As we begin a new school year in a week or so we should be very concerned about the absence of equity and social justice in our classrooms, schools, and cities. In addition, after this latest debt ceiling debacle it is evident that we have become a nation that has lost its moral compass.
I am outraged by cutting such programs as Head Start in the deficit reduction legislation just enacted. Head Start is a federally funded program that lifts poor children up by teaching them the requisite skills to be successful in their school-age years. How can we cut a program where there is a waiting list of poor children hoping to receive the services? But that is just what we did. We all should be ashamed, including Pres. Obama.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont said: “The wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations who are doing phenomenally well today are not being asked to contribute one penny in shared sacrifice toward deficit reduction…But it is very clear that there will be devastating cuts in education, infrastructure, Head Start, and child care.”
It was deeply heartening on Sunday when I read news reports about protests in Israel, fueled by the social network of FaceBook, where 300,000 Israelis, representing all walks of life and ages, came out to the streets of city squares across the country to demand social justice.
These huge demonstrations covered demands for reform in education, taxation, housing, childcare and healthcare. The estimated crowds drew 4 percent of the country’s total population. The equivalent number if 4 percent of the United States population turned out to demonstrate would be 12 million. Wouldn’t that number make a statement to U.S. leaders to lead toward responsible solutions to our debt problems, rather than planting the infertile seeds to make it all worse by disinvesting in children while the rich get richer?
The Israeli protest organizers want the effort to be non-partisan and apolitical—rather they say it is about creating a government that is about solutions for the people and nation’s problems. Itzk Shmuli, National Student Union leader, told crowds in Tel Aviv: “This is the first time hundreds of thousands of people are gathering time and again to tell our leaders: We demand change.”
A great democracy is made whole and vibrant by an informed and educated citizenry. The No Child Left Behind focus on math and language arts as the standard by which the quality of our schools are judged is placing our beloved country in jeopardy. Our schools are no longer building the skills of leadership for today’s perplexing problems. Yes, reading and math are critical to the success of the individual, but not in a society where greed dominates and the masses sit on their butts while 400 Americans have amassed the same wealth as 150 million Americans. History and social science must be equally as important.
I am a product of the ‘60s generation having graduated high school in May 1969. My classrooms in high school and college were filled with critical thinking and debate about education, equity, war, peace, nuclear energy, capital punishment and a litany of other provocative issues. I participated with my friends in non-violent protests and civil disobedience to persuade the government and elected leaders that the way forward was through thoughtful discourse, debate and globally responsible public policy.
Our complacency is alarming. Have we become too comfortable? Maybe as we see our 401K’s dwindle we will rise up with a united voice against greed and the tyranny of what Paul Krugman in his New York Times column today called “an extremist right that is prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands.”
The time has come for those of us who knew the ability to rally the masses to a cause to rise up and seize this moment in history to bring America back from the brink. We have the social networking technology to do it in our backyard. We must get started now before it is too late.
Some of the targeted goals of our new “social justice’ movement must be to create an equitable system of funding public education, increase the high school graduation rates to near 100 percent of those that began 9th grade, eliminate the racial achievement gap, fund Head Start at 100 percent of eligible children, and abolish NCLB and begin again.
What we need now is, as Pres. Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” This new freedom brought about by a new civil war does not have to involve deaths on a battlefield, but an enlightened citizenry and government to do the right thing by each and every child in this nation.
Chinese Classroom Plan for High School Juniors
Calculus
Microeconomic theory
Biology
Basketball Training
Geography
World History
Glee
Di Salvo Academy Lesson Plan
Gay Pride
Male and Female Gender Exploration
Malcolm X as a World Historian
Male/Female Interpretative Dance
The Role of America in World Racism
Non Confrontational Soccer
DiSalvo is the reason that in 5 years, every Chinese Business Executive will have a white male man servant and a teenage Latino couple doing the cooking
Hilarious but sadly true.
Perhaps you neglected to read this paragraph or the completeness of my columns history about the importance of rigor and high expectations for all content areas including all you mentions in a Chinese classroom:
A great democracy is made whole and vibrant by an informed and educated citizenry. The No Child Left Behind focus on math and language arts as the standard by which the quality of our schools are judged is placing our beloved country in jeopardy. Our schools are no longer building the skills of leadership for today’s perplexing problems. Yes, reading and math are critical to the success of the individual, but not in a society where greed dominates and the masses sit on their butts while 400 Americans have amassed the same wealth as 150 million Americans. History and social science must be equally as important.
It must be easy to sling vile comments my way. I must use my name while everyone who has commented on this blog
The ongoing theme keeps emerging…
”…in a society where greed dominates and the masses sit on their butts while 400 Americans have amassed the same wealth as 150 million Americans.”
Those eeeeeevil 400 Americans have amassed that same wealth because they have gotten up off of their butts and amassed that wealth while you, Mr. DiSalvo, have been gathering together with all your Educrat buddies trying to figure out how to take that amassed wealth away from those productive individuals and redistribute it to those “masses (who) sit on their butts.”
The only problem in your world evidently seems to be that those 400 Americans meanly and wrongly have no desire to see their amassed wealth taken away by the Guvmint mandate and distributed to the butt-sitting masses that you hold so dear.
One other thing – nobody is forcing you to come on here and blog by name. You are a public figure, on a public board. When you come on here and use your name and position of authority as a bona fide, you then also accept the possibility that somebody will take exception to your positions, and sometimes vociferously so – that’s part of the bargain. One thing that the Padres at BCP taught me, which is a lesson that you obviously have forgotten, is that if you can’t stand the heat then you shouldn’t walk into the kitchen.
Sierra Spartan,
I take the time to write to encourage public comment and dialogue about public education, arguably the most important issue of our time. Name-calling and vile comments do not move us closer to solution sets about how to fix the problem. Let’s meet face to face so we can have a substantive conversation, Sierra.
BTW- I have been in this scorchingly hot SJI kitchen for almost 3 years. For sure I have not tried to take an easy road to re-election if I decide to run again. Are you man enough to meet face to face? I have offered this opportunity up 3 times now to SJI bloggers who passionately disagree with my views..not one has had the courage to meet with me.
Also my Padre mentors taught me to question injustices and fight for those who have less than me. My run for elected office was a seed sown at Bellarmine. I have worked hard to make a small difference for vulnerable children. My success or lack thereof will be judged come 11/2012, if I seek re-election.
Numbers don’t lie.
Irrespective of ideology, political party, good intentions, etc., the fact is that our nation, our state, our county, our city, and our school districts do not have the resources to meet every perceived social need. Hard decisions have to be made or will be made for us by financial forces far beyond the control of government. Personally, I don’t pay attention to advocates who mouth off about not cutting their specific cuts unless they give detailed analysis and justification of what additional cuts they would make in other programs.
Quite frankly, in this time of austerity many children born outside of stable two-parent homes with parents who value education and the development of virtue are going to become human roadkill. There isn’t the money to try to paper over the devastating effects of illegitimacy and other dysfunctional homes-of-origin.
In 1998, Congress mandated the US Department of Health & Human Services to determine, on a national level, the impact of Head Start a 40 year old program at that time.
In 2010, twelve years later, the report was completed on the impact of Head Start on children and families during the children’s preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years. The final money shot was this:
“In sum, this report finds that providing access to Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole. For 3-year-olds, there are few sustained benefits, although access to the program may lead to improved parent-child relationships through 1st grade, a potentially important finding for children’s longer term development.”
You can read the entire executive summary of 35 pages at:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study/reports/impact_study/executive_summary_final.pdf
So, we’ve spent how many $BILLIONS on yet another failed liberal agenda program to try to achieve equal outcomes, and it is a complete failure???? But Joe wants to keep it going. Oh, that’s right…it helps him to justify his job.
Dysfunctional homes is that what Arnold and Maria have?
Ah, such high-minded words from such a small-minded Educrat.
I, too, was fed the high school hokum about “social justice” – but as I got out into the real world, having gotten a real job, I realized that when Guvmint officials start talking about “social justice,” what they’re really talking about is taking money out of my pocket – which I earned fair and square – and giving it to some other person that has been deemed by that same Guvmint official as “needy” or “more deserving” of the money that I earned for myself.
BC had it right up above – we do not now have the resources to meet every perceived social need. Our concentration right now needs to be on the basics, and that starts with the basic responsibility that every parent has, to make sure that their child is ready for school, well-fed, well-clothed, and paying attention. So long as “adults” are allowed to fill the school system with their ill-prepared offspring and are not willing to take responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of their children, such woes will continue.
The reader may also want to consider the DHHS’s own report on Head Start (available here) and how, after billions and billions of dollars spent over the years, it has resulted in little, if any, cognitive gain for the children it was supposed to serve.
Having high-minded programs is fine and dandy, but you still have to get something for the money – otherwise it’s just a jobs program for Guvmintal drones and their Educrat enablers.
Joe’s predicable I am outraged blog and another more taxes solution rather than improve government efficiency, consolidate districts, cut admin, fire bad teachers, longer school year and cut all government wasteful, unnecessary, non essential and tax subsidy spending
Wealthy pay few or less taxes because their lawyers, tax accountants and lobbyists lobbied for loopholes, tax subsidies and big deductions,
Most politicians either come from wealthy families or become wealthy after being elected so have little empathy or care about middle class working people and believe only solution is more not less taxes
Vote all wealth politicians out of office
Government Managers and some workers get 20-30% higher high pay, great benefits and 75-90% early retirement than private workers and until recently no layoffs, many are middle class while some government workers are working poor
Middle class get frequent unemployment, pay high taxes and get little from government except more taxes, higher fees, more harassment at airport, DMV, tax and government offices and fewer services
Poor and illegal immigrants get food stamps, welfare and subsidized programs
Middle class pays taxes, creates wealth by their labor and get screwed by wealthy government managers and multi millionaire politicians
> As we begin a new school year in a week or so we should be very concerned about the absence of equity and social justice in our classrooms, schools, and cities.
Joseph:
Please explain what you mean by “social justice”.
I hear people use this all the time, but I’m never sure what they mean.
Are there any objective measures for “social justice”?
If I spend money on my kids to send them to a private school, am I engaging in “social justice”?
If I take my kid out of a public school and put him in a charter school, am I denying “social justice” to kids in the public school? Am I contributing to “social justice” by building a strong charter school community?
Help. I’m confused.
Sitting,
I was taught by my Jesuit teachers that social justice is a the administration of law and policies so each and every citizen (each and every person), irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, are treated in equally and equitably by those in power.
After experiencing our government lately my fear is we have lost the moral guidance for generations to come. For this i am deeply sorry and will attempt in small ways to do all I can as one individual to see a socially just society re-emerge in my lifetime or my childrens.
> I was taught by my Jesuit teachers that social justice is a the administration of law and policies so each and every citizen (each and every person), irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, are treated in equally and equitably by those in power.
Well and good.
But isn’t this just a definition of “equal protection under the law”.
What is the difference between “social justice” and “equal protection under the law”?
Is it, perhaps, that those who insist on asserting “social justice” simply don’t want to give any credit to the American constitutional system?
Joe: the massive debt that seems to require an ever-increasing debt ceiling was created primarily by folks like you proposing one failed program after another funded by that huge band of sheep called the US taxpayer, in a doomed from the start effort to give everyone equal outcomes.
High school dropouts and fifth generation welfare recipients are ill-equipped to raise children; yet, at taxpayer expense, they continue to to breed at an alarming rate. Intelligent, productive, well-educated folks are non-breeding themselves into the minority. And the garbage you teach kids turns just enough of them to keep pushing for failed programs for the “disadvantaged”.
The perceived need for Head Start is the result of the above. Back in the Day, parents nurtured their kids, read to them, challenged their little minds. The mindless welfare crowd these days does nothing for their kids. They’re too busy selling drugs, doing crack, blaming “The Man” for their lack of initiative and lack of success…whatever. And guys like you, Joe, are enablers of the dumbing down of society with your worthless, yet highly expensive, good intentions, which are translated into ineffective but highly expensive taxpayer funded experiments in “social justice” and educational reform.
Add to our home-grown benefit suckers living on the dole the 30+ million illegals getting everything they need free to them but at taxpayer expense, and you have a house of cards system that cannot last another ten years. Very few of these folks will ever escape the circle of poverty, no matter how much of our money you throw at them, Joe.
Joe: It is those of us who pay the bills for the slackers and illegals who you want to protect are the ones not being treated equally. If Ramon and Rosa sneak into the US ILLEGALLY from Mexico and have a couple of kids here, those kids get meals, an education, including college in CA at the RESIDENT rate, while kids from the other 49 states who were born here or came here LEGALLY must pay a premium, MediCal, etc., many of the parents get food stamps, all free to them but paid for by those who were born here or those who came here LEGALLY.
We are rapidly reaching the point where those who work and pay taxes (a HUGE percentage, something like 47% of all workers, don’t pay income taxes) will be outnumbered by those with their hands out for “assistance”. So if there isn’t enough money to give away to all those asking for it, where do we cut first? How about those who are here ILLEGALLY? Charity begins at home. But my Mom who worked all her life doesn’t get a COLA on Social Security for two years, but the slackers and the illegals keep getting stuff.
Joe, those of us paying the bills are the ones not being treated equally.
A quick perusal of your CV on the SCCOE website suggests to me that you and your family have a whole lot of walking to do in order to back up the talk.
We live in one of the wealthiest places in human history and you are saying that we can’t afford to educate needy children. Human roadkill? That’s as ignorant as it is cold-blooded, and you ought to be ashamed. But more to the point, you ought to be afraid. You are helping to create an ugly, undemocratic world.
Head Start in the first place was at my school for years . The school has to qualify for the program , but essentially the program like pre-school is a factor why some poorer children by the time they enter kindergarten are usually “caught up” by the time they enter fist grade .
As far as “social Justice ” it has greatly been eroded from our society . Right-wingers call “Social Justice” Marxism .
I think America needs to look at London right now with mass rioters, looting , and burning . I am sure that what’s causing turmoil in England, poverty , and the want of jobs .
Sure enough look at the middle east and look at the Arab spring . Flags of discontent swing .
America needs to wake up !
I would recommend to the Unknown Educator to take a look at the pictures of the rioters in London, and what they are wearing whilst conducting their riots.
Never have I seen such a well turned-out group of rioters. None of them are wearing sackcloth or burlap. In fact, most of them are wearing high-end shoes (Nike, Adidas, Puma) and designer jeans that are baggy in all the right places.
Those riots are because the Limey Guvmint is no longer financially able to continue the Labourite largesse that has kept the rioters collectively on the dole (either through direct payment or subsidized education) for more than ten years.
They’re getting their free money taken away, and so they’ve decided to go out and get some free stuff on their own.
Unfortunately, and unlike here in the States, the shop owners are not allowed to defend their stores and belongings.
What you see in the UK is the end result of unfettered liberalism – and a peak into the future of the USA if we don’t get certain politicians out of office pronto.
> As far as “social Justice ” it has greatly been eroded from our society . Right-wingers call “Social Justice” Marxism .
I didn’t ask what “Right-wingers” call “Social Justice.”
I asked Joseph DiSalvo to explain what HE meant by “social justice”.
I’m sure you thought you were just being helpful in trying to answer a question that was not asked. But if I had wanted the answer to that particular question, I would have asked it of someone who had the credentials to answer it. Probably not you.
In this case, Joseph DiSalvo is probably a credible authority on what Joseph DiSalvo means by “social justice”.
Here is your answer , no ones needs a credential to define it.
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, …that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being.
Many of the ideas of Social Justice have been linked to Socialism.
The idea of equality has been sought after by many creeds and races , and sexes .
I am sure Mr. Di Salvo would have given the same answer as it applies to education .
Try going to : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice
> Here is your answer , no ones needs a credential to define it.
Sorry. I’m not really interested in the purported definitions of empty platitudes spoon-fed to the masses by wikipedia or anyone else.
I’m interested in learning what education policy makers understand to be the operative meaning of empty, ambibuous platitudes that have been covertly, opaquely, and unaccountably grafted on to what they perceive to be their “job descriptions”.
Joseph DeSalvo is an education policy maker. You, presumably, are not.
What Joseph DiSalvo thinks “social justice” means, and how he intends to discharge his public policy responsibilities on the basis of his perception of that meaning is the issue.
Mr. DiSalvo,
I’m with you Joseph in deploring our debt problems and the vast gulf in this country between the haves and the have nots. Unlike you though, I believe these conditions have been caused by too much government involvement rather than too little.
Give the human spirit a little credit. Stop perpetuating this culture of dependency on government and you will find that people will learn to stand on their own and to watch out for their neighbor.
The problem with government social programs that most government dependency programs don’t make people self-sufficient and eventually government runs out of other people’s money to pay for social programs
” Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax Recession, new tax credits have nearly half of US households paying no federal income tax “
” About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners—households making an average of $366,400 in 2006—paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment. “
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1
More and more peeople are Government dependent and less and less are paying taxes so governmetn either raises taxes or cut programs
Big Heart Man—
I’m not rejoicing in the hard decisions that have to be made, I’m just acknowledging the difficult situation in which we find ourselves.
I think the biggest educational tragedy of our time is that despite the large resources we throw at the public schools, a large percentage of the students are not learning effectively. Partially it is because of bureaucratic overhead, the inability to fire poor-performing teachers, and the pursuit of educational gimmicks (Harvey Milk Day and LGBT history mandate anyone?) instead of rigorous standards in the subjects that really matter. But a far larger problem is that the home life of a huge number of our children, perhaps the majority in East San Jose, does not promote educational achievement. I say that as a local who attended public schools. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch when I was in those schools in the 70s and 80s, but it is far worse now. Broken homes and parents who see schools as a baby-sitter rather than an opportunity for education and a better life for their children are the norm, not the exception. These social problems cannot be fixed by increasing school budgets.
I think social justice is some kind of justice that is, um, like, you know, kind of social.
Me know social justice, cannot read or add
Me sing good, play with hands and feet.
Good people, like the old.
What is multiplication, Mr. Joe?
Have egg as pet, Mr. Joe teach me social justice, and recess.
I…,
Please reread my column. Either you did not read it in whole or you only wish to demean rather than be part of the discussion on solutions. America is declining and I want to be part of the solution to make us great once again. I welcome dialogue and abhor name-calling for the sake of humor or something.
Here is what I think you missed:
A great democracy is made whole and vibrant by an informed and educated citizenry. The No Child Left Behind focus on math and language arts as the standard by which the quality of our schools are judged is placing our beloved country in jeopardy. Our schools are no longer building the skills of leadership for today’s perplexing problems. Yes, reading and math are critical to the success of the individual, but not in a society where greed dominates and the masses sit on their butts while 400 Americans have amassed the same wealth as 150 million Americans. History and social science must be equally as important.
> Yes, reading and math are critical to the success of the individual, but not in a society where greed dominates and the masses sit on their butts while 400 Americans have amassed the same wealth as 150 million Americans.
When you refer to “a society where greed dominates”, are you referring to businesses that are motivated by profits to offer goods and services that their customers desire?
Onceagain, Mr. DiSalvo illustrates by his comments that heis less than qualified to be responsible for the course of education to which your children and mune are subjected (and here, I use ‘subjected’ quite deliberately). In the first place epeatedly refers to the system of governance under which our framers intended for us to live as a democracy or ‘democratic’. We do not live in a democracy, a either the state or federal level. That we do not is clearly stated on the flag of California and by Benjamin Franklin at the close of the constitutional convention. His unwavering commitment to fallacy demonstrates either a rigid ideology despite history, facts and, presumably, eyesight sufficiently functional to read the words on California’s flag; an intellect too lazy or flexible to change his rhetoric despite repeated attempts to correct the fallacy he espouses, or a man sufficiently committed to revising history that he embraces the notion that a lue repeated oten enough becomes the truth if you’ve convinced enough people.
Personally, I think someone in the position he holds oughtto be more committed to the facts as opposed to ideology or opinion. And it also makes me wonder: if Mr. DiSalvo is so inflexibly and intractibly wrong in this one important bit of fact, in how many other positions does he exhibit the same intractible inflexible wrongness?
My next issue is with his useof the term ‘social justice’. Regardless of his intent, in general use theterm seems to mean equality of outcome. This is an important distinction to draw as it is not the equient of equal protection under the law. More often than not, the rhetoric of those advocating social justice suggests that they are more concerned with an equal outcome as opposed to equal opportunity and integrity of process, an regardless of those human variables which inevitably can and do affect outcome: factors such as intellect, aptitude, tenacity, motivation, and, in the case of a student, parental involvement. I submit that, with the exception of motivation, these are factors over which educators have little, if any control.
Head Start is another form of discrimination. Just like Affirmative Action. Everyone has an equal chance. Quit the liberal give-aways and lets balance our budgets! If this offends you, then move to Mexico.
Hi – Amen about Head Start. Best investment we can make as a society – regardless of your motives.
Quick Point on NCLB. It is under fierce attack by the public educational industry (Superintendents, Board of Educations, Administrators, teachers and their unions.) BTW – I am a 3rd year teacher in a high needs public middle school.
Why? Is it perfect – no. But the criticism leveled against it, I find very interesting as its minor compared to the state of public education in the US.
Where was this industry’s out cry all these years about a broken and failed public school system.
I teach too many 7th and 8th graders who are on a 3rd grade reading and math level. They usually drop out of high school, become unemployable and eventually – land in jail.
So – let’s look at the facts. What is NCLB asking this year- after being in force for 10 years – it is asking that 40% of students be on grade level. A “c” or better by at least 40% of the students. What does the industry say – “That is unreasonable” – I say shame on them. I say shame on them and others (likely misinformed), who bring up the small issues about NCLB as a tactic to kill it. Why – because for the first – we as a nation – are getting a true picture of the effectiveness of our public education system and it is holding the industry leaders accountable and THEY DON”T LIKE IT.
My school (for example) had 95% of 8th graders below proficiency (C) in math – this after being given access to huge amounts of additional monies (Title 1 for example) and the threat of consequences of NCLB. This is how bad the industry is and now they want take take control back. We need to stand up to this very powerful special interest group.
It’s not about morality with these schools, its about leadership and effective management of resources that are on average – twice that of other industrial countries. I see how this money is wasted all the time (one example) by just going to the latest “reform” program of the day. Consultants are hired (connected to the special interest group – of course) – the really unproven programs are brought in – millions are spent and it is dropped for a new one in a year or two. This goes on and on.
This special interest group (public education leadership) has proven to us time after time, it can’t be trusted with our children’s education. Without accountability, we are really fools to think anything will change. What concept has been so scary and radical to this group?
They will be measures – not for being elected to office, being a great grant writer, having many years experience and lots of credentials, or being liked by the staff, or keeping costs down, or whatever –
they will be measured by student achievement – OMG –
Let’s Kill NCLB
Too Funny – I have no idea who you are or what you do or if you had any experience with elected office.
I was referring to the general segment of the special interest group who get elected. Therefore – their main concern is to get re-elected – not necessarily about student achievement.
You seem to take all comments personal like they are directed at you. Regarding the face to face comment – it shows me a defensive reaction – not unlike I see from the middle school students. “I’ll see you after school”.
Anyway – overall it feels like you try to censure
comment and this is not a serious outlet as a result, for a debate of important issues.
You made no real comment on my point – just lectured about yourself(who cares).
Hey – Don’t take yourself so serious. Will you publish this or censure me?