Here's the list of participants for their "Education Summit":
Participants in the Education Nation Summit will include:
•Michael Bloomberg: Mayor, City of New York
•Geoffrey Canada: CEO & President of Harlem Children's Zone Project
•Arne Duncan: US Secretary of Education
•Byron Garrett: CEO of the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
•Allan Golston, President, US Program, The Gates Foundation
•Reed Hastings: Founder & CEO of Netflix
•Walter Isaacson: President & CEO of the Aspen Institute
•Joel Klein: Chancellor of New York City Schools
•Wendy Kopp: CEO and Founder of Teach for America
•John Legend: Musician; Founder of the Show Me Campaign
•Gregory McGinity: Managing Director of Policy, The Broad Education Foundation
•Bill Pepicello, Ph.D.: President of University of Phoenix
•Sally Ride: First Female Astronaut; Vice-chair of Change the Equation
•Michelle Rhee: Chancellor, District of Columbia Public School System of Washington, D.C.
•Margaret Spellings: Former US Secretary of Education
•Antonio Villaraigosa: Mayor, City of Los Angeles, California
•Randi Weingarten: President of American Federation of Teachers (AFT-CLO)
Not ONE teacher there.
Not one.
Weingarten doesn't count.
Nor does Wendy Kopp.
And Christ, what is the University of Phoenix guy doing there?
He belongs in jail for fraud, not pontificating about education.
Have you taken a look at the number of consumer fraud complaints AGAINST the University of Phoenix?
There are 14 pages of complaints about this "university" at Consumeraffairs.com alone.
Seriously, this guy belongs in a Turkish prison.
That HE has been invited to the "summit" while a working teacher has not says all you need to know about NBC News, G.E. and the other corporate sponsors of this "summit."
But there are plenty of other problems with the summit as well.
Why is John Legend there?
Will he be singing?
Or just parroting Gates Foundation propaganda like he usually does?
Because the summit doesn't need John Legend to parrot Gates Foundation propaganda when they have the president of the Gates Foundation on the panel.
Like most education "reform" discussions, the NBC Education Summit is a sham.
They already KNOW the answers to the questions they're going to ask.
They just want to continue to sell the country on them.
Give NBC a call and let them hear some of your thoughts.
Phone: (212) 664-4444
Ask for the NBC News comment line. Then ask for the MSNBC comment line.
And be brief. You only get about 45 seconds.
Thank you for the phone number. I've already called and got my husband and 2 teacher friends to call too. I'm going to circulate this at school tommorrow. Let's ALL flood the MSNBC switchboard. I'm soooo tired of non-educators pontificating their profit-motivated brands of deforms, and the media who have forgotten what balanced reporting is.
ReplyDeleteI really think Bloomberg is control of this whole event. Parents are excluded. And Randi's place..why between her pals Bloomberg and Gates.
ReplyDeleteOver the past 48 hours, I've been involved in a little dance with NBC.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the national education "SUMMIT" NBC is hosting next week is that, as you note, the 'invitation-only' panel is stacked with pro education privatisation reformers and not a parent in sight.... nor any working teachers... http://www.educationnation.com/
The guest list is here:
http://ofprincipalconcern-educationworld.blogspot.com/
Guests range from Michelle Rhee to Joel Klein to Arne Duncan; the guests are all Broad or Gates Foundation people or charter school chain owners.
National education system reform under discussion - where are the parents?
And look at the Sponsors...
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=EB7AF3A0-A41B-11DF-A44E000C296BA163
All have a vested interest in making sure this education 'deform' agenda implementation is completed.
I challenged NBC on why its leaving out of the discussion the biggest stakeholders in this equation, and so far, no response....
I pointed them in the direction of highly informed, articulate people who were well qualified to participate in this 'dialogue' - no response except to block me....
On Thursday they were trying to buy my silence by offering an op ed space on the Education Nation website, Friday they blocked me and took all my critical comments (and the research and references supporting those comments) off their pages...
PART TWO:
ReplyDeleteHere's the chronology, starting Wednesday 15 Sept...
Just finished an interesting (power and control) phone conversation with Ryan Osborn, the producer of this website/programme.... http://www.educationnation.com
http://www.facebook.com/educationnation?v=wall&story_fbid=114784968577609&ref=notif¬if_t=feed_comment_reply
I couldnt get him to agree to put parents on the panel (he said they tried to get Diane Ravitch but she wasnt available - I suggested Prof Zhao as an alternative) but to buy me off and shut me up they've offered me an op ed piece on their website...
Who has anything they want to say??????? No limit, just no slander!
Here's what I wrote back (on the Education Nation facebook page):
"I'd like to thank Ryan at NBC for contacting me and having a telephone conversation a few minutes ago. Ryan and I have something in common - we are both journalists with an ethical responsibility for providing both sides of an discussion/issue.
While Ryan said he/NBC had heard our concerns he could not offer parents (the largest stakeholders in this education reform equation) and other critics of the education 'reform' agenda a place on the panel.
He said that Diane Ravitch had been invited but was not free on these dates... I suggested he invite Professor Zhao - he did not give me an answer one way or another.
He did very generously offer me the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Education Nation website, which I will gratefully accept... though I did point out that an op-ed hidden somewhere on a website that people have to search to find, is no match in terms of airing contrary perspectives for the public exposure the very wealthy education reformers will be getting from this summit.
Sadly, most of us parents around the country do not have the billions of dollars that the Gates, Broad and Milken Foundations and Raytheon, Phoenix University and Microsoft etc have to throw at this effort to mould and control the discussion... But I will take what I can get, albeit a very small bone....
Ryan did give me some feedback I shall bear in mind - he felt my many posts were repetitive, intimidating and shutting out of other points of view... I will think on that - though how that is possible on a facebook page, which has no limit on comment postings, I dont know...."
And I then added the comment:
"I just had feedback from someone in contact with Diane Ravitch that while she is in California on the dates of the Summit, she did offer to provide a taped segment as her contribution to the debate... apparently that was not good enough... quite sad, really..."
PART FOUR - yes, this has turned out to be an epic saga!:
ReplyDeleteUpdate3:
Well I have now (Saturday morning)been booted off NBC's Education Nation facebook page THREE TIMES for posting information that challenges the effectiveness of the type of education reform its panelists and sponsors are wanting to implement around the country...
I started off using my own name, then I used the pseudonym GertieDutchgirl and then Phoenix Rising...
I dint post anything nasty, offensive, crude, rude or vulgar... just lots of research, stats and references calling into question the line these people, funded by those whom Diane Ravitch calls the Billionaire Boys Club, are pushing onto the people of this country, in a completely undemocratic way...
Before being booted off again today, I got this message from Ryan:
Ryan Osborn
Ryan OsbornSeptember 18, 2010 at 12:15pm
Subject: Hello
"The discussion and conversation on education nation page is focused on education. Please consider this a warning. Thank you."
Obama yesterday had a speech about saving this country's decmocracy from corporate takeover
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/17/902681/-President-Obama:-Its-the-most-insidious-takeover-of-our-Democracy.-We-wont-let-it-happen ...
His hypocrisy makes me mad... where is his concern about far right billionaires taking over public education?!!!!...
Here are some places to start if you want to know what's really going on across the country and what the NBC Education Nation Summit is really all about:
http://seattleducation2010 .wordpress.com/ ...
just the tip of the iceberg really....
Check out what Diane Ravitch says about the Billionaire Boys Club ...http://www.democracynow.or g/2010/3/5/protests ...... http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2010.05.30/1146.html ....
This takeover of public education is a long, long story, involving Thomas Friedman, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Mike Milken, the Waltons and a handful of other people... its been going on since the 50s with Friedman, with a strong push in the last 10 years (nearly completed now) to finish implementation.... here is a diagram showing the Gates/Broad money controlling everything...
http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/the-lines-of-influence-in-education-reform/ ...
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzZWF0dGxlZWR1Y2F0aW9uMjAxMHxneDo2M2I5ZTFhODEyOWJmOGZi
and NBC's Education Nation Summit this coming week is part of the manipulation/PR exercise to sell the final push - see their panellists and sponsors......
http://ofprincipalconcern-educationworld.blogspot.com/
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=EB7AF3A0-A41B-11DF-A44E000C296BA163 ...
As you know - you're one of them! - there are groups all over the country opposing this education 'deform' plague... but we - parents and teachers - have no place at this manufactured forum...
FIFTH AND FINAL PART:
ReplyDeleteI would keep going - am a cancerian in western astrology and a dog in the chinese zodiac so perseverance/stubbornness is one of my suits, but its taking a lot of time and its a gorgeous day!...
Who wants to go post this:
here are some reviews/thoughts on the film Waiting for Superman....
http://rachelnorton.com/2010/07/19/waiting-for-superman-a-review/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/a-chilling-premiere-of.html
http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=4449
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ayers-/an-inconvenient-superman-_b_716420.html
http://parents4democraticschools.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/nyc-public-school-parents-would-superman-really-stand-in-the-way-of-improving-the-system-as-a-whole/
and thoughts around issues surrounding the ties of those involved in making and promoting the film:
http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9425
http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/searching-for-superguy-in-gotham/
A very good teacher from the inner city high school where I taught for 21 years is on the show tomorrow. She is flying out as i write. She will speak up for classroom teachers. Watch for her during the second half of the show.
ReplyDeleteThere was 50 teachers there representing from all over the nation at the summit. Doesn't that count?
ReplyDelete