Chokeholds being discussed by Richard Pryor in 1977. See it right here. Richard Pryor on Police and chokeholds. There will be a chapter in my new book about The New Jim Crow. Here is the introduction that I am working on. I have just written to four well known foundations about providing help to the neediest children in our nation by working on increasing and improving parent involvement. Parent involvement is an integral part of the foundation of success of students and there are ways to really achieve greater involvement. Now I choose to turn back to the foundations that I’ve written to. Those foundations are known for helping students and they include the Robin Hood Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and the Broad Foundation. I have not even received a reply yet from one of those foundations. This is the world we live in. They do good work, but. There will be much more exposed in this book. Mass incarceration, immigration, education reform, and more are the subjects covered in in this book. I know that we live in an imperfect world, but much of that world is problematic. Many years ago, I learned about a doctor, Barry James Marshall of Australia, who discovered that most stomach ulcers were caused by the H-pylori bacteria. He has said that “everyone was against me, but I knew I was right.” He finally swallowed a petri dish with the bacteria and soon became nauseous, had bad breath, and vomited. In about two weeks, he was taking antibiotics for the ulcer. In 2005, Barry James Marshall accepted the Nobel Prize for his work. Things have to change in the same way to help the United States and other countries. After working hard for twice as many years as Dr. Marshall, I have done a lot of work. I have taken on much more than the GED, but not right away. Today I am involved in parent involvement, the study of foreign languages, reentry, immigration and immigration reform, educational reform including charter schools and common core curriculum, and transforming countries. There are new, important developments, but I am not pleased by the progress. Who is to blame? Everyone! My work is similar in ways to the work of Professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I have read the wonderful book of Diane Ravitch: The Rein of Error. The solutions that they offer require revolutionary changes that really will take time. Even as I write, there is much going on in Ferguson and in other cities because of the Michael Brown case. The immigrants struggle is in the news as well. A solution was offered by President George W. Bush and nothing happened. Recently President Barack Obama issued two executive orders, one in 2011 and another one in November of 2014. The big problem is education and the immigrant movement has left millions of people behind. When President Bush gave us No Child Left Behind, I was trying to give the nation No Person Left Behind. My plan included children and their parents. I was writing about protection for immigrants well before President Obama did anything. I shared my ideas with the White House. What I wanted was a mobilization of the immigrant community to have protected status and to motivate those people into professions or careers. I knew back then that the United States needed more than a half-million nurses and we could have started a process where undocumented immigrants who were doctors, dentists, and nurses in their countries could become legalized professionals in the health industry. This was held back by everyone, including the immigrant movement. Ten years later, the immigrant movement has gained something, but it left our nation weaker than it would have been. Right now I am in touch with all three high school equivalency companies. I know that the office of the Attorney General of Missouri wants my help in Ferguson, but nothing has started there and perhaps some or much of the unrest could have been prevented after the killing of Michael Brown. I have written to Governor Cuomo on behalf of the Department of Education of New York State to move him to put more money into high school equivalency testing, which is badly needed to keep the system working, I am in touch with Major League Baseball in Santo Domingo about helping the signed ballplayers. I am waiting for news from the government of El Salvador so I can help the unaccompanied children who crossed the border. I am waiting for the office of Chancellor Carmen Fariña to contact me so I can mobilize the entire city of New York. I am waiting for all elected officials and community people to do the right thing. I have written to at least twenty-governors and people on the City Council of New York and my worst fears may be realized. I fear that nothing will happen to change things. Almost everyone mentioned in this new book did little or nothing to help. Here is a quick example of what I am talking about and you will see more articles written by me throughout this work. FIVE PEOPLE WHO SPOKE UP FROM THE FLOOR AT SOMOS EL FUTURO ON LONG ISLAND MADE THE DISCUSSION REAL By Profesor Martin Danenberg “El Quijote del GED” I had the opportunity to speak at Somos El Futuro, but my two minutes were up as I attempted to finish a sentence. That was okay, because I want to hear what others have to say and that is just what happened. Five people got up and made the discussion exciting as they brought up experiences from various communities based on decades of work. They talked about children being affected by mental health issues, about children being affected by domestic violence, about children on Long Island who were accompanied across the border and who are not doing their school work even over a month after school has begun. The discussion was not real until I spoke out and then I really woke it up. There was a seasoned veteran from New York City who spoke about parent involvement. Parent involvement was barely mentioned by the panelists. Even after the conference, there was a woman from the EOC who was talking about parent involvement who works closely with Willie Vice who is person that helps manage all of the ATTAIN Labs of New York and who is one of my biggest supporters. I opened up the discussion on the floor about parent involvement I told the people in the room about the woman appointed by Chancellor Carmen Fariña of New York City’s schools. There were a few solutions offered by the panelists, but not enough solutions. Even some of the panelists showed their true potential after they were called upon to answer what the audience was saying. Okay here is one more example. NO MORE SIGNIFICANT GAINS BY MINORITIES ON THE SAT By Profesor Martin Danenberg “El Quijote del GED” We have to thank the media for presenting very important information that few teachers, administrators, and elected officials will share with communities. Here is what was really important. African-Americans and Hispanics lag way behind others on the SAT exam results. There has been no increase since last year in the numbers of test takers among African-Americans and Hispanics and considering that New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg-Joel Klein-Cathy Black-Dennis Walcott built “world class” schools, those results are hard to explain to me. Students also scored thirty points below last year (comparing 2014 with 2013). This figure means combined. So this year the test takers scored 1468 and last year the test takers scored 1498. Maybe we should bring back everyone that I mentioned, put them on a panel together, and let’s discuss this openly and intelligently. In reading the New York Post article by Aaron Short, I immediately asked myself what percentages of the passers were students who have benefitted from charter schools only and what percentage of passers were from neighborhood-public schools. Also what percentage of each group actually took the SAT. This information should help any school in crisis determine where it is going. Now you can navigate the book. By the way, not one person who spoke up at the annual Somos El Futuro Conference on Long Island, a conference that is held throughout the year in Albany at the New York State Legislature, on Long Island, and in Puerto Rico, did not even contact me even though I gave those people my business card. These people come and go and really show little commitment to create important change. I am not singling these people out. You will see by reading the book that from the White House down or from the community up, no great things are going on and you will understand why. I have had a GED program to help people anywhere in the last decade. Right now Flink Learning and I are working to help young people get better prepared for the high school equivalency test and college. I have ten language books that can help all beginners around the world to learn English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian faster. Parents should be helping their children much more, but even they are part of the problem. Here is what I published on November 26, 2013 and well before the large reaction against Common Core in New York State. Education is a Civil Right today and Civil Rights is failing again. I do not think that Title 1 was set up only for those parents who come into school. Parent involvement works with parents who never come to school. Historically, few Chinese parents came into school before the 1970’s and their children succeeded in great numbers and so do many middle class children today. We have been told that tutoring is not working out that well and that parent involvement works. So what has been happening all over the state of New York? The best schools are the ones with the vast majority of children doing well and make up forty percent. The sixty percent come largely from minority schools. Parent involvement in Title I cannot be confined to only those parents who come into school. There has to be better communication with the outside world, those other parents who do not come into school. It must be apparent from these words that the Department of Education is misleading the parent leadership which is misleading the parents and their children. There has to be better communication. As part of that communication across the city of New York digest this. Weeks ago in the Spanish media, I pointed out that there is evidence that the Department of Education is responsible for errors in preparation in its statewide testing. It was reported to me that schools that do practice testing maintain the results in the computer and do not share the results with parents. I also pointed out in my article that the same thing takes place in GED instruction in the state. The New York Times has written about the high failure of New York State GED candidates and this little known fact may be one of the principal causes of the high rate among GED preparation programs. I noticed this malpractice during the 1990’s and it does go on today. Geoffrey Canada became famous for the success of his Harlem Children’s Zone and a careful reading of the book about that success details how a principal was fired and replaced by someone who knew about practice testing. That was predictable to me. What did happen afterwards is that the great ego of that program fell, but it did not fall apart. When the Commissioner of Education raised the passing scores and the Harlem Children’s Zone number of passers declined substantially, someone told me that the school still had higher passing scores than some states. There are some quick reasons to explore about this comment. Population and practice testing are two of the main ones. Luck may be another one. Since the new principal knew about practice testing and proper procedures, the school could have better results. Parents could easily cause scores to shoot up by hiring tutors to address the needs of their children based on the practice tests. This is what is missed by schools that give practice tests and keep those tests and their results in the computer. The sharing of weaknesses is essential so that parents can assure the success of their children when that success may not be assured by the school. This is what parents have always done, even without high stakes testing. Based on the evidence that I obtained from one teacher, I conclude that Department of Education and the schools are at fault for the failure of the students on tests in grades 3-8.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 15:55:06 +0000
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