Dear Commons Community,

The attack in Egypt and the killing of four Americans in Libya, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, has drawn strong commentary from a host of officials and pundits.

Hilary Clinton had the most measured and sensitive comments about the tragedies referring to the personal lives and contributions of the people killed.

“This is an attack that should shock the conscience of people of all faiths around the world. We condemn in the strongest terms, this senseless act of violence and we send our prayers to the families, friends and colleagues of those we’ve lost.”

Mitt Romney cast aspersions at Barack Obama and his lack of leadership and called the president’s handling of the Libya and Egypt attacks “disgraceful.”

Sarah Palin, the mouthpiece of some conservative faction in America, blasted President Barack Obama, suggested that he lacked the “big stick” needed to be strong on foreign policy. “We already know that President Obama likes to ‘speak softly’ to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a ‘big stick’ to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.”  Poor Sarah really has become a pathetic figure and does anything to try to get attention.

Regardless two senseless tragedies occurred yesterday on 9/11, the anniversary of another senseless tragedy, that serve to reminds us how complicated and dangerous our planet has become.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article on Karen Lewis, the head of the Chicago Teachers Union.  It appears the Mayor Rahm Emanuel has met his match as far as hard ball negotiation are concerned. Here is an excerpt:

“When it comes to demanding, pushing and sparring, few people could even begin to compare with Rahm Emanuel, the famously foul-mouthed mayor whose no-holds-barred tactics once included sending a dead fish to someone whose work he found lacking.

Then came Karen Lewis.

In Ms. Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, which on Tuesday completed a second day on strike from public schools across this city, Mr. Emanuel may have met his match.

She is biting, pushy, witty, unwavering. He is biting, pushy, witty, unwavering. Like him, she appears to hold almost nothing back — a quality that in recent days has infuriated City Hall and thrilled tens of thousands of teachers. She has called Mr. Emanuel a “bully” and a “liar,” someone whose “billionaire friends” are driving his educational philosophy. And that was only last week.

In the view of some here, the toxic relationship between Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Lewis helped push the city’s teacher contract talks to the point of a crisis, forcing 350,000 students out of their classrooms in the nation’s third-largest school system not long after the new academic year began and showing no sign of quick resolution. In stubbornness, defiance and moxie, Ms. Lewis and Mr. Emanuel are, some here say, equals in what now looks like a toe-to-toe fight.

“The only way to beat a bully,” Ms. Lewis said to a sea of teachers at a rally down the block from Mr. Emanuel’s office days before the strike was called, “is to stand up to a bully!”

Closed-door talks over a new teachers’ contract were expected to continue on Wednesday, but there were growing signs that the strike may linger.”

Well worth the read!!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that Scott Pelley’s 60 Minutes  interview with former Navy SEAL Mark Owen drew huge ratings, the network announced on Tuesday.   Owen penned the book No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. I watched the interview and it was riveting as Owen discussed step by step the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.  CBS also did an incredible job with models and simulations of the raid.

Sunday’s  60 Minutes  interview with Owen was rare in that it took up the entire hour of the show. A total of 12.32 million viewers tuned in, making the program the most-watched, non-football program of the week. Compared to this time last year, “60 Minutes” ratings were up 52 percent in total viewers, and 55 percent in the coveted A 25-54 demographic.

Owen is not the Navy SEAL’s real name, as the book was published under a pseudonym. The CBS News production team called in some of Hollywood makeup artists to further conceal Owen’s true identity. His voice was also manipulated.  However, Owen’s real name has been leaked by several media outlets.  Fox News  revealed Owen to be Matt Bissonnette, 36, of Wrangell, Alaska.   Fox News also reported that:

“The tell-all book also has apparently upset a large population of former and current SEAL members who worry about releasing information that could compromise future missions. One Navy SEAL told Fox News, “How do we tell our guys to stay quiet when this guy won’t?” Other SEALs are expressing anger, with some going so far as to call him a “traitor.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community

The national conventions are over and it appears that President Barack Obama has gotten the most bounce from his party’s bash.  The latest CNN/ORC poll released yesterday shows President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney by six points nationally among likely voters.  The Huffington Post reports:

“Fifty-two percent of likely voters support Obama, and 46 percent back Romney (2 percent responded neither, and 1 percent had no opinion). That’s a four-point bump since a poll taken before the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., when the two candidates were tied at 48 percent. Prior to both conventions, Obama had 49 percent to Romney’s 47 percent.

Obama took the lead as the candidate better trusted to handle the economy, with 50 percent of likely voters saying he’d do a better job on the issue, compared to 49 percent who favored Romney (1 percent said neither). Prior to the Democratic convention, Romney led 51 to 45 on the issue.

Democrats also expressed renewed excitement following Charlotte, coming out on the winning side of the enthusiasm gap for only the second time in 2012, with 59 percent saying they were extremely or very enthusiastic to vote, compared to 57 percent of Republicans who felt similarly.

Tracking polls over the past weekend showed a small bounce for Obama following the Democratic convention. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse acknowledged the bump, but dismissed it Monday as “a bit of a sugar high.”

The CNN poll surveyed 709 registered voters by phone between Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, with a 3.5 percent margin of error.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post has a brief report on comments made by Mitt Romney and by a spokesperson of Barack Obama.

“GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney condemned the Chicago Teachers Union for the high-profile strike it launched Monday, accusing it of betraying the city’s children.

“I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education,” Romney said in a statement. “Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest examples yet.”

Romney went a step further in the statement, assuming that President Barack Obama was standing with the union on the strike, even though neither the White House nor the Obama campaign has taken a position on the stoppage.

“President Obama has chosen his side in this fight, sending his Vice President last year to assure the nation’s largest teachers union that ‘you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the President’s commitment to you,’” Romney said. “I choose to side with the parents and students depending on public schools to give them the skills to succeed, and my plan for education reform will do exactly that.”

In a response via email, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt criticized Romney for his education policies and took a shot at the campaign for playing politics with a local dispute, though he didn’t address the merits of the strike itself.

“President Obama’s leadership has led to groundbreaking reforms in our schools, earning wide bipartisan cooperation and praise,” LaBolt said. “In contrast, Gov. Romney has said class size isn’t a problem and he would cut taxes for millionaires by gutting education funding, leading to fewer teachers. Playing political games with local disputes won’t help educate our kids, nor will fewer teachers. But President Obama’s plans will lift our schools and our students.”

I would add that President Obama also has at stake the policies implemented by the U.S. Department of Education during his term of office namely teacher evaluations based on standardized tests.  This has been a hallmark of his Race to the Top education policy as well as one of the critical issues in the union impasse.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The news media are reporting that the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is officially on strike and that teachers will not be reporting to their schools.  Negotiations over pay, teacher evaluations, health benefits and class size have failed to result in a settlement.  The Huffington Post published:

“CTU’s complaints echo the broader ones of teachers’ unions across America: standardized tests are over-emphasized; class sizes are ballooning; teacher evaluations that use standardized tests “cheapen” schools. Lewis said that the evaluation system required so much administrative work that even the principals, usually not union bedfellows, were calling CTU, asking for help. “When principals are calling Chicago Teachers Union, you know there’s something wrong with this plan,” Lewis said. “Class size matters, it matters to parents,” she added.  Teachers have reported having as many as 42 students in one classroom.”

While Mayor Rahm Emanuel has taken the brunt of the CTU anger, the strike also coincides with the first day of a cross-country bus tour U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will take to discuss education. Duncan gained his education credentials leading the Chicago school district prior to becoming the US Secretary of Education under Barack Obama. He is a major proponent of many of the national education reform proposals including teacher evaluations based on standardized test scores that teacher unions across the country have been fighting against.  He has also used Race to the Top federal funding to force states to enact his proposals.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, analyzes the Republican campaign strategy of blaming President Barack Obama for the state of the U.S. economy.  Putting it as simply as possible:

“When Republicans took control of the House, they declared that their economic philosophy was “cut and grow” — cut government, and the economy will prosper. And thanks to their scorched-earth tactics, we’ve actually had the cuts they wanted. But the promised growth has failed to materialize — and they want to make that failure Mr. Obama’s fault.

Now, all of this puts the White House in a difficult bind. Making a big deal of Republican obstructionism could all too easily come across as whining. Yet this obstructionism is real, and arguably is the biggest single reason for our ongoing economic weakness.

Krugman provides several examples of the Republican obstructionism including:

“The most important consequence of that stonewalling, I’d argue, has been the failure to extend much-needed aid to state and local governments. Lacking that aid, these governments have been forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of schoolteachers and other workers, and those layoffs are a major reason the job numbers have been disappointing. Since bottoming out a year after Mr. Obama took office, private-sector employment has risen by 4.6 million; but government employment, which normally rises more or less in line with population growth, has instead fallen by 571,000.”

Krugman’s conclusion:

“And what happens if the strategy of obstruct-and-exploit succeeds? Is this the shape of politics to come? If so, America will have gone a long way toward becoming an ungovernable banana republic.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Brian Jones, a student in the PhD Program in Urban Education, posted on his blog about the need to support the Chicago Teachers Union tomorrow.  See post and link below.

Tony

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For those who don’t know, it is increasingly likely that the Chicago Teachers Union will go on strike tomorrow. This is really the first time that a teachers union (in this country, at least) has stood up to all of the ed “reform” craziness. All over the country, parents, teachers and students will be wearing red tomorrow (Monday) to show their solidarity with CTU.

There’s lots of great articles out there about this struggle. I link to some of them on my blog: http://brianpjones.tumblr.com/post/31007187166/gotredshirt

Brian

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times is reporting that faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political indoctrination, Hong Kong’s chief executive revoked a 2015 deadline for every school to start teaching it.

“Many protesters were not mollified, demanding that the education plan be withdrawn entirely. Crowds of young people in black T-shirts continued to pour into the plaza and streets around the local government’s headquarters on Saturday evening after Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive, offered the compromise.

Mr. Leung said he wanted each school to decide whether to teach the subject in the coming years, an arrangement that could allow Beijing’s allies to press principals who do not want it.

“We just want to cancel the whole subject,” said Sam Chan, a 19-year-old community college student. “People want to protect our future and our sons’ futures.”

A large but peaceful crowd, estimated at 100,000 by organizers and 27,500 by the police, formed late Saturday evening despite Mr. Leung’s retreat…For the past 10 days, swelling protests against the plan were the latest sign of a new interest in political activism by youths here, and there were some signs that this activism could be spreading in mainland China for the first time since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.”

There is a lesson for us here in the United States as our federal government adopts policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top that attempt to negate the decision making of state and local governing boards of education on matters such as curriculum.

Tony