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Why speaking six languages is NOT an indicator of the quality of one's education

Now that yesterday's non-election* of school officials is in the books, let's turn to another pressing educational issue --Why American schools suck.

The author, Blue Oregon semi-regular contributor Jenson Hagen, may have "studied six languages," but in this post he speaks a language he probably hasn't studied, at least not formally --gibberish!

See if you can make any sense of what he's saying:

• American schools suck.

• We need to change our system.

• But we ignore the European and Asian formats.  "Wholeheartedly."

Hagen doesn't bother to explain just exactly what those "formats" consist of.  One can only infer that languages in Europe are taught earlier.  But what's this about shoving

"...general math and English at kids and expect[ing] them to acquire a capacity for business, engineering or journalism[?]"

As I said, gibberish!

*(The voter turnout in Multnomah County was a whopping 15%!)

UPDATE:  Here's a comment from the always reliable Darrell Plant on Hagen's post:

"Budget cuts over the past 40 years are really what cut into language instruction, not some fantasy about the demands of public school teachers unions."

Vote!

No, not Vote Dammit! which brings to mind Willamette Week and its idiotic endorsements.

But anyway, if you're like me, you wait til the last minute to vote and then walk your ballot over to a local library.  And I know many of you HAVEN'T yet cast your ballots.  So this is a last minute reminder.

If you live in Beaverton, you must vote for Kris Alman for school board.  I wish Kris lived here in Portland, more specifically, I wished she lived in Trudy Sargent's Zone 6 somewhere up on Mount Tabor.  As it stands, write in the name of Moss Drake as a replacement for Trudy.

Also vote for Scott Bailey in Zone 5.  He seems to know a hell of a lot more about school district politics, and what needs to be done to improve them, than his opponent, Pam Knowles.

If you truly want change on the board, don't vote for Martin Gonzales in Zone 4.  Either of his opponents --Rita Moore or Steve Buel-- would likely argue effectively for much needed changes in district policy.  (If you don't want a split vote in the zone containing many of the district's poorest schools, then vote Rita.  She appears to be running the more vigorous and visible campaign.)

Less than seven hours til the drop-off boxes close.  So get cracking!

Kafoury v. Kafoury

The Portland school board race in Zone 5 not only pits Scott Bailey (whom I endorsed yesterday) against Pam Knowles, it also further splits,  along political lines, the ex-husband and wife team of two locally prominent Kafoury's.

Gretchen Kafoury, you see, supports Bailey.  Her ex, world's worst person Stephen Kafoury, has endorsed Bailey's opponent, the business candidate Knowles.  I don't want to read too much into what these competing endorsements mean except to say this: 

Given Steve Kafoury's endorsement and the fact that he represents in Oregon a chain of virtual charter schools, one might speculate that Knowles may be more amenable to school charterization --even partial privatization-- than one would like to see in a public school board director. 

That makes me feel more confident in my support of Scott Bailey. 

There's another Kafoury involved in this intra-familial political dust-up --Steve and Gretchen's daughter, Deborah.  The newly-elected Multnomah County Commissioner sides with her father --and Knowles.  (What do you suppose her mother must think?)

Oh yeah.  Bailey also has the enthusiastic support of Steve Novick, the little man with the wicked left hook and possible Oregon gubernatorial candidate. 

Gretchen and Steve --Novick, that is-- are quite the powerful political team.  And that's good for Scott Bailey.

Why we need Steve Novick as our next governor

We need Steve Novick as our next governor for one compelling reason:

Unlike current Governor Ted Kulongoski, Novick is not averse to increasing taxes.  Oregon hasn't raised sufficient revenue to run its programs for decades --not for schools, for health care, or for public safety.  Steve Novick is just the man to fix that.

Two recent pieces he's written illustrate that point.

The first is a sort of tongue-in-cheek Oregonian op-ed entitled "Taxes and televsion --more bang for your buck!"  In the piece, Novick lists the top ten television shows "paid for by your tax dollars."  Here's an example:

"ER":  A grim, determined group of medical professionals in a County hospital fight to save the lives of their patients, many of whom are poor and/or old and whose bills are paid by Medicare and Medicaid. Paid for by County property taxes and your Federal income and FICA tax dollars, with Medicaid matching funds provided by the State.

The second is a post on Blue Oregon criticizing comments made by Allen Alley, a potential Republican gubernatorial candidate.  What does Novick find suspect?

"Mr. Alley should be aware that it is thoroughly misleading to imply that a significant portion of Oregon tax dollars are ‘redistributed’ to ‘failing businesses and individuals.’  The largest portion of Oregon tax dollars is spent on public schools. Does Mr. Alley regard Oregon’s students and teachers as ‘failing’?  Another large portion is spent on health care for poor children and families and long-term care for seniors and people with disabilities.  Does Mr. Alley consider poor children and families without health insurance, and seniors and people with disabilities who cannot afford long-term care, to be ‘failures’?"

That's the kind of campaign we can expect Novick to run against Alley or any other tax-bashing Republican candidate for governor of Oregon.  (Or weak-kneed Democrat, for that matter.)

Novick is "da man" to lead Oregon as its next governor.

Diane McKeel as Sarah Palin

In an Oregonian profile of the new Multnomah County Commission,  Diane McKeel was asked about the last book she read.  Her answer, or non-answer, may have a familiar ring:

"I love to read. I've had very little time to do that. ... I can't remember... ."

But that wasn't the only thing she couldn't remember.  She was also asked (as were all the commissioners) how many times she had voted for a Republican presidential candidate:

"I have to think. That's a lot of elections. ... I can't be sure, but I could have voted for Reagan."

How many people "can't be sure" whether or not they voted for Reagan?  Few if any, unless they're afflicted with Alzheimer's.

The thing is, Commissioner Palin --oops, that's McKeel-- is probably trying to hide the fact that she is, at least in her heart of hearts, a Republican.  Why?  Who knows?  After all, she's replacing Lonnie Roberts who voted (when he bothered to show up) like a Republican. 

Diane McKeel may well be a registered Dem.  But that doesn't obviate the fact that  her (largely negative) campaign for the county commission against Carla Piluso was funded by Republicans.  Nor does it jibe with her employment history.

How many Democrats, after all, would be hired as Executive Director of the West Columbia Gorge Chamber of Commerce? 

The Chamber of Commerce.  You can't get much more Republican than that.

Brand Obama

Turns out that Barack Obama may be less the brilliant politician (as I have argued) than  master of marketing.  That would explain why he was named "marketer of the year" for 2008 by Advertising Age. 

Or perhaps in this American day and age there is no difference between electioneering and marketing.

It also turns out that Obama raised far less of his record-breaking campaign cash from small donors than originally reported.  According to the Campaign Finance Institute, only about a quarter of his haul came from donations of $200 or less, about the same as George W. Bush in 2004, and far less than the 38% for Howard Dean in that same year. 

So much for the grass roots uprising that supposedly carried Obama to victory.  Like most winning politicians, he outspent his opponents.  And he outmarketed them.

In a speech given in Boston recently, Noam Chomsky called Obama's "grass roots" backers essentially a recruited army of enthusiasts.  So did the press. There's a big difference, says Chomsky, between a "recruited army" and a true grass roots movement:

"...the army is supposed to take instructions, not to implement, introduce, develop programs and call on its own candidate to implement them. That's critical. If the army keeps to that condition, nothing much will change."

In the 60's, bottom up movements created the impetus for change in the treatment of blacks and women.  Movement protests turned public opinion against the Vietnam War.  More recently, an indigenous uprising in Bolivia brought one of its own, Evo Morales, to power.  Chomsky explains it this way:

"How did he get in? Well, he got in because there [was] again, a mass popular movement, which elected their own representative. And they are the source of the programs, which are serious ones. There's real issues, And people know them. Control over resources, cultural rights, social justice and so on."

The recent election here was quite different.  It wasn't so much about real issues as it was about character and personality.  Even the pundits have acknowledged that.  Why?  Because, in Chomsky's words, "...on a host of major issues both parties are well to the right of the population.  That's one good reason to keep issues off the table."

I don't blame Obama.  "Keeping issues off the table" is how modern political campaigns work.  If you want to get elected, you don't get bogged down in thoughtful discussions of the issues. You avoid the specifics.  Instead you market yourself with advertising placards that read Change!  Or Hope!  

Commercial advertising, as we all know, deflects attention from the actual product.  It surrounds the product, whether it's beer or cars, with an image that has nothing to do with the actual quality of the product. The message in an advertising spot is intended not to inform, but to delude.

The same is true of political advertising, except the product being hawked is the candidate.  The message is no more concrete.  The image is what counts.

Who knew, based on his campaign and his claim to "compassionate conservatism" and to be a "uniter, not a divider", that the presidency of George W. Bush would prove such a disaster?  (Well I did, but not to this extent.) 

We were all deluded in 2000, some more than others.  Let's hope that we haven't been so badly misinformed --"sold a bill of goods", so to speak-- this time around.

Now that the election is over...

Much has been written about about the importance of grass roots organizing to hold Barack Obama to account for the "change" he has promised.  When Obama said in effect, "I can't do this without you", he was talking presumably about something more than just getting elected.  He implied, or so it seems, that his millions of supporters would somehow have a role, beyond the election, in changing the world.

The question is, how?

Here are some starting points, beginnng with the Nader-inspired November5.org:

November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.

Two other efforts are also underway, the first asking for (or demanding) a just foreign policy beginning with withdrawal of troops from Iraq and engaging in diplomacy with Iran. The site allows you to customize your own message to the President-elect.

The second is a petition asking Obama to avoid putting "foxes in charge of the henhouse" in appointing a Treasury Secretary.  The fox in question is former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.  ( Read the full petition here.)

These are modest actions to be sure.  The alternative is to sit with your fingers crossed and hope for the best,

Penance

As I noted in an e-mail message to family members, I decided not to "throw away" my vote on Ralph Nader.  Instead, heeding the call of history and wanting to play my tiny role in electing America's first African American president, I "wasted" my Oregon vote on Barack Obama --"wasted" because Oregon went overwhelmingly for Obama as I predicted.

Now we'll wait and see if Barack Obama will become the transformational leader he promised in his campaign.  I'm cautiously hopeful that the masterful politician will become a great president.  The last great progressive Democratic president, LBJ, managed through sheer political will, not conviction, to pass into law Medicare, Medicaid, two landmark civil rights acts, Head Start and all the legislation collectively called the War on Poverty.  Perhaps Obama's presidency will follow a similar trajectory.

LBJ's downfall was Vietnam.  Obama's could well be Afghanistan. 

Now for the penance.  Here's a three part Ralph Nader interview on Real News.  Despite his age and long-time presence on the political scene,  Nader continues to make eminently good sense on the issues, especially on the militarization of foreign policy, on health care, on tax policy, and on speaking truth to corporate power. 

Each video is about 10 minutes in length and well worth watching.  Two black activists, more or less defending Obama, are also part of the interview.

Rest easy: Mickey Mouse won't vote tomorrow

After all the Republican frenzy over ACORN and voter fraud, it turns out that the McCain campaign and its "Honest and Open Election Committee" can't cite a single example of phony voter registrations leading to actual voter fraud.

Ronald Michaelson, a member of the committee, acknowledged as much:

"Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can't cite one, chapter and verse."

Michaelson also said that "an election-rigging scheme starting with phony application forms would not make much sense." 

No danger, then, of Mickey Mouse showing up at the polls.

That, of course, leaves voter suppression and real election fraud still on the table.  The Dems are worried about paperless ballots and rigged voting machines.  But the bigger issue is Republican-backed voter suppression, like requiring ID to prove you are who you say you are when you show up to vote in Indiana, a tactic aimed at poor older and minority voters, a demographic likely to vote Democratic.

Then there's this turnabout from the 2000 election --suppressing the military vote.  Mark Crispin Miller writes that the "Bush regime", in collusion with the Pentagon,

"...has been doing all it can to block the military vote, since 'our troops' mostly don't support McBush, whose record on the troops' and veterans' benefits, etc., has been dismal."

Mark Crispin Miller is the NYU professor who swears that the 2004 election was stolen from Kerry and handed to Bush.  He even has a book out about it.  So he may not be the most reliable source on Republican election fraud.

But then again... well, maybe, just maybe, he's right.  I guess we'll find out tomorrow.