One More Reason to Hate Wal-Mart (and Football)

What do Wal-Mart and football have in common, aside from being huge and tedious? Apparently they are both confusing to Grebes when the skies are cloudy and the terrain is snowy.

Thousands of Small-Eared Grebes, duck-like water fowl, mistook a Utah Wal-Mart parking lot for a body of water as they migrated south toward Mexico last week, according to Discovery Blogs. However, the birds also mistook football fields and other snow-covered areas of southern Utah for lakes and ponds. In all, about 1,500 of the birds were killed in the incident.

Pragmatism Beats Out Occupy and Bunga Bunga for Word of Year

Merriam-Webster is calling “pragmatic” the word of the year, saying there were more searches for this one word in 2011 than any other word, including “occupy,” according to the Daily Mail.

Congressional Super Committe (by DonkeyHotey)

 Searches for the term “pragmatic” spiked this past year when Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling and when its super committee tried to slash the deficit. This I found curious considering that the word “pragmatic” is far more useful, comprehensible and, one would think, more well-known than the words “deficit” or “debt ceiling.” But maybe Americans’ attention and curiosity glazed over once they got past the “pragmatism” that was being imposed on them by their rulers. Perhaps that was all they needed to know, that those who truly understand these things were simply creating a logical solution to incomprehensible problems, and that was good enough!

That “pragmatic” beat out “occupy” will surely be a disappointment to the 99%, who are certain that they truly are the 99% and that their favorite tactic, ”occupying” should therefore have received 99% of the votes, while “pragmatic,” which is clearly what the 1% want the 99% to be, should have only received 1% of the votes. This paradox may best be explained by the 99%’s confidence that they all know what they’re talking about already when they say they are “occupying” this and that. Therefore, the 99% don’t need to look up the word “occupy.” In contrast, as members of the 99% who are subject to the “pragmatism” being imposed by the 1%, they felt inclined to do a little homework and make sure that this “pragmatism” business really was in their best interests.

(Image from Flickr, Boris.rasin)

 While the 99% are all certain that everyone understands the term “Occupy,” and are now using the term for most anything they want to change—Wall Street, Wal-Mart, Department of Education, internet, Republican minds, couches, Sesame Street—they seem to forget that their own government—which is to say, the 1%—has been “occupying” Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade, not to mention Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Samoa for much longer. So, if we add together the occupations being carried out in the name of the 99% and those being carried out by the 1%, it would seem that everyone is occupying or being occupied.

Apropos (which, alas, was not one of the contenders this year) to ending military and imperialist occupations, two of my favorite pieces of political graffiti from the 1980s were: “U.S. out of America,” and the variant “U.S. out of my reproductive organs.” There were, of course, some nationalistic feminists in those days, one of whom spray-painted the following on a San Francisco wall: “Free Tampons, Not Kuwait.” Inspired by these retro-slogans, I would like to suggest some new slogans for the 2010s like: “Free Time, Not Markets!” or “In A Classless Society We Are All the 50%!”

This double use of the term “occupy” to mean something good that “the people” do to resist the “bad governments” that “occupy” other nations for “bad reasons,” reminds me of the term “collaborate,” which is supposedly a good thing that good teachers do to help their students, even though it is also a terrible thing that the Vichy government did to help the Nazis. Both “occupation” and “collaboration” can lead to repression, brutality and death for innocent people. In fact, the terms are quite connected in that occupiers rely on collaborators to help them achieve their goals. The Palestinian Authority has acted as a collaborator with the Israeli government in the suppression of the Palestinian people. The mainstream trade unions have acted as collaborators with the capitalists to ensure that working people stay on the job and accept compromises and take-backs that keep profits high and salaries low. Scabs collaborate with bosses to undermine strikes. Spies and informants collaborate with the police and military to undermine activist groups like OWS.

Teacher “collaboration” is a funny thing. The notion of a bunch of professionals sitting down together to brainstorm solutions to educational problems, develop innovative curriculum, and discuss the issues and needs of shared students certainly makes a lot of sense and seems worthwhile. However, the term “collaboration” in the context of education is a fraught, poorly defined and often abused term. It is commonly used to mean “embrace what I say and what I’m doing and graciously assist in it, whether or not you agree.” Teachers who ask too many questions, who point out logical inconsistencies or who critique reforms and policies are often accused of being “bad collaborators.” Teacher evaluations generally include how well they “collaborate,” a subjective observation that can be used to punish teachers who aren’t cheerleaders for the reform du jour.

Charlie Sheen Has Tigers Blood (image from Flickr, by Ssoosay)

 Speaking of collaboration, what could be a greater collaboration than that between Hollywood and the public? Hollywood provides billions of dollars’ worth of mindless garbage for our consumption and we not only consume it hungrily, but stalk their stars’ every move, no matter how pitiful. Take “Tiger’s Blood,” another top contender for word of the year—a term I had no idea was now in the popular vernacular. I had to look this one up, being the out-of-touch OG (old guy) that I am and was delighted to discover that it came from a Tweet by Charlie Sheen. Tiger’s Blood, it seems, is what runs through his veins, somehow making him impervious to addiction (and likely contributing to both his inflated ego and his stupidity). The fact that this word went viral and was even considered for word of the year is testament to how desperate the American people are for a distraction to their miseries. Wetting oneself over royal weddings and scandals is pathetic enough, but following every ridiculous tweet by drunken Hollywood bottom feeders like Charlie Sheen??? Come on, people, get a life!

Speaking of getting a life, I would like to humbly (or humblebragly) request that those esteemed billionaires who seem to know so much about how to do my job, kindly eat feces and die. Yes, “humblebrag” was another top contender. According to Urban Dictionary, it means to subtly let other people know how fantastic you are by doing it in a self-deprecating manner, or self-promotion of the most despicable and loathsome sort, generally delivered via social media. An example of a “humblebrag” would be if I posted the following to my blog or Twitter feed: ”As everybody knows, teachers all come from the bottom one-third of their graduating classes. So the 4.0 GPA I earned was nothing compared with the 12.0 GPA’s earned by the overachievers at my university.”

Would Anyone Care To Bunga Bunga? (Berlusconi caricature by DonkeyHotey, flickr)

 My vote for the word of the year, however, has to go to an antiquated, but very evocative term that made a recent comeback. “Bunga bunga” dates back to 1910 or earlier, according to Wikipedia. However, it grew in popularity last year when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi used it to refer to his infamous orgies. Wikipedia says that “bunga bunga” may mean an underwater orgy, an African-style ritual performed by naked women for male spectators, with pole dancing and competitive stripteases by women dressed as nurses and cops. My guess is the term is a variation on bung or bunghole, as in having one’s head in the bung or “Whoops, Silvio’s stuck his tongue in the bung again.” Or, as Gargantua recited to Grangousier at the tender young age of five (In Rabelais’ political satire): 

Thy Bung

Hath Flung

Some Dung

                --On us

Why I Hate Charter Schools

Educational Cash Cow? (Image by the kirbster)

The California state charter school association just received a $15 million grant from the Walton family with the goal of adding 20,000 new charter school students in Los Angeles and 100,000 statewide, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) already has more charter schools (183) than any other school district in the country and is poised to add many more with the infusion of funds. And the corporate education vultures are already circling, hoping to grab a piece of the carrion.

My niece once asked me why I am so critical of charter schools and I suppose now is as good a time as any to answer her question:

Let’s start with the funding. Why is it that the Waltons have $15 million to give away to private entrepreneurs so they can start private schools funded by taxpayers, but nothing for traditional public schools?

The Waltons are worth $26 billion, according to the latest Forbes 400 list, making them the 10^th wealthiest family on the planet. They benefit from some of the lowest personal and corporate tax rates in history, a taxpayer giveaway that not only increases the wealth gap, but starves states of revenue that could be used to improve public schools. Instead, the Waltons can wave their fingers at the “failing” public schools, and appear like generous saviors when they give away a tiny fraction of this wealth to private charters.

Charter schools are often created, funded and run by private corporations with the primary goal of turning a profit, even if that comes at the expense of school safety, supplies, curriculum, pedagogy and teachers’ working conditions. In order to turn a profit, the funding they get from school districts, the state and philanthropies must be greater than their expenditures. In order to make this happen, they generally pay teachers less than district schools pay. However, they also often cut back on academic resources, equipment and infrastructure.

Charter schools receive funding from the districts in which they operate, yet they are allowed to follow different rules than traditional district schools, with less oversight by parents, teachers and community. This sucks money away from districts at a time when they are seeing declining revenues from states and local property taxes. They can (and often do) cherry pick students who they think will perform better on standardized tests to boost their image so they can attract investors and new students. Many push out or block special education students and English Language Learners from enrolling. Traditional public schools must accept all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity or physical or mental ability.

Charter schools are used as a wedge to justify the defunding of traditional public schools. As the state of California and city of Los Angeles continually cut education funding, charter schools continually receive large infusions of cash from billionaires like the Walton Family, Eli Broad and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, making them seem more appealing to parents who are frustrated with the crumbling, underfunded traditional schools. As their children transfer from traditional public schools to charters, the public schools lose even more funding, since their funding comes from the state on a per pupil basis, thus further whittling away at their viability.

Charter schools are an ineffective solution to the pseudo-problem of failing schools. First, there have been several studies that indicate that charter schools do not perform any better than traditional public schools and many perform much worse. However, it is also simply untrue that we have a failing education system. What we have is a failing socioeconomic system in which a tiny minority is allowed to possess the overwhelming bulk of the nation’s wealth, while millions are allowed to live lives of privation, want and misery. This is particularly true for children, who are bearing the brunt of the recession. In California, for example, 25% of all children live in families that are suffering food insecurity. Poverty is the single most significant factor in determining academic success (see here, here and here). If we want to end the achievement gap, we must end poverty and close the wealth gap.

Charter schools are exempt from closed-shop policies that exist in many school districts, allowing them to hire nonunion teachers at lower wages. This is not only abusive to their own teachers, but it places a downward pressure on district and community wages, too, as the percentage of higher wage district jobs are replaced by lower wage charter school jobs. Charter schools also tend to hire less experienced teachers and place greater demands on them than other district schools, resulting in higher rates of attrition.

Because charter schools typically operate without union contracts, employees can be fired much more easily and arbitrarily, even for trivial issues like having a political bumper sticker or because an administrator dislikes a teacher’s hair style. This increases the likelihood that teachers will go along with ill-conceived school policies, even when they undermine student success or safety, out of fear of being reprimanded or fired. We can presume that the teacher whistle blowers who spoke out against cheating administrators at Crescendo schools in Los Angeles were particularly courageous. However, they were also unique in that they were members of United Teachers Of Los Angeles (unlike the majority of LA charter school teachers) and had union backed due process protections.

As the number of nonunionized charter schools increases, the percentage of union jobs decreases, thus weakening the labor movement and the collective strength of workers. This is significant not only in terms of the downward spiral of wages, but also in terms of the ability of teachers to fight for the best academic conditions for their students. For example, when teachers unions fight for safer working conditions, they are necessarily fighting for safer learning conditions for students, as well. When teachers unions win higher wages, they make it easier for their districts to hire and retain the best teachers, since teachers will want to work and remain at jobs in which they are well paid.

It is no coincidence that the Waltons are big backers of charter schools. Wal-Mart opposes unionization of its own business and has vigorously resisted organizing efforts at Wal-Mart stores. The same is true for Gates and Broad, the other largest backers of charter schools and privatization. The Times notes that roughly 60% of the state charter association's annual $15-million budget comes from the Michael and Susan Dell, Bill & Melinda Gates, Fisher and Broad foundations.

In other words, the charter movement is largely a billionaire-funded cash cow that has much more to do with corporate profits and union busting than the improvement of educational outcomes for children. Even Goldman Sachs, hedge fund managers and other Wall Street financiers have been getting in on the game, not just for the potential profits to be made, but also to take advantage of the lucrative New Markets tax credit.

Supreme Court Sides With Wal-Mart--Surprised?

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wal-Mart in a sex discrimination class action lawsuit affecting 1.5 million current and former female employees seeking billions in damages. Democracy Now called it a major victory for corporate America.

Should we be surprised?

Of course not.

The Supreme Court was just carrying out its mandate. It and all branches of government were created to protect the property rights of the richest and most powerful members of society (See Kids May Not Know Democracy, But They Know A Bum Deal When They See It). The Supreme Court, specifically, has a long and sordid history of ruling against workers’ rights, safety and wellbeing. However, the current Court has been particularly hostile to labor.

What is our recourse as workers?

We can continue to try to use the courts when necessary. Occasionally they rule in our favor (more often in the lower courts.) However, there is no substitute for direct action. It is the only effective tool labor has to defend its interests. Effective direct action, though, requires an organized, educated and militant workforce, something that currently does not exist in most industries because the unions have largely abandoned this tactic in favor of litigation and campaign financing. For example, in many teachers unions there are no full-time organizers within the locals who meet with teachers on a regular basis. 

Organize! Educate! Agitate! Mobilize! Strike!