that raises some problems.”

Well done Senator. Hammer them!

* Supt. Charles Flowers:

The Daily Southtown newspaper wrote a detailed article exposing the corruption and failure of Charles Flowers as Superintendent. Here's the article and reporter contact information below:

When Charles Flowers took over the reins of the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education two years ago, critics were skeptical of his baggage.

Flowers, a former special education teacher and administrator, has a history of questionable financial dealings from his days as board president at west suburban Maywood-Melrose Park District 89. But he came into office in 2007 vowing to root out corruption and bring reform to Cook County public schools.

Once he became regional superintendent, Flowers hired relatives and friends and then began giving employees salary advance loans. Then he went to Cook County government for an emergency loan, which the regional office has yet to repay.

In April, the regional office couldn't make payroll and earlier this year the department didn't pay its group health insurance premiums on time, leading the company to temporarily cancel workers' health benefits.

So where's the money?

http://provisoinsider.blogspot.com/2009/05/daily-southtown-exposes-regional.html

Welcome to the Pew, Brother Meeks!

Real School Reform = Vouchers! Short of that, Charter Schools do the most to bring some accountabilty. All the rest is hot air -for want of stronger tea.

Public Schools need competition. Catholic Schools ( and other private schools as well) provide Competition and Genuine Accountability! Vouchers are the only real tool to reform.Click my Post Title!

We Catholics and our friends have been praying for School Choice through Vouchers and many non-Catholics/non-Christian/non-Believers have helped fill the pews.

Brother Meeks, welcome to Church. We have been passing the plate and now intend to make sure that Vouchers and Charters see that the plates go to the right hands -Illinois Families and not scam artists and hacks.

For the first time in my personal and political career, I am exploring the idea of vouchers and charter schools to help facilitate choice and enhance academic performance. Why should we continue to make investments in a system that is bankrupt and weighed down with bureaucracy?

We must begin making decisions that are in the best interest of children, such as mandatory teacher evaluations. Since the will to change the system is nonexistent, we should allow students the flexibility to attend schools outside their district. What once worked before, such as the local school councils, may have run its course in today's competitive environment.

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. We can no longer afford to have the blood of every child on our hands.

Democratic state Sen. James T. Meeks of Chicago is pastor of Salem Baptist Church.

Chicago Tribune - Op-Ed Page

McCain/Palin: School Choice is Chanel # 5 - Obama Hoses a Sea of Cheap Perfume on a Pig

Hope Floats like a Butterfly! Straight-Talk Stings Like Bee!

Barack Obama in a smarmy attempt to brush back the dandruff from his shoulders - all them flakes around him it is no wonder. His Armani left in the limo, Shirt -Sleeves Barry called the McCain/Palin Surge 'Lipstick on a Pig.'

Oh, No He didn't. Uh,Huh! He Did! Go,Barry! Go, Barry! . . .

and then the Junior Senator Without Resume tossed a gallon of Tassels LaTrune Old Useful Allure Au de cologne all over the pet pig of Public Education!

Obama offered new proposals Tuesday to double federal funding for charter schools and establish a federal fund to encourage better use of computers and technology in the classroom at a total cost of $1 billion annually.

Combined with education proposals he announced last year, Obama plans to expand federal aid to education by $19 billion per year. The bulk of Obama's proposed funding increases target making preschool education more affordable, providing better pay for high-performing teachers and improving math and science teaching

.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-campaign-obama-10sep10,0,871505.story

Twice as much more for Public Schools! Charter Schools, Senator, are Public Schools. Double the Funding to same group of geniuses who have all but killed education in America. Heck Obama and Billy Ayers* MADE Chicago Public Schools what they are today!

Thus, exit safety, teacher accountability, effective budgetary control, skilled management, serious curriculum development.

School Choice - Vouchers - is the only genuine path to school reform. That would mean Choice - not just so N.O.W. can ensure more Abortions - real choice - the civil rights issue of the post-racial 21st Century! Unless of course Senator Obama is bound to the same old same old racial politics.

Obama's historical nomination should signal the end to racial politics and all the concomitant cottage industries associated with racial politics and class warfare.

John McCain is for real Real Change - Real Choice - Education Reform.

Obama is dousing a smelly old hog with gallons of cheap perfume - didn't work in the 1970's and still not working.


*
Love Me, I'm a Liberal
by William Ayers
Upon returning from summer break, I found a surprising letter awaiting me written by three colleagues from another university, two of whom I'd known and worked with for decades. The letter simultaneously informed me about a conference my friends were organizing and explained -- with some anguish I think -- that I would not be welcome there.

They note that we're living in troubled times, that calculated appeals to fear rule the day, and that they hope to counter all of that. Ironically, fear is stamped all over the letter.

I'm reminded of when Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were hauled before the fearsome House Committee on Un-American Activities, refused to bow, and helped to laugh it out of existence. Or when the universities were cowed by a bullying government into banning the DuBois Clubs -- a handful of students in the youth-wing of the CP who were attacked by Richard Nixon for intentionally creating a front group that would dupe people because it rhymed with the Boys Clubs -- and we members of Students for a Democratic Society signed up en masse and swelled their membership a hundredfold.

I find myself sitting here humming Phil Ochs' brilliant "Love Me, I'm a Liberal."

Different times demand different responses, of course, but to claim the mantle of "social justice" while practicing this kind of exclusion is unacceptable.

Their letter to me and my response to them are reproduced below. I've edited out identifiable references to my colleagues in order to protect the . . . well, you decide, let's just say their privacy. I can be reached at billayers.org, or bayers@uic.edu. Onward!

William Ayers
Distinguished Professor
University of Illinois at ChicagoDear Bill,

This is an unusual letter for us to be writing and for you to receive. We count you among the most noted progressive educators in the country with a deep commitment to teaching for social justice. Yet, after extended deliberation and discussion, we find ourselves in a real quandary. Because of current . . . times, we cannot invite you to an event we are planning for progressive educators. Because we know and deeply respect you and your commitment to teaching for social justice, we felt that an explanation was in order.

Next spring, we will host an event . . . to honor Bob Moses and progressive education. Bob is to receive the . . . John Dewey Prize for Progressive Education. This prize is . . . "to honor significant achievement in progressive education for the purpose of making society more just." In an era of increasing standardization and heightened inequities, we want to shine a bright light on the ideals of progressive education and remind the public that there is another model for education that attends well to the needs of every child. It is our intention to invite other progressive educators to this convening and to create a significant news and media event honoring the ideals of progressive education [and] the work of Bob Moses. . . .

It is because of our commitment to educate the public and to undertake what is primarily a symbolic project that we cannot risk a simplistic and dubious association between progressive education and the violent aspects of your past. We believe, of course, in your right to express your views, then and now. This is not about curtailing your expression. Rather, in this age when Google summarizes instantly, and often shallowly, who we are, it is about trying to say as clearly as possible what we are arguing for. If we, as educators, want to engage the learner, in this case the public, where they are, then we have to find ways for the public to see progressive education not as radical or threatening but as nurturing and familiar, connected to the very best aspects of their own learning experiences. For the last five years local and regional news organizations have taken the "liberal" . . . faculty . . . to task. It is an environment that we have challenged when key principles were involved, defending and maintaining our . . . commitment to social justice against the state bureaucracy. This event, however, is a celebration honoring two educators' accomplishments and positively promoting progressive education. We don't want a shallow press to prevail. We want to engage the public with as little interference as possible.

One major reason for presenting a prize at this time is that progressivism, and progressive education in particular, have been greatly weakened by a broad and calculated appeal to our fears in this changing world. We want to reinsert into the civil dialogue that progressive education stands upon its proven record and can be a viable alternative when our mood turns away from fears and towards hopes. First, we need to get ourselves back to the table, and then position ourselves as polite in our discourse before celebrating the breadth of expression within progressive education. Coming from behind may well demand such strategic thinking, whether is satisfies all of our passion or not.

We hope this letter finds you well and that you understand and possibly appreciate this decision.

Sincerely,

"Lauren" and the organizers


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 29, 2006

Dear Lauren,

You have, of course, no obligation to include me in the progressive education conference you're organizing, certainly not in your deliberations about my suitability to attend. I'm tempted to say, with apologies to Groucho Marx, that I wouldn't want to attend any progressive education conference that would have me.

Chances are I'd have never heard of the conference had you not written, and in any case wouldn't have given a second thought to my presence on or absence from the guest list. But since you've opened this in the way you have, since you've outlined your thinking on the matter and invited me to understand and possibly appreciate your decision, I feel I must respond.

Your hope to position progressive education "not as radical or threatening but as nurturing and familiar" is in some ways a fool's errand. Of course, no one argues that the progressive movement should threaten students or teachers or citizens -- progressive education does indeed hold the hope of realizing a humane and decent education for all within a revitalized politics and a more authentically democratic society. But progressive education, if it means anything at all, must embody a profound threat to the status quo. It is a direct challenge, for example, to all the policy initiatives that deskill and hammer teachers into interchangeable cogs in a bureaucracy, all the pressure to reduce teaching to a set of manageable and easily monitored tasks, all the imposition of labels and all the simple-minded metrics employed to describe student learning and rank youngsters in a hierarchy of winners and losers. It's a threat to all that, and more.

But here we face a contradiction at the heart of our efforts: the humanistic ideal and the democratic injunction tell us that every person is an entire universe, that each can develop as a full and autonomous person engaged with others in a common polity and an equality of power; the capitalist imperative insists that profit is at the center of economic, political, and social progress, and develops, then, a culture of competition, elitism, and hierarchy. An education for democracy fails as an adjunct to capitalism just as an education for capitalism fails to build either a democratic ethos or a participatory practice. We must engage, then, in the arena of school and education reform as we struggle toward a world fit for all children -- a place of peace and justice, joy and balance. The two are inseparable.

And so I believe that progressive education must be part of a radical movement if it is to be worthy of the hopes and dreams of those who fight to bring humanistic alternatives to life. I mean radical in the sense that Ella Baker, one of the unsung mothers of the Civil Rights Movement, used the word. She called herself a radical, and she explained that radical meant "going to the root." Little reforms here and there never add up unless we get to the core of the problems we face, she argued, analyze our situations, connect the struggles as we work for more fundamental change.

Charlie Cobb, who co-wrote Radical Equations, was also the author of the original proposal for Freedom Schools in the South more than forty years ago. The brief he wrote claimed that while Black children were denied many things -- decent school facilities, honest and forward-looking curriculum, fully qualified teachers -- the fundamental injury was "a complete absence of academic freedom, and students are forced to live in an environment that is geared to squashing intellectual curiosity, and different thinking." Cobb called the classrooms of Mississippi "intellectual wastelands," and he challenged himself and others "to fill an intellectual and creative vacuum," and to encourage people "to articulate their own desires, demands and questions." He was urging students to confront the circumstances of their lives, to wonder about how they got to where they were, and to think of how they might change things. He was crossing hard lines of propriety and tradition, convention and common sense, of course, poised to break the law and overthrow a system. His proposal was designed to plow a deep and promising furrow toward the new -- more than radical, this was insurrection itself, progressive education linked to radical politics.

Of course, we are required now to make our own contributions in our own time and place; the pathway, the content, and the curriculum must be of, by, and for this moment and this community. We might take inspiration and attitude, sustenance and stance from the Mississippi experience, but only as an orientation toward launch, toward imagining and trying to bring to life something entirely new.

Finally, you refer to "the violent aspects" of my past. As you know I've written extensively about politics and protest as well as my own involvements, about the dual responsibilities to act and to doubt, and about the impossibility of claiming a high moral stance while sitting on the sidelines. I've accounted for my actions during the US assaults on Vietnam and against the Black Freedom Movement -- which is what I assume you're referring to -- and paid the price asked of me by the legal system. And I've said often that our society ought to engage in a truth-and-reconciliation process concerning those terrible and wondrous times; in other words, I'm happy to stand up, tell my story, admit my mistakes, and take responsibility -- shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else, including war criminals, politicians, soldiers, officers, frat boys, students, scholars, citizens. Absent that, you seem to say that I have some uniquely dreadful behavior to account for, and I politely disagree.

I worry that you're imagining a progressivism divorced from politics, the larger world, and any real hope of transformation -- a timid, tepid, soft and servile thing. And I worry that your attempt to cleanse your conference of the likes of me has no end: you'll have to cut out the Marxists and the socialists, of course, anyone who writes critically about capitalism and education, then the militants, the noisy anti-racists, the pushy feminists, the gays and lesbians, anyone who refers to "social justice" -- a term under steady attack from the powerful just now. I'm reminded of the last presidential election when several presumably well-meaning liberals asked, in effect, if women would please stop talking so loudly about (or getting) abortions, if gays would please get back in the closet, and if Black people and Mexicans might stay out of sight for a few months so that "we" can win this thing, and then everything will somehow be alright. It's not only unprincipled, deeply cynical and cowardly, it's suicidal, a slippery slope with lots of miserable historical precedent.So, while I think I understand what you've said, no, I don't appreciate it. I don't rationalize it. I don't endorse it. And I refuse to participate in portraying myself as a pariah. So invite me.

Sincerely,

Bill



Double Down!

John McCain: Irony 101 - Public School Legislator Seeks a Choice for Students: Rev. Meeks v.Reality

Reverend,Illinois Legislator and firebrand activist James Meeks is barking up the wrong tree.

One of the most strident defenders of public schools, that sinkhole for tax dollars, Meeks announced taking his flock of unhappy souls on a field trip to New Trier School District:

State Sen. James Meeks is urging parents to keep their children out of Chicago Public Schools the first day of class and instead board buses to the New Trier school district.

The plan is an attempt to bring attention to the "ever growing school funding inequalities between rich, white and poor, minority school districts in the state," said Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, on Sunday.

Well Rev/Senator, the answer to your problem -unless you like tossing alot of dough to fill up the tanks of the school buses for the trip up to the North suburbs, where none of your constituents pay taxes, own homes or live in the school District - is School Choice.

However, Rev/Senator Meeks is a dyed in the wool Public School advocate and lusty voiced howl in the wilderness decrying any and every atom in universe perceived as an affront.

School Choice would bring real competition to public education forcing public schools to raise standards of behavior and performance in staff and expectations for students.

Instead, Meeks and others will cry havoc and let slip the dogs of victim hood - that remains at the core of public school funding.

Obama is for public school funding, as is the DNC.

John McCain is for school choice.“We must continue our efforts to set standards and hold schools accountable for their performance,” the likely GOP presidential nominee says in a 90-second video . “Our schools can and should compete to be the most innovative, flexible, and student-centered, not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable.”

“Let them compete for the most effective and character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them,” he adds in the statement. The text accompanying the video doesn’t include any specific proposals of what Sen. McCain would do as president to achieve those goals. On the stump and in debates, the candidate hasn’t said anything to explain how he would transform... &, &, & - Reality check Rev/Senator!



If Rev./Senator Meeks wants justice in American education, it is time that he dropped the public school cash cows and embraced School Choice.

Of course, he just might really like long bus rides.