San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Education

Steve Fisher, SDSU’s Master Educator (And Basketball Coach)

by

By Ernie McCray

When San Diego State’s men’s gifted basketball players showed up at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas and rose from the 21st rated team to number 13 after destroying the Jayhawks’ dream of stretching a 68 game winning streak against non-Big Ten teams to 69 – I couldn’t help but think, at the time, of how lucky those young athletes are in having Steve Fisher as their guide on this wonderful ride.

The man is clearly a wonderful coach, a master teacher if there ever was one. He knows how to connect with folks who are counting on him for guidance.

I know. I’m an educator by nature, in a way. I decided on teaching after my very first day in kindergarten (as much as a five year old can consider such a thing), thinking that there must be a better way to teach somebody than taking a yardstick and whacking their knuckles to Maricopa County.   [Read more…]

Facts Don’t Matter in Newspaper’s Quest to Demonize Public Education in San Diego

by

“…pining for a previous superintendent is not only an affront to Ms. Marten but is akin to daydreaming about a former lover on your honeymoon.” 

By Doug Porter

Talk about your cheap shots. It was bad enough when the UT-San Diego editorial board whipped up an attack on our city’s schools laden with misstatements, factual errors and a personal attack on Superintendent Cindy Marten. But when a nationally recognized education leader stepped forward to correct the record on her behalf, his response was deemed unworthy for publication.

It’ all very Orwellian; reality isn’t simply what Papa Doug Manchester  tries to tell us it is.  When his minions refuse to acknowledge something, the idea is for you to believe that it never happened.

One of the longest running narratives with our Daily Newspaper has been their dislike for the Board of Trustees at San Diego Unified.  The paper’s ‘reform’ agenda for public education mirrors the libertarian/conservative wet dream of privatized charter schools, a change that means monetizing learning for corporate interests and creating a two-tiered system favoring the wealthier (and white) classes.   [Read more…]

Issa’s Joe McCarthy Imitation, DeMaio’s Koch Connection and #filnereverywhere: Looking Back at June 2013

by

#1 Why Only Five People in Washington Take Congressman Darrell Issa Seriously

San Diego’s own Congressman Darrell Issa is making headlines nationally this morning, but not in the way that the local daily paper would like you to believe.

Today’s UT-San Diego has a Page Two story up featuring a picture featuring Issa holding up a piece of paper, with a caption that says “interviews with employees at the Cincinnati IRS office indicate they were directed by Washington to target conservative groups.”

The north county’s answer to Joe McCarthy went on CNN Sunday morning to tout his latest ‘evidence’, which turned out to be highly edited selections from staff interviews with IRS agents. Political correspondent Cindy Crowley called Issa’s bluff, actually reading the documents and pointing out that they proved nothing.   [Read more…]

Bigger Than Watergate, Dumber Than Obamacare and More Dangerous Than a Leftist Bagman: Looking Back at May 2013

by

By Doug Porter

 For the twelve days of Christmas I give you: The madness of 2013, one month at a time. A month by month recap of stories that appeared in the Starting Line over the past year.

#1 Nothing But Good News for Bike Riders

Things are looking so bright they gotta wear shades for bicycle fans these days, both nationally and locally.

The nomination of Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx’s for U.S. Transportation secretary on Monday has bike enthusiasts excited. The Hill quotes League of American Bicyclists President Andy Clarke as saying:

“When Secretary LaHood announced his departure, the bicycling community asked the White House to appoint a successor with a clear commitment to multi-modal solutions to local transportation challenges, and Mayor Foxx clearly checks those boxes,”

  [Read more…]

San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law Slashes Jobs, Salaries, and Budget

by

By Paul Campos / Lawyers, Guns & Money/ Dec 12, 2013

The new dean at TJSL has apparently been brought in to clean up the mess created by his predecessor, and he’s not being too shy about the fact:

I do not know how Thomas Jefferson became the whipping boy for critics of legal education. We must, however, be honest with ourselves; many of our troubles are the result of our own missteps, our own failure to plan, and our own failure to address problems in a timely fashion. My immediate plan and promise to you is that we will take aggressive and transparent action to confront these challenges. Since July 1, we have taken what I think are positive, though at times painful, steps to address the most critical challenges, whether self-imposed or systemic. Let me give you three examples.

  [Read more…]

South Africa’s Role in My Evolution as an Educator

by

By Ernie McCray

As I reflect on Mandela’s passing I’m reminded of how the struggle of his people has played an important role in my development as an educator, starting back in ’57 or ’58 before I had taken my first “How to Teach” course at the University of Arizona.

At the time I was writing a research paper and found some essays on South Africa and the word “apartheid” leapt off the pages at me and I discovered that my struggle in Southern Arizona was so similar to what blacks were going through in the southern tip of the Dark Continent.

Of course, apartheid was more brutal. I didn’t have enough time to dwell on the subject so I just tucked my new found information away and got back to a life of pop quizzes and mid-terms and the like.
  [Read more…]

California Legislature’s Calderon Scandal Spreads to Rhee’s Faux School Reform Group

by

By Doug Porter

Allegations of pay-for-play proclivities by elected members of the Calderon family are shedding a negative light on the activities of faux education reformer Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization.  Last month Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit revealed an FBI investigation of Sen. Calderon, including allegations he’d accepted $60,000 in bribes from undercover agents posing as independent movie executives.

Members of the Calderon family serving or having served in both branches of the legislature are considered to be a powerful political dynasty. A federal undercover investigation into state Sen. Ron Calderon has rocked Sacramento, “altering the dynamics of the Southern California region he and his political family have dominated for decades,” according to columnist Dan Walters.

Information is now emerging regarding connections between the Calderon family and education reformer Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst group.  Her political action committee has spent $1.6 million in California in recent elections backing political figures that supported her agenda.   [Read more…]

Disagreement Without the Hate

by

By Laura Finley/Common Dreams

Disagreement is an essential component of a healthy relationship, a healthy workplace, and a healthy democracy. Much research documents the dangers of surrounding ourselves with so-called “yes men” who always concur. Workplace echo chambers stifle innovation and reify bad policy decisions. Disagreement stimulates creative thinking and prompts innovation.

Yet, there is indeed a peaceful, even collaborative, way to disagree. And, I contend, that it never involves personal insults, ad hominem attacks, and strings of epithets and curse words.

Unfortunately, it seems as though few in the U.S are taught how to disagree peacefully and constructively. Instead, if we read, hear or see something that bothers us, we tend to get all pissy about it and, rather than present our case, resort to the lowest blows we can. This behavior is, of course, modeled at nearly every turn.   [Read more…]

How the Kennedy Tragedy Made Me a Better Teacher

by

By Ernie McCray

On November 22, 1963, I was a twenty-five year old sixth grade teacher enjoying my second year serving students at Perry Elementary. Before recess that day we had gotten the news that the president was shot. The radio in our classroom verified what we had heard with the words “President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is dead.”

We were absolutely stunned. But, as a result of this man losing his life, I was a transformed educator when the day was done, so much more attuned to what was required of me if I wanted to nurture young minds in truly helpful ways. Now, when I woke up that morning my teaching was pretty good. I had respect and all that. My lessons were planned adequately enough.
  [Read more…]

How Privatizers Are Killing Our Schools

by

Apparently working together as a community is anti-American ‘Communism’ now.

By Paul Buchheit / Alternet

Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast called the public school system a “socialist regime.” Michelle Rheecautions us against commending students for their ‘participation’ in sports and other activities.

Privatizers believe that any form of working together as a community is anti-American. To them, individual achievement is all that matters. They’re now applying their winner-take-all profit motive to our children.

  [Read more…]

The Fish Stinks From the Head – Tales of Woe About San Diego’s MTS and NCTD Transit Authorities

by

By Doug Porter

“The fish stinks from the head” is an old Turkish metaphor used to attribute poor leadership as the cause for dysfunctional enterprises.

News accounts from the past 24 hours about San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and the North County Transit District (NCTD) speak to seriously misplaced priorities, along with racism and sexism in both organizations.

In today’s UT-San Diego there is a story detailing how officials with the Metropolitan Transit System have declined to offer discounts for low income students. A pilot program, funded by both the school district and the City Council will now be cut by more than half.

Yesterday reporter Brad Racino at inewsource/KPBS broke a major story about sex and age bias in employment policies within the North County Transit District.    [Read more…]

Urban Design for Climate Change- The Third Way

by

Ideas for linking urban design and healthy communities

By Jim Bliesner

Local Woodbury Architecture School students in the graduate Landscape Urbanism program under Professor Rene Peralta have undertaken to develop designs for the “Greater Logan Heights” area to link urban design and healthy communities. The question raised by the student’s designs is whether community level efforts can qualify as strategies for reducing CO2 levels.

The idea is that reducing carbon emissions does not just need to be about electric cars, modified freeways and bullet trains but can in fact be the impetus for making our communities more livable. Sound ecological urban design can both achieve carbon reductions and make our communities more walkable and healthy according to the students.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry