Re: Fwd: Kozol meets with Kennedy on NCLB

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

It is a shame Kozol is still taken seriously. He has surely lost his edge.
http://www.richgibson.com/beyondkozol.htm

Now he troops off steeped in this " humble but 
the great man gave me a whole hour"  hat in hand 
to Ted Kennedy, Chappaquidick Ted, the war 
criminal,  pretending that he, Kozol, has some 
constituency, and asking that Congress write a 
new law, but it surely would be "premature" to 
ask too much of the sensitive Kennedy, current 
scion of one of the most vile families of the 
last century,  and we would certainly want Ted to 
contain his "private thoughts," about, well, whatever.

Kozol simply does not get it. There is a direct 
line from the system of capital, now suffering 
from multidimensional decay in the US, the 
promise of perpetual imperial wars, the 
regimentation of curricula, high stakes tests, 
and the militarization of schools. This is not 
bad right wingers who just stole power in the US. 
It is the logical working out of the 
international war of the rich on the poor, 
operating with great intensity, provoking 
hypernationalism, racism, sexism, irrationalism, 
everywhere--the emergence of fascism. The wars 
and the NCLB are, entirely, bipartisan affairs.

Kozol cannot add up the obvious conclusions 
written all over some of his own better work: the 
government is an executive committee of the rich 
where they iron out their differences, then under 
the fetish of democracy allow the rest of us, 
poor and working people, to pulverize each other 
while we choose which one of the rich will 
oppress us best---and that the schools are 
missions for capital and its government----and 
absent direct action resistance in schools and 
the military this situation will grow worse. If 
Congress rewrites NCLB in the absence of social 
upheaval, the new NCLB will be worse than the last one.

Then, to conclude, Kozol runs into the $450,000 a 
year NEA executive Reg Weaver, who cannot 
memorize the press releases written for him, and 
who has busied himself with attacking serious 
test resisters like Susan Ohanian and the 
membership of the Visalia California NEA, and 
Kozol implies that Weaver and Kennedy are key allies in this, ah, discussion.

This is not a discussion. This is a fight. Our 
task is to connect reason to power. Nobody is 
going to save us but our own direct action, our 
own new organizations that unite people across 
the borders of job classification, dues paying, 
pulling together community people, education 
workers, students, in preparation to revolt, not 
to deepen our common alienation at the ballot box.

Advice, Jonathan. Go home. Read Marx. Make class 
war. It is being made on the rest of us. Or, take 
tea with Ted, but don't try to take credit and 
step in front of the fight backs that will occur.

At 10:18 PM 12/12/2007, you wrote:


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Ken Goodman <Kgoodman@U.ARIZONA.EDU>
> > Date: Wed Dec 12, 2007  10:05:58 PM US/Pacific
> > To: ELLADVOC@ASU.EDU
> > Subject: Re: Kozol meets with Kennedy on NCLB
> > Reply-To: Ken Goodman <Kgoodman@U.ARIZONA.EDU>
> >
> > I think Kozol's meeting with Kennedy and the 
> > education tv bit Edwards is circulating on NCLB 
> > (Edwards evena accused Bush of trying to 
> > destroy public education through NCLB) show two key things:
> > We won a major victory in defeating and 
> > counterbalancing the push from the right and 
> > Spellings to make NCLB even worse. And NCLB and 
> > eduation are going to be at play in the 
> > election. Today all the republican candidates 
> > in the Iowa debate were vioelently anti union, 
> > anti public education, pro choice, and anti 
> > tacher. It's time to move to resistence and let 
> > the politicians know parnets, educators, and 
> > students are going to resist NCLB in every way 
> > possible. The democrats have to be made to see 
> > NCLB as a Bush liability and a major voter 
> > concern. It can't be swept under the rug until 2009.
> > Ken Goodman
> >
> >
> > James Crawford wrote:
> >
> > This is mildly encouraging. Obviously, Sen. 
> > Kennedy is feeling some heat, just like Rep. 
> > Miller, who recently said NCLB "may be the most 
> > tainted brand in America." So the key Democrats 
> > are ready to abandon the Stay the Course 
> > position they supported just a few months ago 
> > and pass a somewhat revised version -- NCLB 
> > Lite? -- under a new name. But their 
> > willingness to deal comes much too late in the 
> > political cycle. It still seems unlikely that 
> > NCLB will be reauthorized before 2009. If then.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > http://ed-action.org/news.php?section=letters
> >
> > LETTERS FROM JONATHAN
> >
> > A series of letters in which Jonathan Kozol 
> > will share his personal beliefs with our friends and allies.
> >
> > Here?s Jonathan?s Report from His Recent Meeting with Senator Ted Kennedy:
> >
> > I met with Ted Kennedy in his Washington office 
> > on December 5 and was accompanied by the 
> > politically savvy woman who was the primary 
> > model for ?Francesca? in my book Letters to a 
> > Young Teacher. Both of us left the meeting highly optimistic.
> >
> >
> >
> > Senator Kennedy listened carefully to the 
> > entire set of sweeping revisions in No Child 
> > Left Behind that I presented to him, which are 
> > summarized in the letter I handed him.  I went 
> > further than I?ve gone before by ending with 
> > the suggestion that Congress ought to stop 
> > trying to merely ?tweak? NCLB but should create 
> > an essentially new law and get rid of the name 
> > ?NCLB? altogether, in order to break all 
> > association with the right-wing punitive ideology of the Bush administration.
> >
> > In his questions, Kennedy arrowed-in on (1) the 
> > punitive and demoralizing testing obsession of 
> > NCLB, (2) the ways in which a totally new 
> > inter-district transfer clause could be used to 
> > massively increase racial integration and 
> > counteract the segregative impact of the 
> > Supreme Court?s devastating ruling on June 28, 
> > (3) the establishment of universal pre-K as a 
> > pre-condition for testing children in third 
> > grade or earlier. (He noted favorably that 
> > Senator Hillary Clinton has proposed a $10 
> > billion increase in federal pre-K funds, which 
> > would guarantee pre-K to all low-income three- 
> > and four-year-olds, less than half of whom are being served today.)
> >
> >
> >
> > Our meeting, which was originally planned to 
> > run approximately 20 minutes, was extended by 
> > Kennedy to more than an hour. At that point, 
> > the Senator set a date to meet with me again in 
> > the first week of January, here at his home in 
> > Boston, to go into further detail on the full 
> > range of NCLB changes included in my letter.
> >
> > In view of this unexpected offer to meet again 
> > so quickly after he?s reflected on the changes 
> > I presented, I decided it was premature to ask 
> > for firm commitments. For the same reason, I 
> > think I should respect for now the Senator?s 
> > private thoughts on certain of these issues. I 
> > will simply say that ?Francesca? and I left 
> > with the clear belief that Kennedy is by no 
> > means locked into NCLB?s major premises, as I 
> > had initially feared and as his staff?s 
> > preliminary draft revisions had suggested.
> >
> >
> > After leaving Kennedy?s office, I met with Reg 
> > Weaver, president of the NEA, and nearly his 
> > entire staff, in order to report on my 
> > immediate reactions. Weaver and the NEA have 
> > recently intensified their all-out opposition 
> > not just to specific details but to the entire 
> > thrust and ideology of NCLB. While the NEA 
> > strategists urged me to be realistic in not 
> > assuming that Kennedy?s apparent responsiveness 
> > to my determined pleas will necessarily 
> > translate into the sweeping legislative actions 
> > which the NEA and Education Action! now demand, 
> > they were impressed that Senator Kennedy, far 
> > from being indignant or defensive, appeared to 
> > be prepared to reconsider some of the most 
> > damaging aspects, and omissions, in this law?a 
> > major breakthrough if this perception on my part proves to be correct.
> >
> >
> >
> > Any strategic in-put from you education 
> > activists that may reinforce my hand when I 
> > follow up with Senator Kennedy would be 
> > tremendously helpful. With Mr. Bush greatly 
> > weakened as an ineffective lame-duck president, 
> > Ted Kennedy, because of his seniority and 
> > stature, is probably the most influential 
> > figure in the federal government. I?ll be grateful for your guidance.
> >
> >
> > --Jonathan (December 11, 2007)
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