will far under the completely out-sourced education plan that is likely to occur if enough teacher follow his/her lead?

You really think President Obama is going to privatize school on the municipal/state level? Really ...?

For what it's worth ... It does take great courage to fire an entire staff of a (perceived) failing school ... in order to root out what she perceived as the bad and save the good.

time is the best time to get all the concesssions teachers can and bring more attention to these issues.

It doesn't take *any* courage to fire an entire school when the state & federal government, plus a bunch of millionaires & billionaires, have your back.

It's laughable to suggest it does.

Courage would be standing up wall street and all the leeches.

Where is that?

I think we all know the answer.

unions are the most powerful, evil forces in america!

And if you can get your chickenshit opponents to cut their own throats (tom sawyer or Huck Finn?) so much the better.

thank god our saviors on Wall Street and K-Street are riding to the rescue.

--and even wrote to Obama about it?

Then she turned around and starred in the awful anti teacher movie about to come out - Won't Back Down.

Proof that it's all about the money for the 1%.

Exactly?

Just sayin'

different time table.

This election is about so much more than her own grievance.

it is also about the grievances of:

1) The prisoners at Guantanamo not getting fair trials, or trials all.

2) People upset over Obama appointing a Monsanto exec as senior advisor to the FDA.

3) People who continue to lose jobs because of the "free trade deals" Obama champions.

4) Innocent people murdered by drones.

5) People upset over the continuation and EXPANSION of Bush domestic spying policies.

6) The complete failure of Obama to investigate war crimes.

7) The lack of prosecution for Wall Street fraud that have cost the U.S. tax payer $1 trillion plus and counting.

8) People mad about continued "secret" loans to banks by the Fed with no transparency.

9) Appointing the people most responsible for the Great Recession to clean it up.

10) Letting the insurance industry call the shots on health care reform, resulting in a sweet deal for them and crumbs for us.

When Bush did shit like this people were OUTRAGED, now they just make excuses because a Democrat is doing it.

Oh yeah ... He's Black.

In 1995 45% of chicago teachers were black.

today, 19%.

42% of chicago public school students are black, and 87% of cps students are poor.

and that new disparity between the students and the teaching staff is 100% due to the education policies being promoted by this administration, birthed in chicago.

not to mention that African americans are more likely to work in the public sectors/union sector than the average american worker -- and both groups are being targeted.

The black upper class is doing well under obama; the middle and lower classes, not so well.

Just the same as with white workers.

it ain't all about racism against the president.

How D.C. Mayor Fenty lost the black vote - and his job

Although blacks and whites recognize the importance of the public schools as a vehicle for educating their children, blacks also see the school system as a primary employer, providing jobs to thousands of teachers, school bus drivers, administrators and secretaries. When Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee laid off hundreds of teachers, many blacks saw something more than a simple purge of poorly performing educators. They saw an assault on economic opportunity.

"He fired those teachers, that did it for me," said Wilson Givens, a retired, black equipment operator who lives in Anacostia, in Southeast, and voted for Fenty in 2006. "Does he understand that a job is a family's livelihood...? That was it for me. Would never trust him again."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091804286.html


Stop and Reverse the Loss of Teachers of Color

According to Department of Education statistics... teachers hired in school year 2000-01 were 25.5 percent black and 16.3 percent Latino, a total of almost 42 percent. In 2006-07, 14.1 percent of new hires were black and 11.7 percent were Latino, for a total of 25.8 percent, a dramatic decline in only six years...

Notwithstanding the welcome election of President Obama, “The Disappearing of Black and Latina/o Educators” ...is movement in the opposite direction, a reversal of the gains of the civil rights era. Whether by design, blind indifference, or a combination of factors “The Disappearing of Black and Latina/o Educators in the NYC-DOE” is a systemic failure at the school level to advance to a racially just society.

The United Federation of Teachers does not hire or fire. However, as educators and unionists, we have a keen and vested interest in the promotion of positive role models for the youth and working-class solidarity in New York City. We must establish a close collaboration with the parents and communities of color whose children comprise over 80 percent of the student body in the New York City public school system.

http://teachersunite.net/node/406


CORE In Chicago Sued Duncan Over Loss of Black Teachers

Although he didn't spell it out on Friday, Duncan's campaign to recruit more black teachers may be driven by research that found improved test scores for black students who spend at least a year with a black teacher. In past speeches he's mentioned that black teachers are more likely than their white peers to want to work in high-poverty, high-needs schools, the front line for closing what he calls the nation's "insidious achievement gap" between white and black students.

Well, I have a "theme " for you, Arne - why don't you look for some of those black teachers in your own #%&*! back yard, where you buried them?

During his time as CEO of CPS, Duncan oversaw the loss of nearly 2500 African-American teachers, while the numbers of CPS teachers in all other racial groups increased. Take a look at this PURE chart from 2009....

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/core-in-chicago-sued-duncan-over-loss.html
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/core-in-chicago-sued-duncan-over-loss.html

What does that have to do with criticisms of his policy?

These are the SAME criticisms leveled at Bush, who last I looked, is WHITE!

If you are trying to imply something, then why don't you come right out and make the accusation?

Yes, I am laughing at your ability to articulate your thoughts.



And BTW, no ... I am neither fucking (at this moment), nor an asshole; but I do fuck (on occasion) and I do have an asshole.

yeh whatever

I am mocking you.

but I do find insinuations of racist intent tiresome.

i wasn't really up to tolerating some moronic bullshit like that.

It is irking in the extreme to read this kind of cowardly attack.

I hope today is better. Thanks for having my back.

When over 900,000 of us put our signatures on a petition asking the FDA to reconsider the GM issue, the FDA treated the petition as "One Signature."


So much for holding anyone accountable, or believing we can pressure the One Percent. We need a different form of politics, if we plan on re-taking the government back from the current crowd of puppets under the control of the One Percent Puppet Masters.

Corruption on all levels, from the state legislatures up to the Oval Office. A few good people here and there, but mostly they are well paid puppets.

Last edited Wed Sep 12, 2012, 09:48 PM - Edit history (1)

the following expressions:
almost one million signatures + FDA + GM
you will get dozens of entries, everything from organic food news web sites to the more controversial Prison Planet.

This happened by mid-April 2012. The FDA said that since the petition originated with one single person or one single organization, they didn't have to count each signature as a signature! So the entire petition ended up being counted as ONE SIGNATURE!

Not only that, but within several months of that happening, a coalition of activists who asked the Secretary of Ag - Valsick himself - to see to it that there were buffer zones between the newly released Alfalfa seed crop, GM in design, and traditional Alfalfa crops.

The activists were so convincing that they persuaded Valsick to go along with them. When the WH found out, they sent over ten or twelve pro-Monsanto WH staff people, who twisted Valsick's arm around, and ensured that no buffering zones would be required.

This nation is a plutocracy. Traditional politics doesn't work any more. (Unless you happen to benefit from those politics - for instance, you do PR, or campaign consulting. Or you are an actual member of the Political Master Class, like the Daileys, Clintons, Bush's, et al.)

This President is truly owned by Monsanto.

Not that I agree with your list or assessments, but you're entitled to an opinion. That said, your assertion about Guantanamo is not up to date.

http://www.hrw.org/features/guantanamo

It has taken a willing Democrat to turn over American schools to corporate interests.

If mccain had been president and tried what this administration is doing, it would have gotten nowhere because the Democratic party would have been up in arms. Nothing like "race to the top of the corporate ladder" would have seen the light of day.

We might hope that the Democratic party will get its balls and principles regarding education back, but it ain't going to happen when we have a popular Democratic president who is pushing educational policies that are making the worst of the republicans just plain giddy with pleasure. If you have had anything to do with Educational policy for the last twenty years, you would see what the administration is pushing as the exact proposals of the neocon manifesto. grover norquist called for it. bill bennet tried to get it done under reagan. Both bushes tried it. Now we get it from the man we put in the white house.

There is no defense for the education programs of arne duncan. No Democrat can abide them. Keeping your mouth shut is just a willingness to sacrifice our children on the altar of reagan democrats.

with?

What part of "RttT" do you find wonderful?

What part of union busting do you find helpful?

What part of privatization of the public schools do you find enlightening?

This isn't legislation. This is arne's army attacking schools with the power Obama gave him by making his erstwhile point guard the Secretary of Education. arne failed in Chicago because he knows nothing of how learning takes place. But rather than learn, he has enlisted the president to blame teachers for his failure.

Are you an educator?

or his administration take part in?

What part of RTTT says to privatize and/or that a state must partake?

I don't think this person will vote for Romney but which of the two would make life overall worse?

Obama is not perfect but Romney is evil. I would suggest a person should vote against evil and let it go with that.

I don't get the need to brag about not voting for Obama.

Nor is she "bragging".

I am one of the thousands of stunned teachers, and life long Democrats who was amazed by the actions taken by the current Democratic leadership in the war against teachers. I was one of the teachers who was fired, then rehired at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.

Without warning, bad evaluation, or cold reasoning I was made the pillar and brunt of national jokes and political finger wagging.

The greatest hurt came when this president, on national news, commended the “bravery” of the superintendent when she fired the entire staff of the high school.

Without knowledge or background on the extreme level of poverty, crime, or lack of funding, President Obama called me a bad teacher.

realized how counter-productive it is.

She'd be the first one to tell you what she used to believe.

reform would lack any tolerance for others who do.

over the issue of Obama supposedly not supporting teachers?

You accused Ravitch of being intolerant. Now you bring up Obama??

You lost me.

more carefully.

appointee and worked for conservative foundations?

well-known by educators.

and?

are you saying she's some kind of republican plant?

the republican plan for education is basically the same as the democratic plan, just with vouchers.

Obama.

As do you, presumably?

you read as 'support'.

i read your assumptions as a kind of bullying.

if i post a story about a man who killed his family & himself because he couldn't pay his mortgage, is that also 'support' of such acts?

your objection is with the posting of the story at all.

I read your post as trolling. Ho hum.

We get the message. The democratic party doesn't need teachers in it. We're supposed to sit down, shut up, or get out.

Where do they factor in?

I support teachers. But I don't support Romney.

Your support for teachers is crystal clear in your posts.

Bye.

on Rahm?

Just his positions. And bill bennet's positions on education. And grover norquist's positions on education.

But it is good that you don't support romney.

* I don't support NCLB, or any form of teaching to the test or taking money out of public schools.

* I don't support Romney's lies about Obama closing down a union plant in Wisconsin. Or his lies about Obama being anti-worker.

* I don't support so called "school choice" because it takes money from public education to pay private, religious institutions. If there were "choice" without taking from public schools, I might change my mind.

I do support helping schools where students are failing, by having after school tutoring programs etc. I support teachers who must be overwhelmed with trying to educate children in poverty, often with no help or encouragement from some, perhaps overwhelmed parents.

Romney would abolish the public school system if he had his druthers. He wouldn't add funding via RTTT, he'd cut funding.

a trojan horse, not 'extra money'. in fact, the money has to be used to implement education deform.

What is education "deform"? Also, what is your solution to helping schools who fail students?

1. No barriers (e.g. in state law, union contract positions, etc.) to linking student testing results to teacher & principal evaluations
2. Implementing a longitudinal tracking system that fits the grantors' designs
3. Increasing charter schools & the system of closing/turnaround/firing supposed 'low-performing schools" and teachers
etc.

http://www.learningpt.org/recovery/RaceToTheTopSummary.pdf

The conditions states need to meet just to *apply* for RTTT money *speed up* what bush did. and not all applicants get the money -- and if they do, large chunks of it go to implementing the new requirements (like developing the data system), not to classrooms, not to improving student education, just to developing this huge centralized testing/monitoring system which has the goal of firing lots of teachers, closing public schools, and converting them to charters, selective enrollment, etc.

There are no absolute 'solutions' to helping failing students, as the reasons for 'failure' are so varied and manifold.

But here are my priorities:

1) More jobs, more decent-paying jobs. If you want poor people to behave as middle class folks do, let them join the middle class. People who think some 'training program' can transform people who live in insecurity, violence, denigrated by society into little middle class clones absent any of the economic/structural supports to that mindset are delusional. Parents need decent paying jobs and respect, not the constant drumbeat telling them they are defective (which imo has huge psychological and social costs)

2) Smaller classes, decent facilities, staffing & supplies. Doesn't have to be 'state of the art' but has to be functional and adequate for the population of student. A computer lab with 5 computers in which half are out of commission at any one time doesn't cut it.

3) Real violence reduction programs in schools disrupted by violence (which means sending the small portion of students mainly responsible to alternative programs). Safety is a huge issue for low-income parents and it can ruin even the best schools.

4) Actual decent jobs for graduates to enter. Why sit through school if it doesn't lead to anything better for most kids?

5) an end to the teacher-bashing, an end to high-stakes testing but for entrance/exit, and an end to privatization.

6) nothing wrong with common national standards, but they should not be decided by a small group of national elites, and they should not fill the entirety of the school day. local schools need flexibility to teach to *their* students -- because -- as the education deformers keep yelling publicly -- one size doesn't fit all.

7) nothing wrong with experimentation in methods, etc. -- but that experimentation and innovation can be done in local schools and districts and shared with colleagues elsewhere within the democratic, *collegial* culture of public schools, not *forced* on schools by elite think tanks.

8) end the cycle of 'reform' in which every 5 years or so teachers are expected to adopt the latest thing from the whiz-bang kids only to go on to the next 'big thing' 5 years later, neither of which have any serious results. IT'S DISRUPTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE.

I'm sure teachers could contribute even more thoughts. Which is my main point: LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO SPEND ALL DAY IN THE TRENCHES INSTEAD OF TREATING THEM LIKE CRIMINALS & IDIOTS.

"States that do not have public charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top Fund"

If you don't have a charter law or your law caps charters, you won't get the money. Don't bother to apply.

RTTT is a trojan horse for education deform.

Regarding your priorities:

6) Agreed. Sadly, the high stakes testing is part of the reason that charter schools and alternative education is considered by many parents.

CHARTER SCHOOL IF THEY ARE PUBLICLY FUNDED HAVE TO DO THE SAME TESTING. Excessive testing is part of the education deform plan, MANDATED by the education deformers, it's not something parents are trying to escape by going to charters. That tracking system RTTT MANDATES is about tracking TEST SCORES, MORE AND MORE TEST SCORES, FROM PRE-KINDERGARTEN TO COLLEGE, what did you think it was for?

7) Agree for the most part, though I don't wish to limit experimentation to public schools.

Private schools are ALREADY quite free to experiment. What I am against is calling privatization of public schools & diversion of public monies "experimentation". There's nothing charters do that can't be done within the existing paradigm of public schooling. NOTHING. AND BETTER.

8) I think we need to experiment and find out what works best in given conditions. We need a scientific approach to addressing the needs of individual students. For example, what schools in high poverty areas are succeeding? Why are they succeeding? What schools have improved? How did they improve? ... The fact that many schools are not serving their students, has to be addressed somehow.

There is at least a hundred years of research. To call for more 'research,' to pretend we don't know the score, is bullshit.

Schools with a high percentage of students in poverty in a culture with significant barriers to getting out of poverty do worse. That has ALWAYS been true, it's true in other countries, it will ALWAYS be true.

There is no royal road to improving education outcomes for all except by improving economic outcomes for all, & I'm sick to death of the hypocritical pretense that there is.

Not saying *you* are a hypocrite, saying that the people designing these policies are.

charter schools. It means you can't prohibit them.

CHARTER SCHOOL IF THEY ARE PUBLICLY FUNDED HAVE TO DO THE SAME TESTING. Excessive testing is part of the education deform plan, MANDATED by the education deformers, it's not something parents are trying to escape by going to charters. That tracking system RTTT MANDATES is about tracking TEST SCORES, MORE AND MORE TEST SCORES, FROM PRE-KINDERGARTEN TO COLLEGE, what did you think it was for?

STATES NO LONGER ARE BEHOLDEN TO NCLB CRITERIA AND CAN OPT OUT AND CREATE THEIR OWN SET OF STANDARDS. Failing schools can also simply demonstrate improvement vs. demand every student pass a federally mandated test.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20110710-503544.html

Private schools are ALREADY quite free to experiment. What I am against is calling privatization of public schools & diversion of public monies "experimentation". There's nothing charters do that can't be done within the existing paradigm of public schooling. NOTHING. AND BETTER.

Then, your position should be demonstrated, ultimately. Though, I don't see much interest among public schools in radical change. I know of only one local school that adopted an alternate model within the school. This was a brainchild of a long time principal. When he left, so did the philosophy he employed.

There is no royal road to improving education outcomes for all except by improving economic outcomes for all, & I'm sick to death of the hypocritical pretense that there is.

Huh?

Not saying *you* are a hypocrite, saying that the people designing these policies are.

I think we agree on more than you know. I am opposed to teaching to the test. And, I am also proponent of educational experimentation and freedom within the public schools. I oppose weakening teachers unions and support adequate funding for smaller class sizes etc.

vs. can not prevent the creation.

"This you" pertains to the citizens of a given state, who apply for RTTT funding.

2. (Charter schools don't have to take state/federal mandated tests).

Who made this claim? *I* didn't.

No. You're confusing several things. 1. RTTT didn't exempt states from NCLB.

Sorry, I didn't say RTTT exempted states from NCLB, I said the administration did. RTTT is voluntary. NCLB was not.

If your feelings about education are as stated, I would encourage you to look a little more deeply into what's actually happening, because you, like most of the public, have been misinformed.

It isn't I who created false positions to argue against.

charters ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM HIGH-STAKES TESTING, which is the point under discussion.

I never claimed charters weren't exempt from many of the requirements public schools are. I claimed they weren't exempt from state/federal testing requirements.

RTTT applies the same standards to charters as NCLB, yes, that's true. Another way RTTT is a continuation (& intensification) of the Bush education policies, not a break with them.

This is NOT something 'educators' wanted, unless by 'educators' you mean the Gates gang and its minions.

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act deal with many of the same issues and have many of the same goals, but their approaches are different.

One provides incentives for schools to change, the other mandates it.


1. Same goals (= destruction of public schools & privatization)

2. Incentives v. mandates.

NCLB = mathematically a certain percentage of schools will 'fail' every year & be subject to closure, firing of teachers, charterization, etc.

RTTT did not remove these mandates until 2011-12, AND ONLY IN EXCHANGE FOR SIGNING ON TO THE SAME PROGRAM MANDATED BY NCLB.

A distinction without a difference.

I thought you actually wanted some information.

I see that was BS and you're just pumping the party line.

No impartial observer can look at RTTT or Obama's education policies and see 'incentives'. They're all mandates (FORCED CHOICES) when it comes down to actual practice. WHICH IS WHY NO STATE HAS BEEN ABLE TO ESCAPE THEM.

Byee.

to run into supporters of President Obama, at a website for Democrats and all.

My deepest sympathies.

or get nasty about it.

the facts speak for themselves.

You don't speak for all teachers. Further, teachers A) disagree on various issues and B) generally care about more than a single issue.

I vote for others, and our country as a whole, not simply for me. I would hope that any educated person does the same.

Contrary to what the wastes of meat that have been stumbling around in Birkenstocks since 1964 think, not voting does not "send a message," it just removes your voice from whatever's going on. It's less than non-productive, it's actively counter-productive.

Vote third party if you really gotta. Better yet, run for office yourself. But "don't vote" is about the most useless sentiment that could possibly be conjured in a democracy.

I just can't for Obama any more than I could vote for Romney.

It's no different than standing by someone you know who is going to kill and not doing anything to stop it. This person has just as much blood on her hand if Romney wins as any voter who cast their ballot for that asshole. Look, she's got to do what she's got to do - but let's not pretend she isn't a Romney supporter. Anyone who doesn't vote Obama is by default a Romney supporter. It's pretty simple.

Obama's actions are evil, Romney's are evilER.

When choosing between the lesser of two evils, you are still picking evil in the end.

Some of us cannot do this and we are not "bragging" because we make this point.

place to visit than DU?

I simply expressed my view. You are free to disagree.

Why should I leave because you don't like what I say?

supporters.

Let's get this right out in the clear.

nt

you are doing helluva job of winning hearts and minds with your bullying.

I thought it was yours. Huh.

you wanted your party to win the election, not to turn people of by being obnoxious bullies. I though that was the role reserved to the other party.

to lose. Interesting, isn't it?

I may assume you support murder and torture?

eom

Sure, both parties (at least at top leadership levels, if not at the grassroots level) now officially suck on edication policy, but there are many, many other Repuke policies that will fuck her over in a way she hasn't imagined yet.

to cut SS and Medicare/Medicaid as well.

Romney is slightly to the right of Obama, both are WAY right of center. Hell, arguably, they are both to the right of Nixon. (Oh, and under the Obama interpretation of illegal wiretapping, Nixon didn't do anything wrong. Who knew?)

So, it's OK if he betrays us, as long as he does by neglect/omission rather than overt action?

--that cutting lifeline programs after campaigning on defending them that 2014 will make the results of 2010 look like a massive Dem victory. You'd have to assume that Obama wants his legacy to be accomplishing not a damned thing from 2015 to 2016.

I had misgivings about Obama back in 2008. I wanted Gore to run (not the 2000 version, the 2002 version). And while Edwards made all the right noises, I could never forget the fact that he refused to meet with his anti-war constituents in 2003.

That left Obama.

To me, he was yet another "right-wing centrist" who pretended to be liberal. Back then people swore to me that his hedging on issues, his weasely use of words, was just cover until he got into office and could swing left and fulfill all my dreams. So, with heavy heart I voted for him.

And he won.

And I took great joy in the fact that in my lifetime, my country had elected a black man president.

Then he immediately started shoving folks with my views out the door, appointed a whole bunch of Bushies and Wall Street cronies, invited the insurance companies to craft the health reform deal, and it was business as usual.

Yes, the President did sign some good laws, but he seldom, if ever, went to bat for them. He let other people do the heavy lifting, then jumped in when he was sure the bill/policy would pass (See DADT for a prime example).

So, fool me once...

But I am totally clear on who it was that put Geithner in his position as Secretary of Treasury, re-appointed Ben Bernake, stuck Monsanto clones into every single agency and higher position over the food source and GM issue, and appointed a Catfood Commission that has me stockpiling catfood.

It's the fifteen trillions of dollars in give aways by Bernanke and enabled by Lil Timmy that are putting us on the road to austerity, with the Big Banks lining up to claim gobs and gobs of more Bailouts even as I type this. Obama said in 2008 "There's nothing we can do to avert Economic Calamity but give in and do Bailouts," and he'll do that again, as he works for Geithner and Bernanke and not the other way around.

I also understand what it means that Obama let over 500 billions of dollars in cuts be handled by making those cuts apply to the providers of MediCare services (Big hint - if providers, who haven't been paid all that well for twenty years, have to take any more hits, there won't be any more providers.) This provision was hidden away in the 2,300 plus pages of the Affordable Health Care Reform Act, 2009. (There was this really bright guy running for President back in 2008 who said he would see to it to make all Acts of Congress transparent and readable - no more lengthy bills. But he disappeared somewhere along the line.)

I don't believe this story, as written.

The president just went on national tv (actually clips from his speech to the US Chamber of Commerce) to support the central falls firings by saying this:

“If a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teachers to find a solution. We’ve got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements. But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability.

And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests — 7 percent. When a school board wasn’t able to deliver change by other means, they voted to lay off (fire the entire)… faculty and the staff.

As my education secretary, Arne Duncan, says, our kids get only one chance at an education, and we need to get it right,” he concluded.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-americas-promise-alliance-education-event


Mr. Obama’s remarks about Central Falls high followed Duncan’s statement of praise last week for the “courage” that Rhode Island Education Commissioner Debaorah A. Gist and city school Suprintendent Frances Gallo showed in “doing the right thing for kids.”

http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/no-obama-endorsement-this-july/


Here's the video of the entire speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/helping-america-become-a-grad-nation

and here's how it played on the nightly news:

given Duncan isn't running for higher political office.

picked education secretary, a long-time personal friend, and one of the architects of chicago's renaissance 2010, the model for obama's education policies.

duncan speaks for obama's education department and obama's policies. which are the policies that were the *direct* cause of the firings in rhode island.

distinction between Romney and Obama. For example, doesn't the teacher in question, care if her present and former students have access to health care?

insurance plan in MA.

The two candidates' health care & education plans are remarkably similar, which possibly makes her believe that there is no one to vote *for*. and possibly she's not interested in voting for the lesser evil again.

is not similar to keeping it.

There are so many issues that affect all of us in this election. I'm scared to death about what Romney will do to the Supreme Court. Plus his victory will strengthen the tea party and they're a much bigger threat to teachers and education than Obama is. They're ruining public schools in my state. It's devastating.

Edit to add . . . My vote doesn't count anyway since I live in a very red state. So I'm focusing on local and state races and trying to avoid worrying about the presidential election. I'll let you know how well that strategy works.

See my post above for a short list of the issues we have been betrayed on.

The SCOTUS is already lost, and was lost in 2005-2006 when the Vichy Dems refused to filibuster Alito and Roberts. Obama's appointments have been to the right of the justices they replaced, so the court continues to swing right.

I intend to vote in down ballot races, but Obama has made it impossible for me to vote for him.

I find the whole damn issue depressing. I wanted to believe in him. I wanted to see my cynical suspicions disproved. But he started his term by disowning the liberal wing of the party who helped elect him.

Fool me once....