Failing Schools - Words We Speak

March 3, 2011

Dear Ms. Tuttle,

Our organization just received a copy of your New Messenger Number 13, dated February 3, 2011. Under the heading “County Approves 10 Charter Schools for Sacramento County” referencing the County’s decisions to approve the Fortune Schools Benefit Charter, you stated the following:

“The county, which has the financial oversight of local school districts, has started the process to make matters worse for local school districts by encouraging the loss of students and ADA.”

As leaders in Sacramento’s African American community, we are writing to inform you that we find this comment on your part self-interested and tactless.

As a community, we are concerned you have chosen to turn a blind-eye to the severe and persistent African American achievement gap in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Instead of addressing the real issue, you are trying to change the subject. You seem more concerned about losing revenues associated with students who may choose public charter schools, than fulfilling your responsibility to educate these students who are struggling in the Sacramento City Unified School District. We encourage you to consider that the best way for the Sacramento City Unified School District to attract and keep students, is to provide them with a high quality education.

Adding, to our disappointment you also stated the following:

“Additionally, the County Office is encouraging segregation of students by race.”

We find these words wholly inappropriate, inaccurate inflammatory and culturally insensitive. It is obvious you do not know the historical significance of the word segregation. For your edification, I asked Dr. David Covin, Emeritus Professor of Government and Pan African Studies and member of the Black Parallel School Board to define the word segregation in the context of the Fortune School’s Countywide Benefit Charter Initiative. I have attached it for your convenience.

For the sake of this correspondence, let me take two quotes from that attachment:

“To equate the Fortune School of Education’s charter school initiative, recently and laudably adopted by the Sacramento County Board of Education, with a return to segregation - in any form -is a declaration of ignorance. Anyone who makes such an assertion has no place in framing the discussion of this critical issue.”

“To characterize either the Fortune School of Education or the Sacramento County Board of Education as taking even the most minuscule step in any such direction is reckless and perhaps malicious labeling of the most egregious kind. It is not an appropriate use of the word, the name, segregation. To use it in such a way is to rob it of the very context which gives it meaning."

Ms. Tuttle, historically, blacks in America have been regarded by many as second-class citizens, separated from whites by law and by private action in transportation, public accommodations, recreational facilities, prisons, armed forces, and schools in both Northern and Southern states. It lacks credibility for you to turn civil rights history on its head, branding African American parents as 1950s, Jim Crow-style segregationist for wanting to create public schools that will prepare their children for college.

You know that public charter schools are open to all students- to imply that they are not is not truthful and intentionally misleading. As you know the Fortune School Countywide Benefit Charter will open its doors to any student interested in a quality education that prepares them for college.

The desire to have a high quality education for one’s children is universal and the Sacramento City Unified School District, over which the Sacramento City Teachers Association has such influence, has a negative track record in producing results with children who have been traditionally underserved.

Stop using your influence to hoodwink and bamboozle others. It’s not nice or productive. Join the effort to close the African American achievement gap. It is a better strategy for all of our children and a smarter approach for your organization.

We would like to invite you to attend one of our monthly meetings to discuss this issue in more depth. Our next three meeting dates are April 2, 2011, May 7, 2011 and/or June 4, 2011. Have your secretary make use of the contact information below to confirm your visit. We look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely,

Darryl White, Chair

What is Segregation?

To equate the Fortune School of Education’s charter school initiative, recently and laudably adopted by the Sacramento County Board of Education, with a return to segregation - in any form -is a declaration of ignorance. Anyone who makes such an assertion has no place in framing the discussion of this critical issue.

In the current educational climate, in which public education has been widely identified as the Civil Rights struggle of the 21st century, it is important to keep two factors at the forefront of our thinking: names and context. Names are important. They help us clarify our thinking. A tree is not a rock. A mountain is not a river. Names mean something, When we confound them, our thinking becomes confused and leads us woefully astray.

Context is also important. Segregation has a long, deep, and specific meaning in the United States. It is a word, a name, a condition which predates the country’s founding. It arose, specifically, to subjugate African-descended peoples and to maintain them in subjugation. Over time it came to include both de jure and de facto segregation - both of which shared the same objective, but which used different means.

The purpose of segregation in either guise was to create and maintain a place exclusively for Black people at the bottom of the social order. There they were to be demeaned and belittled, explicitly denied opportunities and liberties enjoyed by others. It included educational restrictions, but it was not limited to them. It incorporated every aspect of life. That’s why there were laws which required White and Black people to attend separate schools, ride on different seats on buses, even to be interred in different cemeteries. In every instance the facilities for Black people were markedly and deliberately inferior. Laws forbade interracial marriages, separated people by race on public beaches, and prohibited Black people from living in most neighborhoods. That is its context. That is what segregation in the U.S. means.

To characterize either the Fortune School of Education or the Sacramento County Board of

Education as taking even the most minuscule step in any such direction is reckless and perhaps malicious labeling of the most egregious kind. It is not an appropriate use of the word, the name, segregation. To use it in such a way is to rob it of the very context which gives it meaning.

The instant effort is a tried, tested, and confirmed method of addressing one of the most widely recognized, documented, persistent, and disastrous characteristics of public education throughout the U.S., and specifically in Sacramento County - the abysmal failure of the public schools to provide Black students, in the aggregate, with decent education.

Both the Fortune School of Education and the Sacramento County Board of Education deserve to be recognized and congratulated for undertaking a brilliant and courageous initiative.

Moreover, it is imperative that our discussion of this issue here in Sacramento not be conducted in ignorance, and out of context.

David Covin, Emeritus Professor of Government & Pan African Studies, CSU, Sacramento

Black Politics After the Civil Rights Movement

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Per-Student Secondary School Spending: #4
Math Test Scores: #25
Science Test Scores: #21
Graduation Rates: #21

My brother, Carlton G. Cartwright has worked tirelessly for nearly 20 years to bring photography, videography and computer technology to at-risk children in Palm Beach County. Check out the student photo exhibit funded by several governmental entities through TCCI.

Carlton G. Cartwright, CEO & Founder
The Children's Coalition, Inc.
P.O. Box 2774
West Palm Beach, Fl 33402
http://tccipbc.org
561-832-3797 office
561-719-8106 cell
561-832-3713 fax
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President Obama stated in his most recent “State of the Union" Address, the need to expand our country’s economic growth and sustainability through innovation and education. Your state education technology company has understood this call and has quantifiable success in some of your school districts. However, it is our objective with EDU TECH URBAN AMERICA to increase academic achievement through education technology for ALL students. If schools can implement such a program, then our future global leaders will be prepared to take our nation to higher heights. I welcome partnering with the White House in this initiative.

In accessing education technology, there are many communities that suffer access for a myriad of reasons. Social economic status, budgeting, and awareness all have impact. However, from a business perspective DIVERSITY IS PROFITABLE. Hence, a strategy that connects those populations with limited access, along with the outstanding success of Education Technology and teacher support is a win-win situation for all community stakeholders and our nation.

I welcome discussing a nationwide partnership with your company to examine such strategies in accessing technology for those persons who otherwise have limitations. The project would create a double bottom line through economic and educational impact. We are in negotiations with the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture on such an initiative that would foster a significant partnership in the area of Healthy Minds and Healthy Bodies for our students. Our network is wide and varied touching every community in the USA. The plan would include but not be limited to:

I am with you on that, but it is as true now as it always was, since Obama announced his candidacy for president, that the more success he has, the more of America's poison will ooze out (the question being whether it ends up being the healing purge we always needed or whether it flows so hot and heavy as to drown us all in it), while at the same time we need to be intelligent and objective observers who have the president's back and hold his feet to the fire simultaneously. This is a classic case. We will allow no issue to be used as an excuse for strengthening the hand of the president's enemies -- those who are dedicated and committed to making sure that he "fails" (even though they have nothing better to offer). But we have to be solid with those who want him to know that we, the citizens, have his back if he wants to make the real and necessary changes that the country needs.

What Barack Obama has shown himself to be, more than anything else, is a bridge-builder, who knows that more can be accomplishes by cooperation than by conflict. He is therefore forever "reaching out across the aisle," trying to transcend ideological barriers to arrive at legislation and policies that are best for the American people. But this effort continuously raises the same question from his supporters: "Can dialogue with the Devil be productive?" Can we productively cooperate with people who have no rational agenda and are dedicated only to seeing our failure and defeat, whatever it takes?

What this teacher is criticizing is quintessential Obama -- the positive thinker -- but she speaks for many of his most ardent and serious supporters, who believed that he, with a mandate of the people, could and would bring change. Few of those serious supporters doubt that he has inherited the most challenging situation of any newly elected president in history, including Lincoln and F.D. Roosevelt: a global financial crisis, with all of the domestic consequences, compounded by two unnecessary and immoral wars abroad with vague and dubious goals, not to mention a seriously broken health care system and "education" reduced to a shambles that continues to shape young lives. He comes into office after three decades of Reagan-era welfare-for-the-rich policies, ensuring the American sheeple that the wealth will "trickle down" to them. We have seen the result of that lie, even in spite of the hope and prosperity of the Clinton yeas, but, unlike his predecessors, Obama faces an opposition similar to what the governments of places like Mexico and Colombia are facing, which is so wealthy that it can challenge all constituted authority. Here in the U.S. they may not have private armies, but their "silent weapon" of money buys elected officials, judges, etc., who are funded to be anti-government in every way.

I can recall John Kennedy being quoted as saying something to the effect that the rich don't need government; they have lawyers, money, lobbyists, connections, etc., but ordinary people need government to protect their interests, preventing a dictatorship of the rich. (That may be what got him killed.) Working people, like the ones demonstrating in Wisconsin, demand a government that at least respects democracy, so that votes, not money, determine politicians' agendas. Those of my generation, who know that without a strong federal government there would be no Brown v. Board, no enforcement of civil and voting rights, etc., expect -- naively, perhaps -- our representatives in government to represent us, as equals. With all due respect for the difficulties and pressures that Barack Obama is facing, we also have to be objective, and pull his coat when we think he has gone of the path we elected him to follow, which was to bring sense ("change") to the idiocy that had been going on. he has accomplished great things in spite of these pressures, and these accomplishments need to be highlighted (which the Dumb-ocrats did not and do not do). but he has also made questionable compromises with the Greedy, who want to privatize everything and render government nothing more than a force to protect them by taxing the rest of us and sending our loved ones into harm's way for this purpose. We have to stand for truth.

I am also definitely in agreement with you in wondering aloud where ANY protest was during the horrific 8 years of the illegitimate, secretive, theft-ridden Bush/Cheney regime. It was as if people were hopeless and numb, only waiting for the disease to run its course. (Other countries were shocked by our complaisance.) I think, in a way that only someone with Obama's intelligence can appreciate, all the controversy and protests might be seen by him as more positive than negative, because it is proof that democracy,on some level, is back to working. Even so, he is still well advised to serve the majority of Americans, and not the strident false "movement" whose strings are pulled by the wealthiest few, who basically have no allegiance to any nation.

Sending his own children to private school, honoring Jeb Bush (would this have been done if the roles were reversed?), appointing Arne Duncan, are all moves that are justifiably viewed with trepidation. They send unequivocal signals that this is a president who sees public education as the problem, not the solution. Free public education, which for a century or so produced competent teachers and students, for whom a high school diploma actually provided vital skills and knowledge, has been one of the strongest foundations for equality and democracy in this country. To see the entire education system (including university) reduced to just an opportunity for a few to make money is beyond disappointing. We need to protect and defend our president -- the smartest one to come along in years -- but he HAS to be held accountable to the people and the needs of the majority.

	#106
America's Failing School System 2/25/11 - The school board of Rhode Island's financially troubled capital city voted Thursday to notify every one of its nearly 2,000 teachers that they were subject to being terminated at the end of the school year. [Source] And, of course, President Obama is to blame???!!! [Source] The question is "What exactly is the criteria for a hate crime?" What did Obama do to deserve being hung in effigy? See this article. However, is blaming Obama for tax cuts in education to shave government spending the same as blaming the doctor who performs a mastectomy to save a life? One respondent said: "Perhaps the day is coming when some form of tuition will have to be paid even for public schooling. As with parochial and private schools, I'm certain there would be an improvement in parent involvement as well as student behaviors and attitude toward their educational opportunity. Federal monies can't buy that!" Parent involvement; government funds wasted; tenured teachers who fail to teach; antiquated teaching methods. All of these factors have been the cause of failing schools, today. For years, I've heard teachers complain that parents are not doing their job at home to teach children not only literacy, math and science but simple manners. It is well known that government spending is out of control and slanted more toward militarism than education. The biggest problem we've faced in America is the retention of white teachers in black schools where students are failing and dropping out in record numbers. And, finally, the methods of teaching have all but created an atmosphere of non-learning rather than non-learning. Teacher's colleges are producing teachers taught to use the same old antiquated methods that children today are just not interested in. So, how can President Obama be blamed for years and years of wrong-doing on the part of citizens, government, colleges and school boards? I think the powers-that-be saw most of the issues we're dealing with today and purposefully put Obama, a black man, in the presidency just so they could blame him for everything that this delirious and deluded country has purported for centuries. Here's what President Obama said March 5, 2011, at Miami Central High School: When we sacrifice our commitment to education, we’re sacrificing our future. And we can’t let that happen. Our kids deserve better. Our country deserves better. [Source] ___________________________________________ Michelle Rhee of StudentsFirst wrote: Dear Joan, House Bill 7019 -- the "teacher quality" bill -- is moving fast through the Florida legislature. This bill will end seniority-based layoffs and establish performance-based pay for teachers. We need your help in Tallahassee at the House hearing on March 10th. At this hearing, you have the unique opportunity to tell House members directly why this bill is important to you. Let's work together to establish a system that puts students at the forefront of the policies that dictate the classroom. Let's rally around common sense reforms that recognize and reward our great teachers based on the quality of their work. Let's show the country that Floridians will not accept the status quo. Please join us in making this happen. Here's what you can do: Testify in Tallahassee in support of the bill on Thursday, March 10th Write a letter of support Contact Nithya Joseph at Nithya@studentsfirst.org if you are able to get involved in either or both of these efforts. Please forward this email to your friends and ask them for their support. Together, we can make sure that Florida puts students first when making decisions regarding our children's education. Thank you, Michelle Rhee CEO and Founder StudentsFirst _________________________________________ NEW SEGREGATION? Black Parallel School Board March 3, 2011 Dear Ms. Tuttle, Our organization just received a copy of your New Messenger Number 13, dated February 3, 2011. Under the heading “County Approves 10 Charter Schools for Sacramento County” referencing the County’s decisions to approve the Fortune Schools Benefit Charter, you stated the following: “The county, which has the financial oversight of local school districts, has started the process to make matters worse for local school districts by encouraging the loss of students and ADA.” As leaders in Sacramento’s African American community, we are writing to inform you that we find this comment on your part self-interested and tactless. As a community, we are concerned you have chosen to turn a blind-eye to the severe and persistent African American achievement gap in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Instead of addressing the real issue, you are trying to change the subject. You seem more concerned about losing revenues associated with students who may choose public charter schools, than fulfilling your responsibility to educate these students who are struggling in the Sacramento City Unified School District. We encourage you to consider that the best way for the Sacramento City Unified School District to attract and keep students, is to provide them with a high quality education. Adding, to our disappointment you also stated the following: “Additionally, the County Office is encouraging segregation of students by race.” We find these words wholly inappropriate, inaccurate inflammatory and culturally insensitive. It is obvious you do not know the historical significance of the word segregation. For your edification, I asked Dr. David Covin, Emeritus Professor of Government and Pan African Studies and member of the Black Parallel School Board to define the word segregation in the context of the Fortune School’s Countywide Benefit Charter Initiative. I have attached it for your convenience. For the sake of this correspondence, let me take two quotes from that attachment: “To equate the Fortune School of Education’s charter school initiative, recently and laudably adopted by the Sacramento County Board of Education, with a return to segregation - in any form -is a declaration of ignorance. Anyone who makes such an assertion has no place in framing the discussion of this critical issue.” “To characterize either the Fortune School of Education or the Sacramento County Board of Education as taking even the most minuscule step in any such direction is reckless and perhaps malicious labeling of the most egregious kind. It is not an appropriate use of the word, the name, segregation. To use it in such a way is to rob it of the very context which gives it meaning." Ms. Tuttle, historically, blacks in America have been regarded by many as second-class citizens, separated from whites by law and by private action in transportation, public accommodations, recreational facilities, prisons, armed forces, and schools in both Northern and Southern states. It lacks credibility for you to turn civil rights history on its head, branding African American parents as 1950s, Jim Crow-style segregationist for wanting to create public schools that will prepare their children for college. You know that public charter schools are open to all students- to imply that they are not is not truthful and intentionally misleading. As you know the Fortune School Countywide Benefit Charter will open its doors to any student interested in a quality education that prepares them for college. The desire to have a high quality education for one’s children is universal and the Sacramento City Unified School District, over which the Sacramento City Teachers Association has such influence, has a negative track record in producing results with children who have been traditionally underserved. Stop using your influence to hoodwink and bamboozle others. It’s not nice or productive. Join the effort to close the African American achievement gap. It is a better strategy for all of our children and a smarter approach for your organization. We would like to invite you to attend one of our monthly meetings to discuss this issue in more depth. Our next three meeting dates are April 2, 2011, May 7, 2011 and/or June 4, 2011. Have your secretary make use of the contact information below to confirm your visit. We look forward to meeting with you. Sincerely, Darryl White, Chair What is Segregation? To equate the Fortune School of Education’s charter school initiative, recently and laudably adopted by the Sacramento County Board of Education, with a return to segregation - in any form -is a declaration of ignorance. Anyone who makes such an assertion has no place in framing the discussion of this critical issue. In the current educational climate, in which public education has been widely identified as the Civil Rights struggle of the 21st century, it is important to keep two factors at the forefront of our thinking: names and context. Names are important. They help us clarify our thinking. A tree is not a rock. A mountain is not a river. Names mean something, When we confound them, our thinking becomes confused and leads us woefully astray. Context is also important. Segregation has a long, deep, and specific meaning in the United States. It is a word, a name, a condition which predates the country’s founding. It arose, specifically, to subjugate African-descended peoples and to maintain them in subjugation. Over time it came to include both de jure and de facto segregation - both of which shared the same objective, but which used different means. The purpose of segregation in either guise was to create and maintain a place exclusively for Black people at the bottom of the social order. There they were to be demeaned and belittled, explicitly denied opportunities and liberties enjoyed by others. It included educational restrictions, but it was not limited to them. It incorporated every aspect of life. That’s why there were laws which required White and Black people to attend separate schools, ride on different seats on buses, even to be interred in different cemeteries. In every instance the facilities for Black people were markedly and deliberately inferior. Laws forbade interracial marriages, separated people by race on public beaches, and prohibited Black people from living in most neighborhoods. That is its context. That is what segregation in the U.S. means. To characterize either the Fortune School of Education or the Sacramento County Board of Education as taking even the most minuscule step in any such direction is reckless and perhaps malicious labeling of the most egregious kind. It is not an appropriate use of the word, the name, segregation. To use it in such a way is to rob it of the very context which gives it meaning. The instant effort is a tried, tested, and confirmed method of addressing one of the most widely recognized, documented, persistent, and disastrous characteristics of public education throughout the U.S., and specifically in Sacramento County - the abysmal failure of the public schools to provide Black students, in the aggregate, with decent education. Both the Fortune School of Education and the Sacramento County Board of Education deserve to be recognized and congratulated for undertaking a brilliant and courageous initiative. Moreover, it is imperative that our discussion of this issue here in Sacramento not be conducted in ignorance, and out of context. David Covin, Emeritus Professor of Government & Pan African Studies, CSU, Sacramento Black Politics After the Civil Rights Movement 916-456-4981 covindl@csus.edu	Where Does American Public Education Rank In The World? Per-Student Primary School Spending: #3 Per-Student Secondary School Spending: #4 Math Test Scores: #25 Science Test Scores: #21 Graduation Rates: #21 Toward Solutions My brother, Carlton G. Cartwright has worked tirelessly for nearly 20 years to bring photography, videography and computer technology to at-risk children in Palm Beach County. Check out the student photo exhibit funded by several governmental entities through TCCI. Carlton G. Cartwright, CEO & Founder The Children's Coalition, Inc. P.O. Box 2774 West Palm Beach, Fl 33402 http://tccipbc.org 561-832-3797 office 561-719-8106 cell 561-832-3713 fax Our YouTube Page Our Facebook Page __________________________________ EDU TECH URBAN AMERICA Providing Education Technology and Program Solutions to Urban America http://edutechurbanamerica.blogspot.com Greg Nelson White House Public Engagement President Obama stated in his most recent “State of the Union" Address, the need to expand our country’s economic growth and sustainability through innovation and education. Your state education technology company has understood this call and has quantifiable success in some of your school districts. However, it is our objective with EDU TECH URBAN AMERICA to increase academic achievement through education technology for ALL students. If schools can implement such a program, then our future global leaders will be prepared to take our nation to higher heights. I welcome partnering with the White House in this initiative. In accessing education technology, there are many communities that suffer access for a myriad of reasons. Social economic status, budgeting, and awareness all have impact. However, from a business perspective DIVERSITY IS PROFITABLE. Hence, a strategy that connects those populations with limited access, along with the outstanding success of Education Technology and teacher support is a win-win situation for all community stakeholders and our nation. I welcome discussing a nationwide partnership with your company to examine such strategies in accessing technology for those persons who otherwise have limitations. The project would create a double bottom line through economic and educational impact. We are in negotiations with the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture on such an initiative that would foster a significant partnership in the area of Healthy Minds and Healthy Bodies for our students. Our network is wide and varied touching every community in the USA. The plan would include but not be limited to: Evaluating and Providing Necessary Edu Tech Products for Schools Creating Events That Foster Students Interest In Education Technology Strategic Alliances with Teacher and Community Based Groups PR/Marketing/ Social Networking for the Edu Tech Initiative Please consider how you would like to proceed with this most needed strategy that will assist in President Obama's Education Initiative. I look forward to an impactful relationship that will assist quality education technology for all students and provide a means for our future global leaders. I remain, Dr. E. Lance McCarthy Economist/Education Consultant EDU TECH URBAN AMERICA 310-291-6063 Piecing Together the Puzzle of Technology Innovations in Education Dr. Lance, a nationally recognized economist and Darryl Weaver, a government business analyst are developing a strategy to put the “puzzle” together to realize an effective education technology infrastructure. Complementing the “classic” resources of workstations, laptops, and wires with the emerging “ecology” of smartphones, e-readers, smartbooks, handheld gaming platforms and similar broadband devices is not a simple task. But accomplishing this “blended” infrastructure is vital to achieving in education the many benefits we have seen in other sectors of society, such as the transformation of knowledge work due to anyplace, anytime access. The U.S. Department of Education’s 2010 National Educational Technology Plan delineates an exciting vision of learning, assessment and teaching transformed to meet the needs of 21st century society. The Technical Working Group for the plan discussed how to actualize this vision and saw ubiquitous mobile, wireless devices as a crucial part of the necessary conditions for success. Richly linking learning inside and outside of classrooms, building on the mobile Web that students find so exciting and involving parents, informal educators, and community members in aiding teachers are all important frontiers for 21st century education. President Obama's State of the Union addressed these issues for all students in the United States. But the “puzzle” of actualizing the mobile wireless infrastructure is difficult because many groups that typically work in isolation from each other now must collaborate closely. Teachers, faculty, educational leaders, students, parents, informal educators, community, vendors (in curriculum, professional development, assessment, devices and networking), funders and policymakers must all act in ways that overcome challenges and empower other stakeholders to contribute their part of the vision. A vital first step is bringing these various groups to the table to initiate discussions about opportunities and challenges, barriers to collaboration and complementary initiatives. The Innovative Educational Forum Series created by Dr. Lance and Mr. Weaver offers opportunities to incite the discussion with various groups that will convene to realize the full power of innovative technological devices and products for learning! They hope the region and the nation will join them and, if you cannot, they hope you will keep in close touch with the initiatives and collaborations that flow from our events and partnerships. Dr. Lance is a Harvard Lecturer and White House Appointee under President Clinton, Educational Forum Series. He started this work with the private screening of the film “Waiting for Superman". Representatives from the School Board, Board of Alderman, Public School Parents and Webster University provided comments on a panel about the film. Dr. Lance provided a forum on “Character Education" to include UMSL Professor Berkowitch, Adjuct Professor Mark Kassen and St. Louis Ram's Foundation Director. The panel precluded two documentaries on program partnership with the private sector to assist in education reform. The panel was precluded by a launch of a new "Character Education" magazine with Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith and St. Louis Rams Standout Donnie Avery. The books are innovative in approach to provide sports figures as heroes, teaching moral values as a means to increase reading by students. Dr. Lance's objective is to partner with major education technology companies and assist in getting those needed technologies into school systems. In addition, he aspires to enable education nonprofits that assist in academic achievement and life skills training. Mr. Weaver is a veteran in governmental procurement and a educational trainer and developer with a research team covering the southern states. It is his objective to evaluate the school district processes and budgets to provide quantifiable EDU TECH solutions to those districts for academic achievement. The objective of the partnership is to create innovative solutions to schools nationwide in the Education Technology sector. This goal will be in direct correlation to President Obama's Science and Math initiative to prepare our future global leaders with the necessary competitive skills for our country's economic future. Contact Dr. Lance DrFinance7@aol.com www.DrFinance7.com ________________________________ A Friend's Response to my statement: I think the fact that they put the worst white teachers in black schools and the best black teachers in white schools could be slightly trifling. Also, the teachers colleges are producing teachers using antiquated teaching methods. This has been true for years and is one of the best kept open secrets. I have witnessed the phenomenon with my own eyes. Your question about the preparation of teachers in college is one that bothered me when I was in college and watching the attitudes (and abilities) of some of those who were going into the field of education. Nowadays, the whole definition of "education" is so up-in-the-air, or up-for-grabs, that who knows, or agrees on what we should be teaching at all, and for what purpose. What seems clear above all else is that it should not be grabbed and controlled by wealthy corporate entities whose only interest is in making a monetary profit. He further commented on Obama in Miami with Jeb Bush: I am with you on that, but it is as true now as it always was, since Obama announced his candidacy for president, that the more success he has, the more of America's poison will ooze out (the question being whether it ends up being the healing purge we always needed or whether it flows so hot and heavy as to drown us all in it), while at the same time we need to be intelligent and objective observers who have the president's back and hold his feet to the fire simultaneously. This is a classic case. We will allow no issue to be used as an excuse for strengthening the hand of the president's enemies -- those who are dedicated and committed to making sure that he "fails" (even though they have nothing better to offer). But we have to be solid with those who want him to know that we, the citizens, have his back if he wants to make the real and necessary changes that the country needs. What Barack Obama has shown himself to be, more than anything else, is a bridge-builder, who knows that more can be accomplishes by cooperation than by conflict. He is therefore forever "reaching out across the aisle," trying to transcend ideological barriers to arrive at legislation and policies that are best for the American people. But this effort continuously raises the same question from his supporters: "Can dialogue with the Devil be productive?" Can we productively cooperate with people who have no rational agenda and are dedicated only to seeing our failure and defeat, whatever it takes? What this teacher is criticizing is quintessential Obama -- the positive thinker -- but she speaks for many of his most ardent and serious supporters, who believed that he, with a mandate of the people, could and would bring change. Few of those serious supporters doubt that he has inherited the most challenging situation of any newly elected president in history, including Lincoln and F.D. Roosevelt: a global financial crisis, with all of the domestic consequences, compounded by two unnecessary and immoral wars abroad with vague and dubious goals, not to mention a seriously broken health care system and "education" reduced to a shambles that continues to shape young lives. He comes into office after three decades of Reagan-era welfare-for-the-rich policies, ensuring the American sheeple that the wealth will "trickle down" to them. We have seen the result of that lie, even in spite of the hope and prosperity of the Clinton yeas, but, unlike his predecessors, Obama faces an opposition similar to what the governments of places like Mexico and Colombia are facing, which is so wealthy that it can challenge all constituted authority. Here in the U.S. they may not have private armies, but their "silent weapon" of money buys elected officials, judges, etc., who are funded to be anti-government in every way. I can recall John Kennedy being quoted as saying something to the effect that the rich don't need government; they have lawyers, money, lobbyists, connections, etc., but ordinary people need government to protect their interests, preventing a dictatorship of the rich. (That may be what got him killed.) Working people, like the ones demonstrating in Wisconsin, demand a government that at least respects democracy, so that votes, not money, determine politicians' agendas. Those of my generation, who know that without a strong federal government there would be no Brown v. Board, no enforcement of civil and voting rights, etc., expect -- naively, perhaps -- our representatives in government to represent us, as equals. With all due respect for the difficulties and pressures that Barack Obama is facing, we also have to be objective, and pull his coat when we think he has gone of the path we elected him to follow, which was to bring sense ("change") to the idiocy that had been going on. he has accomplished great things in spite of these pressures, and these accomplishments need to be highlighted (which the Dumb-ocrats did not and do not do). but he has also made questionable compromises with the Greedy, who want to privatize everything and render government nothing more than a force to protect them by taxing the rest of us and sending our loved ones into harm's way for this purpose. We have to stand for truth. I am also definitely in agreement with you in wondering aloud where ANY protest was during the horrific 8 years of the illegitimate, secretive, theft-ridden Bush/Cheney regime. It was as if people were hopeless and numb, only waiting for the disease to run its course. (Other countries were shocked by our complaisance.) I think, in a way that only someone with Obama's intelligence can appreciate, all the controversy and protests might be seen by him as more positive than negative, because it is proof that democracy,on some level, is back to working. Even so, he is still well advised to serve the majority of Americans, and not the strident false "movement" whose strings are pulled by the wealthiest few, who basically have no allegiance to any nation. Sending his own children to private school, honoring Jeb Bush (would this have been done if the roles were reversed?), appointing Arne Duncan, are all moves that are justifiably viewed with trepidation. They send unequivocal signals that this is a president who sees public education as the problem, not the solution. Free public education, which for a century or so produced competent teachers and students, for whom a high school diploma actually provided vital skills and knowledge, has been one of the strongest foundations for equality and democracy in this country. To see the entire education system (including university) reduced to just an opportunity for a few to make money is beyond disappointing. We need to protect and defend our president -- the smartest one to come along in years -- but he HAS to be held accountable to the people and the needs of the majority. DGT	For 4 years, I've tried to get my books into schools in Broward County to no avail. I've been blocked by curriculum specialists and purchasing departments. Through grants, I've purchased the books and donated them to a couple of schools but to get them into all the schools seems all but impossible. Children learn from people they can identify with. The placement of white teachers in black schools and sending meritorious black teachers to white schools has left the black communities disparaged when it comes to students' academic achievement. I've proven over and over that children do relate very well to the material in my books. I just cannot seem to find a champion at the school board to see this and place an order for my books. The cultural production of Africans in America has been usurped by the white establishment, packaged, marketed and priced far out of the range of the innovators of jazz and blues. Today, it appears that this music is only appreciated by white audiences because the pricing of concerts and club appearances is far too expensive for the average African American to patronize. Therefore, jazz music, "the thinking man's music" is no longer thought to be a product coming out of the black community. Its production, distribution, promotion, marketing and critique of is left up to white record labels, record companies, radio DJs and magazine publishers. But the fact that jazz and blues originated in slave quarters cannot and will not be denied. www.fyicomminc.com/books.html http://stores.lulu.com/divajc I'm the only woman in the world with a jazz and blues song book
www.wordswespeak.wordpress.com www.musicwoman.ning.com www.joancartwright.com www.fyicomminc.com www.wijsf.com		WHAT AMERICA MEANS WORDS WE SPEAK

Black Parallel School Board

Where Does American Public Education Rank In The World?