Monday, January 14, 2013


Oakland’s Radical Occupy Teachers Finally Reveal Their Goal: ‘Abolish Capitalism’

At least the teachers of Occupy Oakland are finally being honest about their political agenda.  They’re openly calling for an all-out abolition of capitalism.

The Occupy Oakland Education Committee – comprised of public school teachers from the Oakland, California school district – has renamed its publication “ClassRoom Struggle” and its platform TEACH, which stands for “Transform Education, Abolish Capitalism and Heal.”

Finally the radical teachers have acknowledged what we’ve been saying all along: they want to end capitalism and replace it with a socialist economy, quite possibly enforced by a totalitarian form of government.

And what, precisely, is their strategy? They tell us that goal number one is to abolish “capitalist schools.”

“What we are calling to abolish is not education but rather capitalism,” the group wrote in a statement. “We see the struggle to abolish capitalist schools as one place where we can begin to chip away at capitalism’s grasp on our society. Capitalist tendencies run deep into the structure and politics of schools.

Operated the proper way, these schools have a great deal of potential for left-wing causes, according to the Oakland group.

“While public schools have served a role in developing white supremacist, capitalist and imperialist ideology and social structure (for example through segregated schools, tracked programs, mandated pledge of allegiance, etc.), they have also been key sites of struggle and served as assets for movements of working class students of color and other youth struggles,” the group wrote.

The last part is the scariest. They clearly want to encourage rebellious behavior among young student and recruit them into their anti-American movement.

The teachers have an absolute right to subscribe to any silly political theory they choose. That’s one of the great things about living in the country they hate. But many teachers in Oakland and throughout the U.S. have been using their classrooms as “assets” for their radical movements. They seek to brainwash youngsters into hating America and mistrusting the economic system that has given our nation a very high standard of living.

This proves what domestic terrorist-turned-professor Bill Ayers recently said: Radical leftist teachers have a great deal of influence in our schools, and they should use it to further the revolutionary cause.

America will continue its slide toward socialism as long as radical activists like Ayers and the Oakland teachers are allowed to use our taxpayer-funded schools as bully pulpits and recruiting zones for their movement.

SOURCE







Bill Ayers, School Union Officials Escalate Attacks on Teach for America

Teach for America has been a breath of fresh air for public schools around the nation.

The group recruits top college graduates to spend several years teaching is some of our nation’s worst schools.

Most of these graduates did not plan to become professional educators, but they want to make a difference in troubled communities. They are focused on helping underprivileged children learn, and they have little interest in compensation issues or union political schemes.

That, of course, does not sit well with teachers union officials. They think Teach for America instructors are invading their turf and taking job security away from longtime union members.

Maybe they are. That’s probably a good thing.

The unions like things the way they have always been, with decent pay, benefits and job security, but little expectation for real learning in the classroom. When young TFA instructors prove it can be done, they make life uncomfortable for the longtime teachers who have not performed very well at all.

After the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, union leaders and other leftists saw an opportunity to attack Teach for America.

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis slammed the group in the context of the tragedy, saying TFA’s policies “kill and disenfranchise children from schools across this nation.”

What a crock.

Just a few weeks prior, unconvicted domestic terrorist and education professor Bill Ayers called TFA instructors “educational tourists” and “a fraud on every level” and said their efforts will actually “undermine teaching.”

Appearing at a “Change the Stakes” meeting, Ayers implied that TFA has “no vision for the collective voice of teachers” and that TFA instructors are “not serious about the enterprise.”

That depends on what the “enterprise” is. If it’s helping kids learn, TFA instructors are very serious. If it means promoting silly union political efforts, they tend to have little interest. They actually put kids first. What a breathtaking concept for American schools.

It is hard to gauge how serious Lewis is about education, given Chicago Public Schools’ 54 percent graduation rate, or the seriousness of Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, given the fact that only 7 percent of 8th graders in his district are proficient in reading.

But they’re in it for the long haul, so apparently results don’t matter.

For 20 years, Teach for America has been focusing on results and improving educational outcomes for very needy children. Administrators in dozens of school districts across the nation will testify about the positive contributions they’ve made before moving on to other careers.

Can the same be said for Lewis, Johnson and the rest of the “real” teacher leaders in America?

SOURCE






Imperial weights and measures will be back in British classrooms  in radical shake-up of maths lessons

Children will be required to learn imperial measures as part of the national curriculum for the first time in decades, in a radical shake-up of maths lessons.

Education Secretary Michael Gove wants schools to ensure pupils have a firm grounding in the imperial units most commonly used – including miles, pints, feet and ounces.

Schools have been required to teach metric units as the prime system of measurement since 1974.

Although metric units will still be taught as 'standard', schools will now be expected to improve children's understanding of imperial units to reflect their continued widespread use on the roads, to measure height and for many basic goods, including milk.

The current curriculum merely asks that pupils are familiar with the names of imperial measures and know approximate conversions into the metric system.

But the Government yesterday revealed it intended to 'go further' to increase the rigour of maths lessons and improve children's fluency in dealing with both sets of measures. A revised maths curriculum for primary schools will 'include explicit reference to miles'.

According to drafts of the curriculum, pupils will now be required to 'use, read, write and convert between standard units...including between miles and kilometres'.

They will also need to 'understand and use basic equivalencies between metric and common imperial units'.

The plans emerged in response to a Commons written question by Andrew Percy, Tory MP for Brigg and Goole. Mr Percy, a teacher, said he was pleased the Government had backed his call to 'improve and extend teaching of imperial measurements'.

'The idea that these measures are “old money” and outdated is rubbish and we have got to make sure that kids know how to use both.

'Of course everyone has to learn metric as well,' Mr Percy said. 'Some professions are completely metric.'

Plans for a new primary curriculum, along with other subjects at primary and secondary level, are to be published in the next few weeks. Ministers intend to introduce them in September 2014.

Education Minister Liz Truss said: 'We propose to include imperial units within the new programmes of study for mathematics.'

Officials said the Government was adding more elements to the curriculum, including an increased focus on imperial units, but insisted the initiative would not entail 'significant' change.

'Imperial units are in the current curriculum and will be in the new curriculum. Both the mathematics and science curriculum will continue to teach metric measures as standard,' said a spokesman for the Department for Education.

However, the additional emphasis on imperial units will dismay campaigners, including the UK Metric Association.

Lord Howe, the former Tory Cabinet minister, earlier this year called on ministers to end the 'deeply confusing shambles' of using a mixture of metric and imperial measures.

He warned: 'The only solution is to complete the changeover to metric as swiftly and as cleanly as possible.'

SOURCE


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