Is Obama Toast? Is Hillary Waiting in the Wings?

Last Update: Tues. Aug. 31, 10am.

When Obama was elected we posed the question: Would he be a Herbert Hoover or an FDR? Well, now that this question has been answered, the next question is: Will he be a Herbert Hoover or an LBJ?

I know a lot of people are comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter - a sitting president who lost in a re-election bid as opposed to LBJ, a sitting president who chose not to run.

Carter, who I have a lot more respect for than most people do (his energy policies), was caught in the midst of the gas crisis, the Iran revolution/hostage situation, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which many think was the nail in the coffin for the Soviet Empire. Hmmmmm, serious irony here in that under Reagan, the Taliban and Bin-Laden were enabled in the cause of defeating the Soviets.

So let's look at the deterioration of Obama support to the extent that it looks like he has no chance to be re-elected. And I should remind you that he only won with 53% against a weak, under financed candidate saddled with at the time a nincompoop VP candidate running for a party that had destroyed the American economy in the midst of two horrendous wars.

The economy, stupid
We have a double dip recession or even a great depression coming. Remember that the 1929 crash was a precursor to the real heavy stuff that came in 1932. So in essence we are somewhere in 1931. As a student of history who studied the Great Depression I was always worried about another one but felt the laws put in place in the 30's would protect us. Naturally, they stripped them all away in the 90's - yes, Clinton helped it along.

I've always felt deflation is a real threat and even a few months ago when I brought it up in family discussions with my wife's family - a polite term for screaming all out wars - they laughed. Yet, you hear the word being mentioned more and more, especially by Paul Krugman. See his July column The Third Depression.

Keep in mind, if not for the financial crisis that broke a few months before the election Obama may not have won or if he did, it would have been by a hair. By 2012 it will be Katy Bar the Door time.

Political gridlock - total inability to address the issues
Today Krugman, a Nobel prize winning economist who always manages to convince me, does politics. In "It's Witch-Hunt Season"  he truly takes apart the Republican game plan - no matter who the Democratic president is. He reminds us of the endless waste of time over White water and blue dresses. But he points out in the 90's the economy was humming. When the same thing happens after the Republicans take power in the House and or Senate and investigate everything Obama does, including whether he uses too much toilet paper, we will be in beyond gridlock territory.

So what will happen if, as expected, Republicans win control of the House? We already know part of the answer: Politico reports that they’re gearing up for a repeat performance of the 1990s, with a “wave of committee investigations” — several of them over supposed scandals that we already know are completely phony. We can expect the G.O.P. to play chicken over the federal budget, too; I’d put even odds on a 1995-type government shutdown sometime over the next couple of years.

It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we can’t afford to have a federal government paralyzed by an opposition with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re likely to get.

If I were President Obama, I’d be doing all I could to head off this prospect, offering some major new initiatives on the economic front in particular, if only to shake up the political dynamic. But my guess is that the president will continue to play it safe, all the way into catastrophe.

Organizing ability now goes to the right
And let's not forget the ability of the Republicans and far outers to organize their base through the tea party movement. Thus, the vaunted Obama organizing has been copied and trumped by the right while his organization has been dissipating. They claim they are using the Aulinsky tactics of the left to disrupt and take control of meetings and the political process. They are certainly outflanking the center and left in every way.

A perfect storm
Obama is facing a perfect storm. Bad economy and possible depression (Hoover). Bad war (LBJ). Republican constant assault (Clinton). The gulf disaster. Plus these factors:

Alienation of Obama base
Add alienation of his own base, especially rank & file teachers, who I predict will be extremely reluctant to drag themselves out to actively support Obama (they may vote for him reluctantly but won't go to Allentown, Pa. on a Sunday morning like I did in 2008) no matter how much their union leaders threaten them with Palin or Beck or whatever flotsam ends up being the 2012 Republican candidate. Reality Based Educator who blogs at Perdido Street School expresses the level of outage at Obama that the ed deform movement has engendered, though he goes much further when it comes to Obama economic policy.

Obama/Duncan Ed Deform Policy

When so many people on the ground in education condemn the RTTT policies with such vehemence, everyone who gets it - and these numbers are increasing daily - begin to question other Obama policies. If he can this so wrong on issues we know, what else is he screwing up. Economy? War? Environment? It becomes a laundry list of failing confidence. Notice how this is the one area that the Republicans are in total agreement with the Obama policy despite the fact that it imposes the feds on what has historically been local rights over school policies. Pretty hypocritical. Why aren't the tea parties screaming about this? Libertarians are more serving of anti-unionism than of some principal of local control when push comes to shove.

Wall Street/Financial Money Dries Up

Obama 's victory in 2008 was fueled by the financial disasters brought on by Bush which brought vast disaffected financial monies into the Obama camp. Much was made of the Obama campaign ability to outflank McCain. In 2010 and 2012 the situation will be reversed.

Loss of the Jews

In 2008, Jews supported Obama 70-30. Those numbers have been reversed, mainly due to the perception he is anti-Israel (which is totally untrue.) So Jewish money, organization and votes will desert Obama from now through 2012. Think Florida.

And then there is Afghanistan - and Iraq

Obama takes credit for leaving Iraq -which gets some support from the left. If Iraq totally blows up again and the 50,000 American troops still there start coming under assault of some kind, look for people to accuse him of going backwards

Afghanistan is bound to come undone and that is Obama's war. So think Tet Offensive in VietNam and its aftermath. Around March 1968 Johnson, realizing he can't win, announces he will not run in the 1968 elections and will instead work for peace.

Predictions

Given that just about everyone agrees that the midterms will be a disaster for Obama - just how bad is what is being discussed - and even Democrats are abandoning him - similar to what Republicans did with W in 2008 - Obama will be dealing with an ungovernable, vastly polarized nation where he will be helpless to take action.

Obama faces primary challenge, or pulls out altogether: Enter Hillary
As it becomes clear that under no circumstances - even with Palin as Republican candidate - can Obama win in 2012, pressure builds in the Democratic party for him to stand aside to save the country from Palin. If he refuses, look for a Eugene McCarthy type primary challenge to Obama from the left - or also someone from the Dem right. Who knows anymore?

At this point, people are pleading with Hillary Clinton to come in and save the party and the nation. Could she pull a Bobby Kennedy and actually enter the primary?

If all this happens, the concept that history repeats itself will be written on every lamp post in the nation.

After Burn

GEM's Angel Gonzalez is in Puerto Rico for the month and look at all the trouble he is causing. As  many of you may know, Angel's best pal is Puerto Rican teachers union president Rafael Feliciano and has been in the middle of the fray. Angel checks in with me every few days and he has loads of video, pics and reports on the strikes and job actions.

What a Union Can Do: 'Hey Barack!... Race to the Top Is a Crock!'

MAKING FOR A VIBRANT UNION:


IN THE 2ND ARTICLE, NOTE THE HEALTHY INTERNAL DEBATE IN CORE, SOMETHING THAT CAN NEVER HAPPEN IN UNITY IN NYC. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THE UFT LEADING SUCH AN ACTION?

But then remember- CORE is a caucus within the Chicago Teachers Union - the caucus that runs the union but not the union. There is an important difference and it looks like they know what they are doing.

Organized by CORE, Chicago teachers and others protest Obama's education policies during August 5, 2010 Chicago visit

Sharon Schmidt - August 07, 2010
Substance - http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1583&section=Article

Chicago's Labor Beat covered the CORE demonstration against Race To The Top during Barack Obama's visit to Chicago and has produced another video scoop covering a major Chicago story. This time, the Labor Beat video is covering the August 5, 2010 protest during Brarack Obama's fundraising visit to Chicago.


Part of the protest against President Barack Obama's education policies picket the Chicago Cultural Center on August 5, 2010 while the President spoke inside at a Democratic Party fundraiser. Substance photo by Susan Zupan.In addition to showing the large and militant protest against President Obama's policies during the President's recent Chicago visit, the video features a speech by teachers Nate Goldbaum (editor of the CORE newsletter) and Carol Caref discussing what is wrong with "Race To The Top."

"You're not going to fire your way to good schools..." says Caref, responding to an editorial that appeared in the Chicago Tribune that day, criticizing new CTU President Karen Lewis for demanding due process for teachers who have been declared "unsatisfactory" by often corrupt principals.

To view on YouTube, readers can cut and paste the following into their browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM_WqraHAsU

The Labor Beat introduction to the video follows:

"As President Obama spoke inside Chicago's Cultural Center on Michigan Ave. on Aug. 5, 2010, outside a group of Chicago Public Schools teachers and other public workers protested. They were demonstrating against the Race to the Top (RTT) policies that Obama (and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) is pushing nationally in dismantling public education and attacking teachers unions. The demo was organized by the Caucus of Rank And File Educators (CORE, coreteachers.org) and also attended by CTA workers. 6:30 min..."

Teachers, other workers protest President Barack Obama's 'Race to the Top' during President's Chicago visit on August 5, 2010

Substance Staff - August 05, 2010
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1582&section=Article

More than 100 teachers organized by CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) protested the visit of President Barack Obama to Chicago on August 5, 2010. The teachers assembled with picket signs at the Chicago Art Institute and then marched down Michigan Ave to the Chicago Cultural Center, where Obama was speaking. Signs read criticisms of Obama and his education plan.

Teachers were not the only people protesting. They were joined by anti-war activists and other union members, including some from the Chicago Transit Authority who had previously been under attack from Mayor Richard M. Daley and current Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman (who was President of the CTA until Daley appointed him to the CPS job in January 2009).


Nate Goldbaum, a Chicago elementary school teacher and editor of the CORE newsletter, spoke to the August 5 crowd outside the Chicago Cultural Center while Barack Obama was featured at a Democratic Party fundraiser inside. One of the signs read: "Hey Barack! Race to the Top is a Crock." Substance photo by Susan Zupan.The plan for the protest was approved unanimously at a CORE meeting at Chicago's Operation PUSH headquarters on July 26, a week earlier, and was implemented by CORE members while the caucus was undergoing reorganization. After a lengthy debate, CORE members (more than 100 of whom were at the July 26 meeting) voted unanimously to protest during one of the fundraising parts of President Obama's visit. The CORE members defeated suggestions that the protests be held at President Obama's Chicago home, which is four blocks from PUSH in Chicago's Hyde Park-Kenwood community.


Members of the protesting groups march on the sidewalk on the Michigan Ave. side of the Cultural Center on August 5, 2010. Substance photo by Susan Zupan.Following the July 26 decision, there was heated debate about who should protest and how much the protest should denounce Obama's education policies (as opposed to just discussing the policy called "Race To The Top").


The group first assembled at the Art Institute of Chicago at Michigan and Adams Streets. Then it marched (above) to the Chicago Cultural Center at Michigan and Randolph three blocks to the north. Substance photo by Susan Zupan.Obama's Race To The Top is being viewed by a growing number of people as an attack on public education, while the demand that public school districts across the USA embrace charter schools, a form of privatization, is highly controversial.

CORE distributed hundreds of copies of a factsheet (above) downtown during the August 5 protest. The leaflet distributed by CORE not only outlined problems with the President's education policy, but also explained the situation in Chicago, where CORE leaders, now serving as officers of the Chicago Teachers Union, are facing off against Chicago Board of Education attorneys. The Board is demanding concessions from the CTU.

Prior to his election as President of the United States, Barack Obama was an Illinois State Senator and United States Senator from Illinois. He was elected President in November 2008. One of his first cabinet appointments was to designate the controversial Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan to be U.S. Secretary of Education. Duncan began serving in January 2009, and by the summer of 2009 he had published the basic elements of "Race To The Top", which bore a strong resemblance to the failed "Chicago Plan" for so-called "school reform." 

The Verdict is in: Obama is NOT FDR - How About Hoover? Or LBJ?

A Hooverville from the 1930's

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

Some think of this as a hackneyed expression.

I live by it.

(Actually, Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," a statement that can be applied to world and personal histories.)

As a history major in undergrad and grad school my sense of current and future events is rooted through links to what I understand about the past. Having studied the Great Depression of the 30's, I have always been worried about The Big One hitting again, probably one of the reasons I have always been very fiscally conservative waiting like some spinster for deflation to strike once again.

But all those years I was reassured that it couldn't happen again - Glass-Steagall and all that stuff, you know. But with the complicence of the free-market Democrats - Clintons and the rest of the skunks - in the 90's, and the Bush/Chaney crew this century, we may be getting into the same territory.

I monitored the lost decade and beyond in Japan. How the nikkei - the Japanese Dow - was once close to 40,000 in the late 80's and is less than 10,000 today. People in Tokyo were walking away from their highly priced apartments as the real estate market crashed.

When the crisis here hit in 2007/8 and the market tanked, followed by a supposed recovery, I was remembering my history lessons. That after the 1929 crash, the market rebounded. The full depression didn't hit until 1932. So by my accounting, we are somewhere in 1930 or 31.

So whenever I get into big political arguments - mostly with my wife's family, many of whom will vote for Sarah Palin over Obama no matter how much they protest - and they talk about coming threats of inflation (Obama will just print money they say) - I always say I'm holding onto my cash - or rather continue to sleep on whatever I can stuff into my mattress.

I'm a very big fan of Paul Krugman, who always makes sense to me and Monday's column (The Third Depression) made a lot of sense. He is predicting that with the world-wide retrenchment in lieu of stimulus spending, we are headed for what he calls the third really deep depression. He feels that the deficit can be solved while a deflationary spiral cannot. He reminds us that as the FDR spending spree began to bring us out of the depression in 1935/6, FDR was worried about the Republican attacks for the 1936 election and was also convinced it was time to deal with the deficit. So spending was cut- and whammo - right back into the much by 1937. It took WWII to bring us out of it.

When Obama was elected in the midst of an economic crisis - the major reason he won - I wrote:

Will Obama turn out to be a great president or a failure? An FDR or a Herbert Hoover, who had an even lower approval rating than W? It could go either way. When you think of great presidents, they seem to emerge only in times of crisis. Think there are just a few lurking? FDR ran for president with a very different agenda than he ended up enacting due to desperate times. He showed the kind of flexibility that was needed. Policies that had a major impact for generations.

The only thing I have to fear is fear of Obama's dependence on the same old, same old Clinton people, who come out of places like Goldman Saks when we need some truly radical thinking.

Well, that THAT question has been answered and we know he is certainly no FDR. If Krugman proves to be right, Obamavilles will spring up all over the nation - similar to those shantytowns of the 30's (there was one in Central Park). At least Obama is calling for more stimulus spending, so he will not be looked at in the same exact light as Hoover, who was fiscally conservative.

Obama may be more LBJ than Hoover: Will he run in 2012?
In addition to the possibility of a depression, we can't expect a war to bring us out of it. Because we are in a war. And have been for 9 years. A war that is doomed to fail. Vietnam-like quagmire, anyone?

LBJ was elected overwhelmingly in 1964 and was viewed as a shoo-in for 1968. Let's view the 2012 election in that same light.

Obama is much weaker than LBJ at a comparable time after the election. We are still in 1966 territory. So let's project this scenario:

• Democrats get smashed in 2010 mid-term elections.
• We sink into economic crisis ala Krugman.
• The war gets worse and worse as Obama removes some troops for political purposes and body bags accumulate. The right attacks him for being weak. The left is totally disgusted.
• It becomes pretty clear he cannot win in 2012.
• Sarah Palin kicks Mitt Romney's ass all over the place and looks to be a real possibility to be the Republican nominee.
• Rampant fear races through the nation at the prospect she will be president.
• Enormous pressure is put on Obama to withdraw.
• Hillary Clinton comes to the rescue and becomes the Democratic nominee.
• Election 2012: Palin vs. Clinton.

How much more fun can a politcal junky have?

That is if you are observing from your new residence in Canada.

Obama Admin Connected to Anti-Teacher Union Ads?

I got a call from a retired teacher yesterday asking for ICE. He said he had done some research on the anti-UFT ads and traced them to some Obama administration operatives. Here is the email he sent me as a follow-up.

Re: keepgreatteachers.org. ads against seniority.

It appears the Obama administration or its operatives are behind these ads.

1. The phone# 212 561-8730 for this org. belongs according to the White pages Dunn Squier and Knapp Squier(home phone).

2. A google search of Dunn Squier results in Squier Knapp Dunn Communications info on its merge with Knickerbocker SKD to form SKDKnickerbocker.

3. Management includes William Knapp, Anita Dunn and Stefan Friedman.

4. Anita Dunn was Obama's communications director for his Presidential campaign.

5. According to Wikipedia, Anita Dunn is married to Robert Bauer who is Obama's personal attorney.

6. The home page of the communications firm is: WWW.skdknick.com. Check out the management info to verify info above.


Who will you support for president in 2012?

Click pics to enlarge

ICEers Pass the Info: Goldstein at Gotham, Fiorillo On Obama, Lawhead on Charters, North on New Orleans Privatization, JW Emails

Ok, so I all too often wax poetic about my ICE colleagues. But the fact that so many thoughtful, independent voices work with ICE is meaningful to me. That they have a wide range of interests and play a major role in sharing information is what differentiates ICE, more than a caucus bit an education tool.

Make sure to check out ICE HS Ex Bd candidate, Francis Lewis HS CL Arthur Goldstein's brilliant piece at Gotham Schools. http://gothamschools.org/2010/02/11/the-kids-nobody-wants/

ICE stalwart JW and Ex Bd candidate at-large sends outamazingly informative emails on a regular basis which I post on Norms Notes. Get on her list. See her last 3: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/


Michael Fiorillo, also an ICE candidate for HS EB always goes deep an dug up this interesting factoid: Check out Adolph Reed on Barack Obama, circa 1996 (!!)

"In Chicago we've gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation- hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous to repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program, the point where identity politics converges with old- fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics."

Best,
Michael Fiorillo


John Lawhead, Tilden HS CL and our third HS EB candidate along with Fiorillo and Goldstein attended last night's Cyprus Hills charter school hearing, spoke and took pics. See them at GEM.
John sends this one: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/11/charter_study

Study: Charter Schools Increasing Racial Segregation in Classrooms Encouraged by the Obama administration, efforts to expand the number of charter schools are being organized around the country. But concerns are being raised about the system. We speak to UCLA’s Civil Rights Project co-director Gary Orfield about a new study that suggests charter school growth is increasing classroom segregation. [includes rush transcript].


Lisa North, ICE-TJC candidate for one of the 11 UFT Officer positions, sends this along from Lance Hill at Tulane:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf

This is an excellent publication on privatization and government prepared by the Congressional Research Service. It's definition of privatization places charters and vouchers clearly in the privatization category. I think that it is crucial in the debate on school reform to not allow charter advocates to obscure their free market theory theoretical foundation with the use of the word "charters" (Fannie Mae was not a "charter" mortgage company--it is a privatized public service).

The author defines privatization as the use of the private sector in the provision of good or service. Private sector is defined as any non-government entity, including non-profits, religious organizations, and volunteer groups. The heart of the definition is that with the transfer of services comes, to some degree, a transfer of power, i.e. the public loses some measure of control over the service.

I find it very useful that the author, Kevin Korsar, lists the preconditions of free market benefits to prevail, such as that the consumer has to have full knowledge of the quality of the service or good in order to make rational choices. Rational consumer behavior is what brings about efficiency in the market; consumers use services that deliver the most for the least cost. Thus, when we transfer a government service to a private entity (and non-profits are private entities by his definition) we have to have complete transparency, e.g. school operators can't hide special funding that gives them a temporary advantage in the market--which drives out better operators and results in inferior products.

Even food consumers have that kind of transparency necessary for free markets to produce the best product for the least cost: every can of beans has to list it's nutritional qualities on the label so that consumers can make rational, informed decisions on which brand is the best buy. In contrast, charter schools are not bound by that kind of transparency; they don't have to advertise test scores, low school evaluations, accurate teacher-student ratios, etc.

Competition breeds marketing and, as the author points out, while government does only what the law permits and proscribes, private entities may do whatever the law does not forbid. While we are in the midst of a revolution in cognitive science and neuroscience that is making tremendous advances in our understanding of how humans learn, little of this has made its way into the charter reform movement. Free market forces favor marketing over science.

I also like his notion that only government has the common weal at interest (ideally). Private entities, be they profit or non-profit, are driven by narrower goals such as profits, organizational mission, and bureaucratic self-preservation (no one likes putting themselves out of a job, even if they are doing a bad job.)

The issue at stake in New Orleans is privatization, not "chartering." To properly evaluate the charter reforms, as well as the privatization of teacher recruitment (TFA), we need to know the underlying "process change theory." In this case, it is privatization. Understanding the underlying change theory will help us understand the potential benefits and dangers of the reform strategy and how best to measure it against alternative strategies. As we have seen locally, when we privatize teacher recruitment, we lose the government's mandate for equitable employment with respect to race and age.

That outcome was a predictable outcome of free market theory emphasis on lowering overhead costs. The exclusion of special education children from charter schools was also a predictable free market outcome of the tendency of private entities to reduce services to increase profits or to operate within a limited revenue stream. BESE's mandate forcing charters to enroll special education students reflects their understanding that they, as an elected body, had to compensate for the narrow goal focus of privatized groups.

"Which activities are essential to the state and should remain directly accountable to the elected representatives and which may be carried out by the private sector." That's the central question of the public education debate. Children are not municipal services, like garbage collection or parking- fine collections. Bad schooling affects children for a lifetime and can consign them to a life of despair. Education is ultimately a social service that affects the equitable allocation of future resources. To what degree can we safely surrender accountability to the public in this realm?

So, I would propose that in the public debate on charter schools, the following definition is the most useful:

Charter schools are publicly funded schools operated by private businesses or non-profit organizations.

Hence the debate in New Orleans, on both school operation and teacher recruitment, is a debate on the privatization of public services. If the experiment in New Orleans succeeds in bringing about excellent and equitable education, then privatization deserves the credit and the theory can be replicated elsewhere. If it fails to achieve better and equitable outcomes for the same inputs, then privatization, as a theory of educational reform, must be reconsidered.

Lance

Foreign and Domestic

For my School Scope column in the October 16 edition of the Wave, www.rockawave.com.

By Norman Scott

The day after Obama’s election, working on my column for the Wave, I posed the question, “Will Obama turn out to be a great president or a failure? An FDR or a Herbert Hoover, who had an even lower approval rating than W? It could go either way. When you think of great presidents, they seem to emerge only in times of crisis. Think there are just a few lurking? FDR ran for president with a very different agenda than he ended up enacting due to desperate times. He showed the kind of flexibility that was needed. Policies that had a major impact for generations.”

“The problem I have had with Republicans is that they are driven by a narrow ideology that has helped put us into this mess. Like if you breathe government action, you are a socialist. But when it takes forms of socialism to bail out millionaires, why go right ahead. It was this sort of thinking that led to handing over billions to banks that should have had the requirement to be used as loans to free up credit but instead is being held onto by banks to buy other banks. One day soon we will have only 3 or 4 banks in this country. The only thing I have to fear is fear of Obama's dependence on the same old, same old Clinton people, who come out of places like Goldman Saks when we need some truly radical thinking. Bill Ayres, where are you when we need you?”

Well, almost a year later, it’s looking a lot more Hoover than FDR. Now don’t get me wrong. This is no tea-bag right wing criticism of Obama. I am coming from the far left, which has been just as critical. When the Republicans went after FDR’s radical (at the time) call for things like social security, he laughed at them and organized his core supporters in a form of class warfare (even though he as from the upper class) and became the most loved president by working people ever. Instead of following in FDR’s footsteps, Obama has kowtowed to his critics. For those of us itching for a class warfare fight, it is sickening.

Obama’s education policy is even worse than Bush’s as he supports all the evils that we have seen here in NYC as a result of the BloomKlein policies.

On the economy, Obama seems to have sided with the banking class that got us into the mess. Goldman Saks seems to be running the country – and making billions. Worse for Obama has been the rising unemployment rate. Remember the Hoovervilles – tent cities of homeless that sprung up all over the country between 1929 and 1932? Tampa recently rejected a Catholic charities proposal to create a tent city for the homeless. They didn’t call it Obamaville, but that is coming soon to a tent city near you.

How fast can you say “President Sarah Palin?” I’m already looking for a safe haven, like a condo in Kabul. Speaking of which….

Let’s talk Afghanistan

I must venture into foreign policy here before the raging debate on Afghanistan gets totally out of hand. First, a little historical perspective. Before Bush invaded after 9/11 that country had a rough stretch – of around 2000 years. Well, certainly 200 years. Take a look at a map of where Afghanistan sits. Iran on the east, Pakistan on the west and south and a bunch of small states that were part of the Soviet Union. The British controlled India/Pakistan until 1949 and ended up fighting 3 wars in Afghanistan to protect these areas from Russia. Every one was a disaster, with an entire British army being wiped out in the 1841. The more you look at history the more you can blame British colonial policy for many of the problems the world faces today as they created many artificial nations ignoring tribal realities. Can you spell I-R-A-Q? Add Palestine/Israel, India/Pakistan and the entire Middle East.

The Soviet Union took a crack at Afghanistan in 1979 when the Afghan government asked for help against a Mujahideen Islamist revolt, which was supported by Muslim nations, including Pakistan, while the government was supported by Pakistan’s enemy, India. (The results of those British colonial machinations again.) President Carter punished the Soviets by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and started sending aid to the rebels. But when Regan took over, he went much further, sending a great deal of support to the Mujahideen in an attempt to undermine the Soviet empire. The nine-year war really did in the Soviets and was instrumental in the ending of the Cold War. But watch out what you wish for. One of the people the Regan administration supported was a guy named Osama bin Laden and that led to the rise of Al Qaeda.

One of the strengths of the Taliban in defeating the Soviets was the moral imperative of fighting an incredibly corrupt and lawless government. With all the horrors they brought to the table, the Taliban also created such a harsh environment, the crooks and rapists couldn’t operate. All the Taliban did was cut off the heads of girls who wanted to go to school.

Now, jump ahead to George Bush and the post 9/11 invasion. Instead of focusing on solidifying Afghanistan and dealing with Pakistan’s support of Al Qaeda, he invaded Iraq, while leaving Afghanistan in the hands of one of the major crooks, Harmid Karzai. The “defeated” Taliban went back to work and “Voila”, 8 years later (one year less than the Soviet fun time in Afghanistan) we have the major pickle we are in.

Think back to Vietnam in the 60’s, with a fraction of the population and land area of Afghanistan. Our ally in South Vietnam had a corrupt and ineffective president. The CIA solution was to have Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated on November 2, 1963, an assassination approved by Kennedy. Three weeks later, he was dead himself. Remember, we pumped in over 500,000 troops. Estimates are that we would need at least double that in Afghanistan, not the measly 80,000 the military wants now. No matter how many troops end up there, the problem is Karzai and his band of merry thieves. That gives the Taliban the moral high ground. I wonder if the Obama administration sometimes doesn’t think of the assassination option as a “solution” to that part of the problem. No matter what they decide to do, all options lead to disaster – lose/lose no matter what Obama decides to do. No one wants see the Taliban in power again, but it may be inevitable given the lack of an effective Afghani government forever. (Hey, maybe they could use Mayor Mike running the country?) The question on the table is whether to also lose thousands of American lives and untold billions of dollars and still lose the war.

But no matter what, let’s never forget that this no-win position is a result of the Bush disaster. And no matter how bad the Obama presidency gets, I wouldn’t go backwards to a Bush-like Presidency for anything. But I’m afraid that’s exactly what will be happening in 2012. Hmmm, maybe I can get a deal on a condo in South Waziristan.

Arne Duncan, Segregationist?

Would the first African-American president appoint as an education secretary someone who has led Chicago backwards in terms of integration and percentage of black teachers being employed? George Schmidt has some answers.

Chicago, under Arne Duncan, has finally begun the job it was unable to do back in the days when Al Shanker (in the name of "standards") was sustaining an ethnic cleansing of the teaching force in New York City.

As you know, Chicago was always an anthesis to New York inside AFT. By the 1970s, Chicago had an enormous base of black teachers, and black leadersip at all levels within the Chicago Teachers Union. By the mid-1980s, that leadership was across-the-board. Jackie Vaughn was CTU President, and with massive support from unionized black teachers (and some others, like us here at Substance) Harold Washington had become mayor. By the time Jackie Vaughn died in 1994, the number of black teachers in Chicago's public schools nearly equalled the number of whites (with "other" gaining). By the end of the 1990s, white teachers were in the minority in the teaching force, and the majority of people working (in union jobs) in Chicago's public schools were black.

"School reform" in Chicago has been a sustained attack on those gains for black people. But, like other bourgeois attacks (especially of course the Jim Crow South under the Dixiecrats, the old "Solid South") on unionized workers, the entire class suffers when these divisions take hold.

The most grotesque thing about Barack Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan to be U.S. Secretary of Education is not (as some including former CTU president Debbie Lynch) that Duncan is "unqualified," but that Duncan has successfully led the ethnic cleansing of Chicago's teaching force (via privatization) while simultaneously ignoring Brown v. Board of Education and all federal desegregation rules (including Chicago's deseg consent decree) in a white supremacist way that would have been unthinkable at any time between the 1960s and the dawn
of this century.

1. Chicago has purged the teaching force of 2000 black teachers and principals since Duncan took over in 2001.

2. Chicago has created a segregated separate privatized school system (the charter school system of more than 80 "schools" and "campuses") since Duncan took over in 2001. That school system would be the second largest school system in Illinois were it made outside CPS.

Needless to say (especially for those of us who supported Barack Obama from "back in the day" when we first met him as an Illinois State Senator), the appointment of a segregationist privatizer and union buster to run the Department of Education is more than a bad sign. It's a clear indication of the struggle we will face in the years ahead.

Reading the entire thread about the Kahlenberg book, Sean's take on the underlying lie of 1969, and the Hirsch attack on Norm and Vera*, I'm hoping in the coming months there will be time and space to make a few of these points coherent in the pages of Substance and to our broader audience. Sean's points are among the most important, especially from the point of view of Chicago history.

And, as Sean notes in his material about 1968, our ability to counter a Big Lie with facts will continue to be challenged. After all, it's only been 40 years since "Ocean Hill Brownsville". And that Big Lie still holds central sway, not just because it's being repeated now in "Tough Liberal."

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

*NY Teacher Reporter Responds to Our Shanker Book Review

Related: Duncan's Last Move: Close 25 Schools

Send a message to Obama about the need for smaller classes now!

Posted at:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2008/12/send-message-to-obama-about-need-for.html

But worth repeating in full. Note mention of Andrew Rotherham: Instead of class size reduction Andy "wants to require that this critical funding be spent on more experimental and controversial programs, that are supposedly 'high leverage' – like teacher performance pay and Teach for America." Yep, that's Andy. Let's throw anything that smells of market-based ideology against the wall and see if it sticks (don't worry, it won't.)


Obama’s transition team has a website, with proposals for his administration to consider that were suggested by members of the public.

Please, go now and vote for smaller classes -- you can also leave a comment on the website. According to his transition team, "the top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.”

The first round of voting to determine the top three ideas in each category will end tomorrow, December 31 – so there isn’t much time! Why is this important?

Recently, there has been an unprecedented attack on class size reduction at the national level by policymakers, bloggers, business leaders and foundations, despite the fact that smaller classes are one of the few education reforms that have been proven to work, according to the research arm of the US Dept. of Education, and that also have widespread support among parents and educators.

In a recent report, Andrew Rotherham, an influential inside-the-beltway blogger, has proposed that school districts no longer be able to use their federal Title II education funds for this purpose – despite the fact that about half of all districts currently invest these funds in smaller classes. Instead, he wants to require that this critical funding be spent on more experimental and controversial programs, that are supposedly “high leverage” – like teacher performance pay and Teach for America.

In support of his opposition to class size reduction, he cites not a single research study (because none exists) but an oped published in the Daily News last year, written by Robert Gordon, a consultant employed by Joel Klein and another inside-the-beltway policy wonk, who trashed public school parents for their “class size obsession”.

Like Joel Klein and Jim Liebman, Gordon is an attorney with no experience as an educator or researcher. Yet both Rotherham and Gordon are being promoted by the charter school privatization and testing crowd to receive top-level appointments in an Obama administration.

Their attacks on class size have been joined in recent opeds by conservative commentator, David Brooks of the NY Times, who wrote that small classes were a “superficial” reform, compared to “merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards”, and Lou Gerstner, former head of IBM, who baldly stated in the Wall St. Journal that class size “does not matter” and is pushing for the abolition of all school districts (along with more merit pay and testing.)

The most powerful man in education circles today, Bill Gates, who intends to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the newest flavors of the week, including -- you guessed it -- more charter schools, testing, and merit pay, recently joined in on the chorus, attacking class size reduction in a prominent speech,

So vote for smaller classes here, if you would like Obama to consider supporting class size reduction and more school construction. Help him resist the loud but clueless voices of the DC education policy establishment.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/class_size_reduction_in_our_public_schools

Please forward this message to others who care, and Happy New Year.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters