On 11/7/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Let me point to at least one error in your argument, Carl. In thisThanks for the feedback, Roger. Incidentally, my initial
message you claim that everyone is in either of two classes, the ruling
class or the ruled class, but at the same time you point to examples of
people who are not in the ruling class but still hold power and
privilege over others. Like I have said before, when classifying
anything you can be a lumper or a splitter. How much you lump or split
should depend on what your purposes are. Also, as I have said before,
you could split to the point that each and every person could comprise a
class because everyone has some advantage or disadvantage when compared
to others. However, there is usually little point in splitting that much
unless you are a psychologist dealing with individual psychology. The
other extreme is lumping to the point that you say that there are only
two classes. I think that tends to overdo it too. It might be useful in
certain rabble rousing aggitational speeches, but even then if you want
your listeners to join you in any kind of economic analysis you have
started right out by confusing them. I think that the social and
economic system is a class system that is layered and it is well to
recognize the layers. In some cases some different layers can and should
unite to do battle against a common enemy in an even more powerful
layer, but that does not make the uniting layers the very same layer.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is
likely to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our
powers of wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the
one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter
our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which
we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes
is true from what he has good reason to believe. The methodology isn't
perfect, and the history of science is riddled with abject failures of
scientific objectivity. But that is just the point-these have been failures
of science, discovered and corrected by-what, religion? No, by good
science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/7/2020 12:21 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Well said, Frank. But the "over simplification" was intentional.
In suggesting that we live in a two class system, I have divided
Americans into "The Takers" and "The enablers". Or we might say, the
privileged and the providers. But whatever we call them, it is the
Ruling Class and the Rest of Us.
All of your points are valid, but all apply to either One Ruling
Class, or One Support Class. This Support Class has allowed itself to
be sub divided and turned on one another. We are even directed away
from the fact that the Ruling Class is also divided among themselves,
but unites enough to maintain control over the Empire. Either we
belong to the Ruling Class, or we belong to the Masses of Americans
who enable the Ruling Class to rule over us.
Just because my dad wore a tie and a white collar, and worked in a
cozy office, did not mean he supported the Ruling Class any more or
less than the men in the shop, inhaling the grit and sweating in the
heat and wearing the blue collars. The high school superintendent who
sets the curriculum that meets the desire of the Ruling Class is no
more a part of that Ruling Class than is the school janitor.
Who decides that the school principal is worth five times the worth of
the janitor? Who teaches us that a production manager is worth more
than the mechanic whose job it is to keep the production line moving?
Or than the person at the end of the production line who bags the
finished product?
And who fights every time workers call for an increase in wages or an
increase in fringe benefits? And who is it that steps to the fore and
helps turn such requests into fights among the workers and the bosses?
We live in a two tier, two class system. A system that is in the
shape of a tall pyramid with only the very tip consisting of the
Rulers. We call our government a democratic Republic, but we are no
more a democracy than the old Soviet Union which was ruled under
communism.
And, until the American People educate themselves, and understand that
we are as much of a enslaved people as are the Chinese or the Saudi
Arabians, we are doomed to continue serving our present Masters.
Oversimplification? Yes. But show me the error in my argument.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/6/20, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Oversimplification senor Jarvis. Today's corporate caste system hasWell said, Frank. But the "over simplification" was intended.
multiple
layers.
1. The lowest class, the welfare class. This class exists to provoke
anger
in the next class up to distract them from the real enemy.
2. The working class. This class is the numerically largest and provides
the
labor and fodder to keep the upper classes well fed. This class is
constantly one bad health diagnoses or one missed paycheck from complete
ruin which effectively means sliding back into class 1. That is such a
big
fear of this class that their anger is misdirected at class 1 and thus
away
from the upper classes.
3. The middle class. This class thinks they are comfortable because they
live in comfortable homes, with some minimal care, and a modest savings.
This class views classes 1 and 2 as parasites so they use their money
and
energy to vote for ever increasingly right wing rulers. This class
strongly
believes that they are being threatened by muslums, blacks, Mexicans,
Hispanics, lesbians, gays, terrorists, teens, and rock and roll. This
class
moves the political goal posts by constantly giving up more and more
rights
in a mistaken belief that it will protect them from all of those
aforementioned boogie-men.
4. The knights of the kingdom. This is traditionally the blue plague
with
the badges, guns, and iron steeds. A second tier of this system is the
citizen militias that are so in vogue. This class exists to keep the
aforementioned classes inline by terroristic means. In return this class
is
gifted with the right to be free from obeying the same rules that they
are
tasked to enforce on the rest of us.
5. These are the warlords. Yes Virginia these are the party bosses,
mayors,
governors, congressmen and even presidents. They provide the Knights
with
the weapons they need to keep us inline. In return they are granted a
false
sense of power, a salary that is less than the average state trooper, a
smattering of porn stars, diplomatic immunity when they tour outer
sublimia
and fancy mansions with famous street addresses.
6. The one percent. These are the very few who reap the profits of all
of
the subordinate classes. In various times in history they have been
called
many things from captains of industry, to robber barons, to the
illuminati.
No point in naming names because they exist in a world where that isn't
important as they can take on any name, location, and persona they
choose.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 1:27 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: BAD LEADERSHIP IS PLUNGING PUBLIC SCHOOLS
INTO A CRISIS
I just skimmed this article.
What Donald Trump and his Betsy Bobble head don't tell the American
People,
is that we hold different expectations for the children of the wealthy
families than we do for the common folk. The "True American First Class
Citizens" are provided a top grade education, spare no expense. These
will
be the future leaders and top corporate execs.
The Working Class and what some call the Middle Class need only basic
education, enough to enable them to follow orders and do the drudgery
labor.
This separation of the Classes speaks to why I continue to talk about
America's two class system. The small ruling class, and the rest of us.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/4/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
BAD LEADERSHIP IS PLUNGING PUBLIC SCHOOLS INTO A CRISIS By Jeff
Bryant, The Progressive.
November 3, 2020 | EDUCATE!
Above photo: President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos attend a roundtable on reopening schools at the White House on
Aug. 12, 2020. Shealah Craighead, courtesy of Flickr.
COVID-19 Exposed How Important Teachers Are To Students And
Families-It's A Shame That School Leaders Still Won't Listen To Them.
Michael Barbour, a professor at Touro University California and an
expert on
K-12 online learning, believes that more than half of the nation's
school superintendents "should be fired."
His blistering criticism stems from the fact that, deep into the
2020-2021 school year, many schools are still struggling with virtual
learning during the pandemic.
Stories of school districts' online learning systems crashing are
widespread. Teachers complain about not being included in decisions
about online curriculum and pedagogy. Alarming numbers of students are
not engaged or not showing up, especially in low-income areas and
among communities of color.
The chaos is especially concerning given that 76 percent of parents
say their children are attending school remotely, either full time or
part time, according to a recent nationwide survey. Moreover, a
majority of parents,
54
percent, think that improving online learning is more important than
figuring out how to reopen schools for in-person instruction.
"Any school leader who didn't reach out to teachers to ask what had
worked well and what didn't, and then use that [to prepare for the
fall reopening], committed a dereliction of duty," Barbour tells me,
recalling the moment when schools closed suddenly in spring 2020.
"After all, we knew this was a pandemic . . . not a one-time thing."
Barbour's ire might be justified. According to a survey of California
school superintendents conducted by EdSource, less than 10 percent of
school districts in that state offered more than sixteen hours of
training for teachers during the summer, when schools could have been
preparing to reopen with online learning.
"School district leaders spent so much time over the summer trying to
create reopening plans that would meet safety guidelines for classes
inside school buildings that they had little time to focus on
improving online academic offerings," Hannah Natanson and Valerie
Strauss warned in The Washington Post in August.
Improving remote learning, many experts agree, would have meant
creating spaces for teachers to collaborate and share models of
effective online instruction and lesson planning. And more time and
resources should have gone into providing teachers who were struggling
with better coaching and support.
Validating the experts, a nationwide analysis of teachers's working
conditions in the spring of 2020 conducted by Brown University and the
City University of New York found that, because of the challenges of
pivoting to remote learning, teachers experienced a "sudden and large
drop" in their sense of professional success. However, teachers were
"substantially less likely" to experience this decline when they could
"depend on their district and school-based leadership for strong
communication, targeted training, meaningful collaboration, fair
expectations, and recognition of their efforts were least likely to
experience declines in their sense of success."
But the report's authors found teachers experience a wide range of
working conditions,with many falling in the "low" and "medium"
situations, and they call for changes in "the organizational
conditions that make teachers' work and students' learning possible."
"The disregard of teachers' shared professional expertise and
practical knowledge is no accident," wrote Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz in
commenting on the debacle of fall school reopenings.
D'Amico Pawlewicz, who is an education reform and policy historian at
the University of North Dakota and author of the book Blaming
Teachers, argued that policy leaders' lack of attention to teachers
"reflects the way that, instead of treating teachers like other
American professionals, society has long blamed them for the failings
of
schools."
This disregard for teachers is all the more galling given that
2018-2019 witnessed the #Red4Ed wave of teacher rebellions, where
educators-mostly in politically red states-held sickouts, walkouts,
and mass street demonstrations to protest a lack of funding, attacks
on teacher professionalism, and continuing threats to close and
privatize public schools.
The teachers' actions were ultimately beneficial for themselves and
their students, resulting in increased teacher pay, promises of
smaller class sizes, and more nurses and counselors in schools. Their
protests also proved democracy was still alive and kicking in a
country descending into authoritarianism.
But during the pandemic, when support for teachers would seem to
matter most, their wisdom has too often been overlooked.
What might policy leaders have learned if they had listened?
"In the spring, we had to come up with creative ways to support our
families," Milwaukee educator Glenn Carson told me. Carson, along with
other Milwaukee educators I spoke to, described an intense effort to
deliver devices and hotspots to homes, learn new technologies, and
conduct family outreaches. They also said they stitched together a
safety net of food delivery, health care, and social and emotional
services for families hit hardest by the virus.
Needing to find creative ways to fill in the gaps left by school
districts'
lack of preparation seems to be a shared experience among teachers
across the country.
"I built a website where students and families could get daily lessons
and messages from me," Henry Jasso, a third-grade teacher at Dona Ana
Elementary School, near Las Cruces, New Mexico, tells me. "We met
daily online to touch base with one another and played learning games
together."
"I video recorded my lessons and arranged one-on-one virtual meetings
with students," says Kathy Dorman, a high school teacher in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Teachers and school principals found "innovative ways to serve their
students," the National Education Policy Center reported in the midst
of the growing contagion and pointed to organizations, including the
Learning Policy Institute, the Network for Public Education, and Local
Progress, that documented how teachers responded to their communities'
needs.
This is not to say that everything went swimmingly.
Online learning has never been as effective as in-person classes,
according to numerous research studies. The fact teachers had to so
quickly go virtual made that mode of instruction even more
challenging, especially for low-income, Black, and Latinx students.
Additionally, special education advocates reported that at least seven
million students with disabilities and learning impairments were being
left behind due to school closures.
And a joint analysis by New Common Sense and Boston Consulting Group
found fifteen to sixteen million students had no reliable internet
connection.
Yet, despite the downsides to the spring experiment with online
schooling, parent surveys conducted in the summer found that most
"gave their children's schools high marks."
Similar to nurses and other frontline workers, teachers were lauded as
"heroes" performing an essential role despite difficult circumstances.
One would think, then, that the process for opening schools in the
fall, regardless of the delivery format, would have put teachers and
their needs at the center of the effort.
But in all fairness to school superintendents, policy leaders higher
up the chain of command have also completely failed schools, teachers,
and families.
In August, Dana Goldstein, an education journalist for The New York
Times, highlighted how state and local governments were allowing bars
and restaurants to reopen while leaving local school leaders to
"figure out the details of running schools during a public health
crisis largely on their own."
Other education reports and experts pointed out the same. "The chaos
can be laid squarely at the feet of government leaders who have
provided little direction or financial support for schools," wrote
journalist Liz Willen and Sarah Garland, The Hechinger Report's
executive editor.
Even Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education during most of the Obama
Administration, fretted about this in New York Magazine: "The fact
that we've had such horrific leadership . . . . It's like we saw this
tsunami coming and we just stood there and let ourselves be drowned."
When Congress passed a coronavirus relief package with $13.2 billion
for schools, it was widely acknowledged that the one-time payment was
insufficient to meet most schools' needs. It was not enough to, for
example, pay for free broadband access and laptops for students, hire
more teachers and school staff, and overcome school budget cuts
enacted by or expected from state and local governments.
Yet President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Senate spent months
doing nothing. In fact, Trump threatened to cut the funding of schools
that didn't open with full-time, in-person instruction, something he
legally can't do.
Education secretary Betsy DeVos, after trying unsuccessfully to direct
more of the federal government's financial aid to private schools,
abdicated her leadership responsibilities completely by declaring that
she doubted her department has "a role" in collecting data on
school-related infection rates.
Trump's careless tweet to "OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!" also overlooked the
concerns of most parents and teachers.
When New York City opened with in-person learning, the only district
in the nation's ten largest to do so, only 26 percent of the system's
1.1 million students attended in-person classes. When the American
Federation of Teachers surveyed teachers in June, 76 percent said
they'd be comfortable going back to school if key safety precautions
were put in place. In September, when teachers saw the lack of
leadership to reopen schools safely, that figure plunged to 14 percent.
Certainly, the lack of funding and guidance from government leaders
has put school leaders in a bind. But most of that discomfort trickles
down to teachers who are hit the hardest. And now, in schools that
have decided to reopen in-person (either full-time or partially), 88
percent of teachers have to purchase their own personal protection
equipment, and 11 percent buy it for their students.
Of course, public education is not the only American institution where
the pandemic has exposed leadership failures.
But an essential lesson of the pandemic is its tendency to strip down
complicated social relationships to their essentials. People have had
to start making decisions based on what is physically safe, how they
can have access to staples like food and transportation, and whether
or not they can still have a job.
What the pandemic revealed about public education is that schools have
become the essential safety nets for families, that access to
education services is grossly inequitable, and that the education
process at its very core is about the relationships between teachers
and
their students.
If education policy leaders want to improve the way they run schools
during a pandemic, maybe they should start with that.
