Psyche, Science, and Society

The state at work: Pepper spraying nonviolent protesters at UC Davis

I read the embattled Chancellor’s claims about how threatened the police were and how pepper spraying was a humane alternative to batons. But the video makes clear that there was no threat except that the cop got his jollies off attacking eople who had the temerity to sit down and nonviolently protest. BTW, the police officer spraying the protesters has been identified as UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. He must be fired immediately.

Therehad already been police violence against students earlier in the day [at 7:40]:

The Chancellor’s response to this unprovoked police violence:

“We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.”

UC Davis Assistant Professor Linda Katehi wrote the following Open Letter calling for the Chancellor’s resignation. This action is especially brave as he does not have tenure and may well suffer professionally for daring to speak out:

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walk of shame that night after the attacks. The students decided to greet her with total silence:

Viewing these videos I cannot fail to be impressed with the amazing dignity and self-control of these students. The university should be proud of them. Before the violence they chanted:

“You use weapons! We use our voice!”

The university administration realized how dangerous students voices can be and decided to silence them.

The UC Davis Faculty Senate has supported Professor Brown’s call Chancellor’s immediate resignation“. You can sign a petition supporting this call here.

The DFA Board calls for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Katehi. The Chancellor’s authorization of the use of police force to suppress the protests by students and community members speaking out on behalf of our university and public higher education generally represents a gross failure of leadership.

Given the recent use of excessive force by police against “occupy” protestors at UC Berkeley and elsewhere, the Chancellor must have anticipated that, by authorizing police action, she was effectively authorizing their use of excessive force against peaceful UCD student protestors. The Chancellor’s role is to enable open and free inquiry, not to suppress it.

We also call for a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protestors by police on the UC Davis campus. The University of California should be taking a leadership role in encouraging the exercise of free speech, not in suppressing it. [Emphasis added.]

November 20th, 2011

The birth of a new student movement

Students around the country are expanding the Occupy movement by setting up encampments on their campuses. Not surprisingly, some university administrations have responded with repressive maneuvers, including shutting off free access to campuses (Harvard) and using police to brutalize protesters (UC Berkeley).

(Police brutalize UC Berkeley students).

Occupiers are protesting the the prohibitive tuition as well as anti-worker activities of school administrations. Thus, Harvard students are supporting wage demands of the univesity’s janitorial staff.

Hear are reports on the actions at Harvard, Berkeley,  Boston University. See photos from the UC Berkeley protests here. and here is press release from Occupy Harvard.

This appears to be the beginning of a new student movement. It appears that activism on campuses will only grow as administrators freak out and try and repress the movements while raising tuition even higher to fund their bloated administrative budgets.

November 10th, 2011

Columbia/Barnard statement in support of Occupy Wall Street

Yesterday I suggested that the Penn statement might be the first faculty statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street movements. Stephen R. Shalom has informed me that a Columbia/Barnard statement came earlier.

We, Columbia and Barnard faculty, write in solidarity with and in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement now underway in our city and elsewhere. Many observers claim that the movement has no specific goals; this is not our understanding. The movement aims to bring attention to the various forms of inequality – economic, political, and social – that characterize our times, that block opportunities for the young and strangle the hopes for better futures for the majority while generating vast profits for a very few. The demonstrators are demanding substantive change that redresses the many inequitable features of our society, which have been exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession. Among these are: the lack of accountability on the part of the bankers and Wall Street firms that drove the economy to disaster; rising economic inequality in the United States; the intimate relationship between corporate power and government at all levels, which has made genuine change impossible; the need for dramatic action to provide employment for the jobless, and to protect programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in part by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes;  the disastrous effects of the costly wars that the United States has been conducting overseas since 2001. Only by identifying the complex interconnections between repressive economic, social and political regimes can social and economic justice prevail in this country and around the globe. It is this identification that we applaud, and we call on all members of the Columbia community to lend their support to this peaceful and potentially transformative movement.

Sign it here.

1 comment October 13th, 2011

Surprise! High-stakes testing leads to high-stakes cheating

Outcomes measurement has become a major tool of those claiming to improve various human services and government programs. Sometimes outcomes monitoring can be useful in improving services and avoiding expenditures on ineffective programs. However, the more outcomes are used to make decisions that may penalize poor performers, the more incentive there is to cheat, thus undermining the program.

Recently schools and school systems around the country have been accused of cheating in the high-stakes testing mandating by the federal and state government. This week brings news of massive cheating in the Atlanta school system, as Valerie Strauss discusses in the Washington Post:

Probe: Widespread cheating on tests detailed in Atlanta

By Valerie Strauss

Widespread cheating on 2009 standardized tests in Atlanta Public Schools — despite “significant and clear” warnings — harmed thousands of students and resulted primarily from “pressure to meet targets” in a data-driven school system, according to results of an investigation released Tuesday.

Of the 56 schools that were examined, cheating was discovered in 44 of them — that’s more than 78 percent — and 178 teachers and principals were found to have cheated on standardized tests, according to astatement released by Gov. Nathan Deal and first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eighty-two confessed, while half a dozen others pled the Fifth Amendment, which is an implied admission of wrongdoing under civil law.

And cheating was found years earlier than the 2009 administration of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT, according to the statement (which you can read in full below.)

Investigators also reported that there was a climate of “fear, intimidation and retaliation” in the school system, which put pressure on teachers and principals to meet specific standardized test score targets. That pressure, the report said, was the biggest factor in the cheating scandal.

Because test scores were inflated, thousands of children were denied the opportunity to receive tutoring that may have helped them do better in school, the probe concluded.

Atlanta is the first district in the country to admit wholesale cheating on standardized tests, but it is not likely to be the only one where such cheating occurred.

Cheating scandals have erupted across the country, including in Washington D.C. public schools, where a USA Today investigation raised suspicion of widespread cheating and where city officials have launched a review.

The cheating revelations in Atlanta have been dribbling out for some time, and Beverly Hall, the Atlanta school superintendent who was named 2009 Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators, announced late last year that she would step down this summer. She just left the job, her once stellar reputation tarnished by the issue.

Few who have paid attention in the education era of high-stakes testing will be surprised at this. And the stakes are only getting higher for teachers and principals, who are increasingly being evaluated and paid according to how well their students do on standardized tests, despite research showing that test-driven reform hasn’t made an impact in the last decade on student achievement. I wrote about the cheating issue last week in this post, titled “Cheating on standardized tests and roaches,” and it seems even more relevant today.

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Here is the full statement on the Atlanta cheating investigation that was released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal:

“Nothing is more important to the future of our state than ensuring that today’s students receive a first-class education and integrity in testing is a necessary piece of the equation,” said Deal. “When test results are falsified and students who have not mastered the necessary material are promoted, our students are harmed, parents lose sight of their child’s true progress, and taxpayers are cheated. The report’s findings are troubling, but I am encouraged that this investigation will bring closure to the problems that existed in APS and restore the focus on students and the classroom. As we begin to turn the page on this dark chapter in Atlanta Public Schools, I am confident brighter days lie ahead.”

An outline of the findings of the investigation follows:

• *Thousands of children were harmed by the 2009 CRCT cheating by being denied remedial education because of their inflated CRCT scores.
  • –We found cheating in 44 of the 56 schools we examined (78.6%). There were 38 principals of those 56 schools (67.9%) found to be responsible for, or directly involved in, cheating.
  • –We determined that 178 teachers and principals in the Atlanta Public Schools System cheated. Of the 178, 82 confessed to this misconduct. Six principals refused to answer our questions, and pled the Fifth Amendment, which, under civil law is an implied admission of wrongdoing. These principals, and 32 more, either were involved with, or should have known that, there was test cheating in their schools.
  • –We empathize with those educators who felt they were pressured to cheat and commend those who were willing to tell us the truth regarding their misconduct. However, this report is not meant to excuse their ethical failings, or exonerate them from their wrongdoings.

• *The 2009 CRCT statistics are overwhelming and allow for no conclusion other than widespread cheating in APS. The BRC expert, Dr. John Fremer, wrote an op-ed article for the AJC in which he said there was widespread, organized cheating in APS.
• *The drop in 2010 CRCT erasures confirm the conclusion above.
• *Cheating occurred as early as 2001.
• *There were warnings of cheating on CRCT as early as December 2005/January 2006. The warnings were significant and clear and were ignored.
• *Cheating was caused by a number of factors but primarily by the pressure to meet targets in the data-driven environment.
• *There was a major failure of leadership throughout APS with regard to the ethical administration of the 2009 CRCT.
• *A culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation existed in APS, which created a conspiracy of silence and deniability with respect to standardized test misconduct.
• *In addition to the 2009 CRCT cheating, we found other improper conduct: several open record act violations; instances of false statements; and instances of document destruction.

 

July 7th, 2011

What country is this? Mom Sentenced to Jail For Seeking a Better Education For Her Children

And racism is dead?

An Ohio mother of two was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on three years probation after sending her kids to a school district in which they did not live. Kelly Williams-Bolarwas sentenced by Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Tuesday and will begin serving her sentence immediately.

The jury deliberated for seven hours and the courtroom was packed as the sentence was handed down. She was convicted on two counts of tampering with court records after registering her two girls as living with Williams Bolar’s father when they actually lived with her. The family lived in thehousing projects in Akron, Ohio, and the father’s address was in nearby Copley Township.

Additionally, Williams-Bolar’s father, Edward L. Williams, wascharged with a fourth-degree felony of grand theft, in which he and his daughter are charged with defrauding the school system for two years of educational services for their girls. The court determined that sending their children to the wrong school was worth $30,500 in tuition.

Of course, here real crime was not earning enough to live in the rich district. It is far past time to end local funding of education, which builds in vast inequalities.

January 27th, 2011

University of Puerto Rico in crisis as students strike and armed guards occupy campus

The University of Puerto Rico is in turmoil as students strike and the administration sends in armed police and private guards in a battle of the future of public education on the island. Faculty member Maritza Stanchich reported on the crisis in the Huffington Post:

Puerto Rico Student Strike Intensifies, Public Education and Civil Rights at Stake

By Maritza Stanchich

Coincident with massive, at times explosive, student protests in Rome and London, University of Puerto Rico has again become a flashpoint with a student strike beginning Tuesday that turned the main campus into a militarized zone of police, riot squads, and SWAT teams, complete with low-flying helicopters and snipers. What began as a conflict over a steep student fee hike is now seen as a larger struggle to preserve public education against privatization.

Resistance to the imposed $800 student fee has triggered repressive state measures: police have occupied the main campus for the first time in 31 years and Monday the local Supreme Court, recently stacked by the pro-Statehood political party in power, outlawed student strikes and campus protests. More than 500 students defied the ruling by demonstrating on campus Tuesday, brandishing the slogan “They fear us because we don’t fear them” (“Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo”). This current strike revisits accords to negotiate the $800 fee, which in June ended a two-month shut down of 10 of 11 UPR campuses, as UPR faces a $240 million budget shortfall precipitated by the state not honoring its own debt to the institution.

Civil rights groups have declared a state of high alert in the wake of disturbances last week and statements by leading public officials seen as creating a hostile climate that inhibits free speech rights. In response, about 15,000 UPR supporters marched on Sunday from San Juan’s Capitol building to La Fortaleza governor’s mansion, under a balmy bright blue tropical sky in this U.S. Territory of about four million U.S citizens, though little known to most Americans beyond being a tourist destination.

In the standoff leading up to this week, top university officials have repeatedly threatened that a strike may prompt them to shut down the main campus at Río Piedras, which serves 20,000 plus students, employs about 1,200 professors and 5,000 non-teaching staff, and hosts millions in scientific research funding (system-wide the UPR serves about 65,000 students). In addition, 10 of 11 University of Puerto Rico campuses remain on probation by its accrediting agency, The Middle States Association, in the areas of long-term fiscal viability and effective administrative governance, of which the current student mobilization is a symptom, not a cause.

Tensions mounted last week leading up to a two-day student walkout when Capitol Security, a private security firm contracted by the university for $1.5 million, demolished entrance gates to the campus. Hired guards were young with little or no training or evaluation, bore no identification badges and some were armed with sticks and pipes in a climate of intimidation perhaps not seen since dockworkers strikes of the 1940s. Many of the guards had been recruited from marginalized Afro-Puerto Rican communities, such as Villa Cañona in Loíza, which has been the site of documented police abuses, lending a disturbing dimension of institutionalized racism, according to community leaders there.

Several violent incidents were reported, including a student who was seriously beaten and injured by guards. One video purportedly of students breaking security van windows was repeatedly aired in the local media as the justification for the police occupation of the campus, just as students had peacefully concluded the two-day walkout last Wednesday evening.

“UPR has a long history of infiltrators and saboteurs involved to instigate such incidents,” said William Ramírez, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The purported incident capped off a series of provocations. Gov. Luis Fortuño in a televised appearance openly declared that leftists would no longer be tolerated on the campus. His Chief of Staff Marcos Rodríguez Ema publicly taunted that students and professors who dare protest will get their asses kicked out (“vamos a sacarlos a patadas”).

The university administration has also designated areas limiting protests to outside the campus, and on Monday Chancellor Ana Guadalupe formally prohibited all protests or group activities of any type on the campus through January 15. The chancellor also issued an edict this week requiring all students to carry their student identification cards at all times.

According to Ramírez, Fortuño’s public statements targeting leftists, designated protest areas off campus and protest prohibitions are violations of constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights. The police presence and heavily-equipped riot squads also create a climate of intimidation that restricts expression, he added.

“Rather than responding to violence, they have created a violent environment,” Ramírez said, adding that under such conditions, in which a police occupation is deployed as a preemptive measure, “it is almost guaranteed that violence will occur.”

In response to the campus police presence, a majority in a meeting of about 300 professors Thursday voted to refuse to hold classes on campus while under siege, with senior professors recalling the trauma of deadly campus police violence during the last occupation in 1981. On Saturday, Police Chief José Figueroa Sancha announced plans for a permanent police precinct on the campus, using drug interdiction as the justification despite common knowledge that drug puntos or selling points operate a steady business a short distance from the university. Normally the campus operates with its own contingent of security guards.

Some student leaders who are not pro-strike have also voiced complaints about the police takeover of campus. Omar Rodríguez, Student Council president for the College of Education and founder and editor of the 30,000+ member-strong Facebook page Estudiantes de la UPR Informan, reported that he was attacked without provocation by private security guards and that the police stood by and laughed when he pleaded for their intervention.

“The exaggerated police presence is unnecessary and intimidating,” he said, adding that it was pedagogically absurd to expect students to concentrate properly on their studies in such an environment.

Making the best of these tensions, student strike leader Giovanni Roberto reached out to dialogue with Capitol Security guards in working-class solidarity. “They brought us the youth who are precisely the reason we are struggling, so that they could have access to the university,” he said.

It is estimated that the new $800 fee will force 10,000 UPR students to leave the university, though the state legislature and the Fortuño government have enacted last-ditch efforts to create funds for student jobs and scholarships. Numerous proposals from credible sources detailing fiscal alternatives to the fee seem to fall on deaf ears.

The strike itself has yet to build broad support, however. Widespread concern that a strike will jeopardize the institution’s survival has mobilized some against the strike, including students, despite majority opposition to the $800 fee. While students from other UPR campuses held walkouts or approved strikes, yet other campuses recently voted down such measures. And non-striking students at the Río Piedras campus, including previous strike leaders, signed a public proclamation to keep the campus open and classes running normally.

Nevertheless, strike organizers are gambling that the blunders of the administration will win support for the students as well as mobilize other groups. The largest professors’ organization, Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios, and the non-teaching staff union, La Hermandad de Empleados No-Docentes, issued standard calls to members to respect pickets. And president of the UTIER electrical workers union, Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, issued a public call for support from Tuesday’s campus demonstration.

Whether or not this current conflict has the potential to destabilize the Fortuño administration depends in part on a broader context of economic well being. Fortuño and a legislative majority from the extreme right came to power with a broad mandate to punish the previous party in power for the worst economic downturn in decades, with no mid-term or recall elections in Puerto Rico as a check on current policies.

A self-described Reaganite, Fortuño has become a darling of the Republican Party for imposing highly unpopular austerity measures through legislation called Ley 7 (Law 7), laying off 20,000 public sector employees; targeting government agencies, including UPR, with crippling cuts aimed at perceived ideological enemies; and declaring null and void all public sector labor contracts for three years. Such a move, reminiscent of President Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers, should have stateside unions wary of Republican Party policy interest.

In fact the fee as a mechanism to destroy the social mission of the affordable public university of excellence was instituted by then Gov. Reagan at University of California, which saw a 32% fee increase last November and an additional 10% more recently, despite protests and arrests there.

It has also been reported that the Fortuño administration has already begun negotiations to sell off — or long-term lease — UPR campuses to private colleges, including those owned by major contributors to his campaign. And this just as a student loan default crisis associated with mediocre private colleges in the United States threatens to spiral into as costly a mess as the mortgage crisis.

The events unfolding cohere with the popular thesis of Canadian author Naomi Klein, known as “disaster capitalism.” However, students are mobilizing in Puerto Rico and worldwide around deep cuts to public higher education and subsequent privatization, in movements that may just be getting their first wind.

“From San Diego to Rome, from San Juan to London and Amsterdam, 2010 will be remembered as the year of student protests internationally,” commented Antonio Carmona Báez, Ph.D., a political science lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. “Not since 1968 have university students stood up around the globe — simultaneously — against authority, this time to save public education.”

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Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico.

December 19th, 2010

New documentary: Race to Nowhere

Here is trailer for the coming documentary, Race to Nowhere, which looks like an important alternative to the union-bashing, pro-privatization, Waiting for Superman:

October 4th, 2010

School “accountability” forces out superb principal

The “school accountability” movement, often pushed by major forces determined to demonize public schools, has scored another victory. The New York Times reports on a superb Burlington, VT principal forced out so Burlington could qualify for Obama’s stimulus money for schools.

Ms. Irvine wasn’t removed by anyone who had seen her work (often 80-hour weeks) at a school where 37 of 39 fifth graders were either refugees or special-ed children and where, much to Mr. Mudasigana’s delight, his daughter Evangeline learned to play the violin.

Ms. Irvine was removed because the Burlington School District wanted to qualify for up to $3 million in federal stimulus money for its dozen schools.

And under the Obama administration rules, for a district to qualify, schools with very low test scores, like Wheeler, must do one of the following: close down; be replaced by a charter (Vermont does not have charters); remove the principal and half the staff; or remove the principal and transform the school.

I support real accountability for schools. But ridiculous testing requirements, along with policies that ignore the realities of schools dealing with the poor and immigrants,  are causing immeasurable harm to education in this country. Meanwhile, these policies are transforming education into training for test taking, a skill singularly useless after one graduates. But the corporate and bureaucratic forces pushing current educational reform efforts view children like they view items on an assembly line: formless when they enter and ideally identical when they leave.

The complete article:

A Popular Principal, Wounded by Government’s Good Intentions

By Michael Winerip

It’s hard to find anyone here who believes that Joyce Irvine should have been removed as principal of Wheeler Elementary School.

John Mudasigana, one of many recent African refugees whose children attend the high-poverty school, says he is grateful for how Ms. Irvine and her teachers have helped his five children. “Everything is so good about the school,” he said, before taking his daughter Evangeline, 11, into the school’s dental clinic.

Ms. Irvine’s most recent job evaluation began, “Joyce has successfully completed a phenomenal year.” Jeanne Collins, Burlington’s school superintendent, calls Ms. Irvine “a leader among her colleagues” and “a very good principal.”

Beth Evans, a Wheeler teacher, said, “Joyce has done a great job,” and United States Senator Bernie Sanders noted all the enrichment programs, including summer school, that Ms. Irvine had added since becoming principal six years ago.

“She should not have been removed,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “I’ve walked that school with her — she seemed to know the name and life history of every child.”

Ms. Irvine wasn’t removed by anyone who had seen her work (often 80-hour weeks) at a school where 37 of 39 fifth graders were either refugees or special-ed children and where, much to Mr. Mudasigana’s delight, his daughter Evangeline learned to play the violin.

Ms. Irvine was removed because the Burlington School District wanted to qualify for up to $3 million in federal stimulus money for its dozen schools.

And under the Obama administration rules, for a district to qualify, schools with very low test scores, like Wheeler, must do one of the following: close down; be replaced by a charter (Vermont does not have charters); remove the principal and half the staff; or remove the principal and transform the school.

And since Ms. Irvine had already “worked tirelessly,” as her evaluation said, to “successfully” transform the school last fall to an arts magnet, even she understood her removal was the least disruptive option.

“Joyce Irvine versus millions,” Ms. Irvine said. “You can buy a lot of help for children with that money.”

Burlington faced the difficult choice because performance evaluations for teachers and principals based on test results, as much as on local officials’ judgment, are a hallmark of the two main competitive grant programs the Obama administration developed to spur its initiatives: the stimulus and Race to the Top.

“I was distraught,” said Ms. Irvine, 57, who was removed July 1. “I loved being principal — I put my heart and soul into that school for six years.” Still, she counts herself lucky that the superintendent moved her to an administrative job — even if it will pay considerably less.

“I didn’t want to lose her, she’s too good,” Ms. Collins said, adding that the school’s low scores were the result of a testing system that’s “totally inappropriate” for Wheeler’s children.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the United States Department of Education, noted that districts don’t have to apply for the grants, that the rules are clear and that federal officials do not remove principals. But Burlington officials say that not applying in such hard times would have shortchanged students.

At the heart of things is whether the testing system under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 can fairly assess schools full of middle-class children, as well as a school like Wheeler, with a 97 percent poverty rate and large numbers of refugees, many with little previous education.

President Obama’s Blueprint for Reform says that “instead of a single snapshot, we will recognize progress and growth.” Ms. Collins says if a year’s progress for each student were the standard, Wheeler would score well. However, the reality is that measuring every student’s yearly growth statewide is complex, and virtually all states, including Vermont, rely on a school’s annual test scores.

Under No Child rules, a student arriving one day before the state math test must take it. Burlington is a major resettlement area, and one recent September, 28 new students — from Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan — arrived at Wheeler and took the math test in October.

Ms. Irvine said that in a room she monitored, 15 of 18 randomly filled in test bubbles. The math tests are word problems. A sample fourth-grade question: “Use Xs to draw an array for the sum of 4+4+4.” Five percent of Wheeler’s refugee students scored proficient in math.

About half the 230 students are foreign-born, collectively speaking 30 languages. Many have been traumatized; a third see one of the school’s three caseworkers. During Ms. Irvine’s tenure, suspensions were reduced to 7 last year, from 100.

Students take the reading test after one year in the country. Ms. Irvine tells a story about Mr. Mudasigana’s son Oscar and the fifth-grade test.

Oscar needed 20 minutes to read a passage on Neil Armstrong landing his Eagle spacecraft on the moon; it should have taken 5 minutes, she said, but Oscar was determined, reading out loud to himself.

The first question asked whether the passage was fact or fiction. “He said, ‘Oh, Mrs. Irvine, man don’t go on the moon, man don’t go on the back of eagles, this is not true,’ ” she recalled. “So he got the five follow-up questions wrong — penalized for a lack of experience.”

Thirteen percent of foreign-born students, 4 percent of special-ed students and 23 percent of the entire school scored proficient in reading.

Before Mr. Obama became president, Burlington officials began working to transform Wheeler to an arts magnet, in hopes of improving socioeconomic integration.

While doing her regular job, Ms. Irvine also developed a new arts curriculum. She got a grant for a staff trip to the Kennedy Center in Washington for arts training. She rented vans so teachers could visit arts magnets in nearby states. She created partnerships with local theater groups and artists. In English class, to learn characterization, children now write a one-person play and perform it at Burlington’s Very Merry Theater.

A sign of her effectiveness: an influx of new students, so that half the early grades will consist of middle-class pupils this fall.

Ms. Irvine predicts that in two years, when these new “magnet” students are old enough to take the state tests, scores will jump, not because the school is necessarily better, but because the tests are geared to the middle class.

Senator Sanders said that while the staff should be lauded for working at one of Vermont’s most challenging schools, it has been stigmatized.

“I applaud the Obama people for paying attention to low-income kids and caring,” said Mr. Sanders, a leftist independent. “But to label the school as failing and humiliate the principal and teachers is grossly unfair.”

The district has replaced Ms. Irvine with an interim principal and will conduct a search for a replacement.

And Ms. Irvine, who hoped to finish her career on the front lines, working with children, will be Burlington’s new school improvement administrator.

“Her students made so much progress,” Ms. Collins said. “What’s happened to her is not at all connected to reality.”

July 20th, 2010

Support student strike in Puerto Rico; prevent official violence

Students at a campus of the University of Puerto Rico have been on strike against budget cuts for 23 days. A student assembly called by the administration  just voted overwhelmingly to extend the strike indefinitely, the Puerto Rico Daily Sun reports.

[Note: recent communications from colleagues in Puerto Rico raise concerns that the police may be massing before an attack on the striking students. Solidarity statements and other support from around the world is urgently needed.]

UPR students ratify indefinite strike vote

An overwhelming majority of University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras campus students ratified in a general assembly Thursday the indefinite strike vote that has kept the state-run academic institution shut for 23 consecutive days.

The assembly, which had been endorsed by UPR President José R. De la Torre, Río Piedras campus Chancellor Ana R. Guadalupe and Board of Trustees president Ygrí Rivera, was initially questioned by the striking students who considered it a “desperate attempt” by university administrators to coerce the students into lifting the strike without considering their demands.

“They tried to ambush us. Today we went to their assembly, at a place of their choosing, in their own terms, and we won. This clearly demonstrates our strength,” Student Negotiating Committee member Giovanni Roberto said.

“They should negotiate. They should stop being so intransigent,” added the student leader.

The student assembly took place at the Puerto Rico Convention Center, which was leased for the event by the UPR administration, which also provided transportation and security for the event. The efforts of the administration to influence the students went as far as buying advertising space in local newspapers accusing Negotiating Committee members of “breaking their word” by refusing to take the “understandings” they have reached to the consideration of a student assembly.

De la Torre had denied on Wednesday his actions were an attempt to influence or intimidate the students, but an effort to provide the students with all the information needed before they took a decision.

“Attorney Villaronga [Board of Trustees legal counsel] dared us to take the agreements to the students’ assembly. We did and the students were not satisfied with them. Now the ball is in their court [the trustees],” said Student General Council President Gabriel Laborde.

After the ratifying vote, favoring the indefinite strike, De la Torre issued a written statement in which he stated chancellor Guadalupe, the Board of Trustees and he would meet “to ponder the possibilities and take decisions.”

The statement also included a reaction from Guadalupe to the student vote. Both UPR officials concurred in questioning “the democratic principles” underlying the assembly they had not only endorsed the day before but also paid for and called, “an opportunity to end the strike.”

The assembly

Early morning Thursday, students began to arrive at the Convention Center and line up in front of the tables, identified by academic department, in the parking lot on the west side of the facility. Some had carpooled with friends or with their parents, who were not allowed in the center, using public transportation or in buses provided by the university administration. There was at least one bus from the Toa Alta municipal government transporting students to the assembly.

While waiting to check in, students chanted slogans, sang and danced plenas, or traditional Puerto Rican songs, and greeted each other as they met with friends and fellow classmates, undaunted by a downpour that soaked everything around 8:30 a.m.

Student athletes and the UPR cheerleading team displayed their talents by performing their award winning routines and stunts for the cheering crowd.

At 11:30 a.m., almost two and a half hours after the scheduled time the assembly was opened with 2,886 students present, almost twice the minimum required for quorum.

After some discussions the Student Negotiating Committee presented a detailed report on the negotiations with the Board of Trustees and its recommendations. The committee, including the individual departments’ action committee representatives, unanimously recommended the ratification of the strike vote.

The students’ main demands are the repealing of Certification 98, which limits and in some cases eliminates tuition waivers for students, guarantees that there will be no tuition increases and no privatization of services and / or campuses, and that their alternatives for budget cutbacks will be implemented.

A motion was immediately presented to allow for a period of questions directly to the Negotiating Committee members from the floor. After almost 30 minutes of Q&A a motion for the ratification of the strike vote was introduced.

Student Carlos Collazo argued against the motion questioning whether the strike had already served its purpose. He called for continuing negotiations, but with campus gates open and taking classes.

“The time has come to decide whether the strike has served its purpose already. Let’s study and at the same time continue fighting for our benefits,” said Collazo, who tried to introduce an amendment to the motion, but was declared out of order because the debate had already begun.

Some tension developed when, just before the motion was to be voted on, a new motion requesting a secret ballot was made. The motion was overwhelmingly defeated.

A visible majority of the students voting in favor of continuing the strike was confirmed after approximately 100 hands went up against the strike. Immediately, students started cheering and jumping into each others arms in celebration of the “victory over the university administration.”

Possible consequences

Should the fiscal health of the UPR be compromised by an insufficient budget and with an indefinitely continuing strike, Puerto Rico’s only public university could be at risk of losing its licensing as an institution of higher education.

The Daily Sun received a copy of a letter sent by Puerto Rico Higher Education Council president José Aparicio Maldonado to De la Torre where he notes that recent press reports point out that the university, and particularly the Río Piedras campus, has been involved in situations that could have caused a breach in some the regulations governing the institution’s operating license.

Aparicio Maldonado also notes in his letter that the UPR’s financial situation and proposed budget cutbacks could also affect the institution’s ability to continue offering its academic programs and thus its licensing.

The council president further advises De la Torre that recent reductions in the teaching staff and other personnel could also affect the institution’s operations.

“… therefore it is of particular importance for the university to act promptly to resolve this situation,” the document states.

May 14th, 2010

Larry Summers cost Harvard $1.8 billion. How much will he cost you?

We have long know how Larry Summers was one of those who helped create the eGreat Recession by pushing radical deregulation during the Clinton years. Now the Boston Globe reports on how Larry Summers’ arrogance cost Harvard University almost $2 billion after he helped destroy the US economy.

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing – or mismanaging – its basic operating funds.

Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with the endowment’s risky mix of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and private equity. Meyer’s successor, Mohamed El-Erian, would later sound the same warnings to Summers, and to Harvard financial staff and board members.

“Mohamed was having a heart attack,’’ said one former financial executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering Harvard and Summers. He considered the cash investment a “doubling up’’ of the university’s investment risk.

But the warnings fell on deaf ears, under Summers’s regime and beyond. And when the market crashed in the fall of 2008, Harvard would pay dearly, as $1.8 billion in cash simply vanished. Indeed, it is still paying, in the form of tighter budgets, deferred expansion plans, and big interest payments on bonds issued to cover the losses….

In the Summers years, from 2001 to 2006, nothing was on auto-pilot. He was the unquestioned commander, a dominating personality with the talent to move a balkanized institution like Harvard, but also a man unafflicted, former colleagues say, with self-doubt in matters of finance.

Certainly, when it came to handling Harvard’s cash account, the former US Treasury secretary had no doubts. Widely considered one of the most brilliant economists of his generation, Summers pushed to invest 100 percent of Harvard’s cash with the endowment and had to be argued down to 80 percent, financial executives say. The cash account grew to $5.1 billion during his tenure, more than the entire endowment of all but a dozen or so colleges and universities.

Through a friend, Summers took no responsibility but, rather, blamed others, his successors. But his failure to diversify, and arrogant rejection of all advice to do so, is not explained by changed conditions after he was forced out of Harvard.

Who would trust the US economy to such an incompetent?

November 30th, 2009