Why you don’t need the Trib. News of the day: National standards//Shirley Sherodd//Immigrant dreams.
Laura came to America as a 1 year old baby on Independence Day. Since then, she has finished high school, graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and become an advocate for her right to contribute to the country.
Arne Duncan is a cliché factory.
Take this quote from this morning’s NY Times:
“I’m ecstatic,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. “This has been the third rail of education, and the fact that you’re now seeing half the nation decide that it’s the right thing to do is a game-changer.”
He got “third rail” and “game-changer” into one sentence. What? He couldn’t fit “Civil Rights Movement of our time,” “even playing field,” or “where the tire hits the road” in there too?
There is much to be said about the common core and national standards movement. Not much of it good. And we will say plenty over the next months. Alfie Kohn already has:
The top-down, test-driven, corporate-styled “accountability” movement — featuring prescriptive state standards — has already done incalculable damage to our children’s classrooms, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Just ask a teacher. It’s no coincidence that the most enthusiastic proponents of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, etc., tend to be those who know the least about how kids learn. And now they’re telling us that a single group of people should shape the goals and curriculum of every public school in the country.
The racist right-wing echo chamber slandered Shirley Sherrod.
Obama knew it was a lie (or should have) and fired her anyway.
Andrew Breitbart is a millionaire right-wing blogger who works with Fox News. He was part of the gang that went after ACORN last year and won. Now he and Fox did a number on US Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod.
It was all lies. Obama knew but fired her anyway.
UPDATE: Obama Press flack Gibbs apologized to Sherrod. Ag Secretary Vilsack offered Sherrod a job in the USDA. But they look like fools. And they are. Reports are that the deputy chief of staff for Obama praised Vilsack for canning Sherrod. And compared to the way they ignored Tim Geithner’s tax troubles but rushed to judgment on Sherrod just adds to the air of foolishness.
Immigrant students risk deportation. They were arrested for sitting-in in DC to demonstrate support for the DREAM ACT.
Yesterday in Washington DC, in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, students dressed in graduation caps and gowns were handcuffed and led away by Capitol police.
These students were staging a non-violent protest in support of congressional action on The DREAM Act. If you don’t know by now, the DREAM Act would allow undocumented students to either go to college and earn degrees and would receive the opportunity to officially become citizens.
The arrest threatens them with deportation.
Illinois Democratic Senator Richard Durbin condemned the students as publicity seekers.
A spokesman for the Illinois Senator said,
Sen. Durbin believes that we will win this fight on the merits, not through public demonstrations or publicity stunts.”
