Aired Last week 59:02

Democracy Now! 2019-02-12 Tuesday

Denver teachers launch their first strike in 25 years; Faculty at Wright State University in Ohio conclude one of the longest public university strikes in U.S. history; Journalist Dahr Jamail on finding meaning in the climate catastrophe.

Democracy Now! Audio

Aired Last week 4:41

2/11/19: Show Me.

As Day 2 of the Denver Public Schools Classroom Teachers’ Association strike begins, Coach MK challenges everyone to stop talking about supporting teachers and start showing up for them, and challenges Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova to stop talking about student safety and start showing us the steps she has taken to keep our students safe. #dpsstrike #dcta #denverteacherstrike #standwithteachers Become a supporter of this podcast: https://anchor.fm/coachmk/support This podcast is sponsored by Anchor

Morning Mantra

Aired 5 d ago 36:52

Weekly Wrap: With National Emergency Declaration, The Border Wall Saga Continues

It's Friday. Sam will be seeing NPR's Susan Davis and Lulu Garcia-Navarro in the studio as they bid farewell to NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover. They're breaking down the issues raised as President Trump declares a national emergency in order to build the border wall. Also, what led more teachers — this time in Denver — to strike this week? Plus, Sue explains why she's over the TV show 'This Is Us' in a new segment.

It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders

Aired Last month 59:02

Democracy Now! 2019-01-23 Wednesday

From New York. This is democracy. Now. Daughter. Students and you fight. If you have to you. Los Angeles teachers are claiming victory following a week long strike to improve classroom, conditions and fight the privatization of public schools. This comes as Denver teachers vote to strike on Monday. We'll go to Los Angeles for the latest and hear from some of the teachers and students on the picket line just here for myself. I'm out here for my kids because they can't fight for what they deserve what they deserve our fully funded community schools, if the community school isn't the best school available. The not the problem because the community school should be schoolwork every single student can come and get a quality education, then the supreme court votes to allow President Trump's ban on transgender troops to go into effect. We'll speak with the ACLU's. Chase strange you on the legal fight to overturn the ban. Is looking to ban people from enlisting to restrict people's access to healthcare and essentially restrict promotions. And give the department of defense discretion to kick people out at will. So this is just the transparency discrimination that we've seen from the administration towards transgender individuals, and so many others all that and more coming up. Welcome to democracy now democracy now dot org. The war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman as the partial government shutdown enters its thirty third day. The Senate is set to vote on two separate bills Thursday a democratic proposal that would reopen government temporarily with no funding for a border wall and a Republican Bill that includes President Trump's demand for five point seven billion dollars to build his wall on the US Mexico border. The condemned Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's funding proposal Tuesday, saying it substantially worse than what the president described in his speech and contains provisions that would severely curtail the asylum system and put immigrant children at increased risk democratic leaders in both the house and Senate have already rejected such a proposal. This is house speaker Nancy Pelosi DACA research. Recipients had their protections. She's SP that temporary protected status to have that protection president took it away. And now he's saying, well, I'll give you this back temporarily. If you give me a wall as the political impasse drags on affected federal workers and agencies continue to call for an end to the shut down the Transportation Security Administration said a record ten percent of workers didn't come to work Sunday due to the shutdown as travelers face extended wait times and reduce service at a number of airports around the country. There are over eight hundred thousand federal workers who are working without pay or on furlough and four million federal contractors who will never be paid perhaps because they're not working directly for the government, though are affected by the shutdown. A group representing the F B I released a report Tuesday, laying out the effects of the shutdown. Down on the agency, including hampering ongoing criminal investigations in cases, involving sex trafficking and crimes against children federal workers affected by the shutdown or continuing to hold vents and rallies across the country. This is Lori McKenna an employee at the Internal Revenue Service in Chicago recently filed for unemployment so I'm going through physical therapy. And you know, the co pays a ninety dollars a week. And so I'm having to pay out of pocket. So now is that the point what I did get to the point where should I pay? My should I go to physical therapy or pay a Bill what purchase food food banks had been set up around the country to help federal workers who can't afford food. The supreme court has green lighted president Donald Trump's plan to ban transgender people from serving in the US military. The decision came Tuesday in five to four ruling with the liberal justices dissenting. Trump first announced the ban in two thousand seventeen but to lower court injunctions blocked, it the rule which affects most transgender people will be permitted to go into effect as the ongoing lawsuits. Make their way up to the supreme court will have more on the story later in the broadcast with chase strange use staff attorney at the ACLU who's challenging the Trump administration's ban in more news from the supreme court justices decided not to take up the Trump. Administrations attempted repeal of the deferred action for childhood arrivals or DACA program. This leaves the program in place for now as several lower court judges already ruled against Trump's challenge to the Obama era policy DACA currently benefits around seven hundred thousand formerly undocumented people who were brought to the United States as children the supreme court also decided Tuesday, it would hear a case challenging New York City law that prevents licensed gun owners from taking their guns outside the city. It'll be the first second amendment case heard by the court since two thousand ten meanwhile, the Trump administration is asking the supreme court to take on the twenty twenty census citizenship question after a New York judge barred the move last week voting rights activists say the citizenship question is aimed at deterring immigrants from participating in the census leading to a vast. Undercount in states with large immigrant communities impacting everything from the redrawing of congressional maps to the allocation of federal funding. Senate Republicans say they're considering the so-called nuclear option in order to speed up. The confirmation of Trump appointed judges if employed the nuclear option would allow Republican senators to confirm nominees with a simple majority rather than the usual sixty votes. Republicans now hold fifty three seats in the Senate Senator Mitch McConnell used the strategy in two thousand seventeen to confirm Neal Gorsuch to the supreme court shortly after Brett Kavanagh's confirmation last year McConnell declared. It was the biggest achievement of his career in Los Angeles public school teachers or returning to school today after approving an agreement to end historic stay strike, the United teachers Los Angeles in Los Angeles city officials announced Tuesday morning, they'd reached a deal on a new contract. The agreement includes pay increases for teachers additional support. Staff in school, smaller class sizes and the regulation of charter schools. Meanwhile, teachers in Denver have voted overwhelmingly to strike the decision came after failing to come to an agreement with the Denver school system over contract and pay issues. This'll be the first such strike for Denver teachers and a quarter of a century. We'll have more on the teacher strike after headlines. In Zimbabwe, growing unrest has been met with scaling violence, including deaths and multiple accounts of torture. Some reports put the number of him Bob way killed at over twelve nationwide. Protests started last week following the government's move to more than double the cost of fuel. In response. The government of president Emmerson Managua, ordered an internet blackout and deployed military forces to counter the uprising this is Sheila Martinique of Zimbabwe's human rights commission. Describing recent attacks by the military. They would people's houses nights or the end of the day in the ask or men to outside and night. One dollars. That would then beats apple on the men including boys is is eleven years. And then asked them to Durant or arrested them in sedan anti-government protests continue calling for the ouster of present Moammar al-bashir protester died Monday after sustaining injuries during clashes with security officers last week the committee to protect journalists said Tuesday Sudanese authorities have revoked credentials of international journalists covering the protests, including aljazeera the United States is continuing to ratchet up pressure and Venezuela, and what appears to be part of a coordinated effort to remove the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office on Tuesday. Vice President Mike Pence posted a video message online telling Venezuelan opposition leaders and protesters that the US supports their efforts to oust the president. I'm Mike Pence, the vice president of the United States and on behalf of President Donald Trump and all the American people. Let me express the unwavering support of the United States as you the people of Venezuela. Raise your voices in a call for freedom. Nncholas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power then is Wayland president and the Douro responded by saying he would revise diplomatic relations with the United States. Saying quote, never before has a high level official said that the opposition should overthrow the government, unquote. Then as Wayland vice president Desi Rodriguez also responded to the Pence video equal. Simply because Mr. Pence doesn't have a job. Now he wants to come in and run Venezuela. Heading out instructions on what should happen in Venezuela tomorrow openly calling for Khuda in Venezuela. I will say like Venezuela. People would say to you Yenkey go home on Monday. The government of president Madero said it suppressed a military revolt in the capital cut. Akkas thorough has accused the west along with Canada and twelve Latin American allies, including Brazil of plotting coup against his socialist government. Meanwhile, opposition groups are planning to hold major anti Madero protest today across Venezuela in Davos, Switzerland. Global elites are gathering at the World Economic Forum this week while some of the world's wealthiest people discussed economic and business issues other speakers, including renowned British natural historian, David Attenborough sounded the alarm on the dangers of climate change you to pickle to station. We now so numerous soap awful, so all pervasive. The mechanisms that we have for destruction also wholesales so frightening that we can actually exterminate whole ecosystems without even noticing it. That was David Attenborough speaking with Prince William Tuesday, Brazilian present Shire Bolsonaro also spoke with the World Economic Forum calling and business leaders to invest in Brazil, citing the country's biodiversity and abundant mineral riches, environmentalists sable sonata will speed catastrophic climate change through deregulation by opening up. That's watts of the Amazon to Agra business giants. A new study published. This week finds the melting of Greenland's ice sheet may have reached a tipping point and could severely increased sea level rise over the next twenty years. The report confirms other recent studies which warned the Arctic is warming at twice the rate. Eight of the rest of the planet due to climate change a study by the university of Michigan and Utah found federal aid to Puerto Rico was slower and less generous after hurricane Maria than federal aid received by Texas and Florida after hurricanes Harvey and Irma hurricane Maria which slammed into the island of Puerto Rico in September two thousand seventeen was in fact, a higher category. Hurricane the nose, which struck the mainland United States just weeks. Earlier local residents have decried themes response to the disaster. Last year. A Harvard study says the death toll from Maria make top forty six hundred in the New York town of Greece. Police arrested three men and a minor on suspicion of plotting an attack on a local Muslim community. The suspects were said to be in possession of multiple improvised explosive devices and firearms and charged with criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy. The suspects were allegedly planning to attack the small community of Islam Burg in upstate New York. Police discovered the plot. After the identity. Sixteen year old suspect made a comment to a fellow student about a school shooter. The other suspects are nineteen year old Vincent veteran male and twenty year old Brian culinary and eighteen year old Andrew Krystal police say the attack was planned on the gaming chat platform, called discord and in New York City, the and New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the New York police department for resting transgender woman and charging her with false personnel. Linda Dominguez told NYPD officers that she changed her name to align with her gender identity. False personnel would involve someone intentionally misrepresenting their name in order to conceal their identity. Officers also allegedly harassed and mock Dominguez on the basis of her gender identity. This is Linda Dominguez speaking about the case. Give about I decided to do this with a lawsuit. So they don't keep doing this. I am the realization of my ancestors dreams, and I cannot allow the police to abuse us trans girls, and those are some of the headlines, this is democracy. Now democracy now dot or the Warren peace report, I made me Goodman. We begin the show in Los Angeles where public school teachers are returning to school today after approving an agreement to end historic stay strike. The strike was the first in Los Angeles and three decades it came after more than twenty months of strain. Go she ASICs between the union the United teachers, Los Angeles and the school district the strike, effectively shutdown Los Angeles unified, the nation's second largest school district on Tuesday morning, union leaders and Los Angeles city officials announced they reached a deal on a new contract. This is Los Angeles. Mayor Eric Garcetti pro to now. That pending approval by the teachers of the represented by UTA and education professionals and the board of education that we have an agreement that will allow our teachers to go back to work on their campuses tomorrow. After the union announced Tuesday night, the contract had been approved by a super majority of UTA members included in the agreement are paying creases for teachers additional support staff and schools smaller class sizes and the regulation of charter schools, Alex Caputo, Pearl president of United teachers Los Angeles praise the striking teachers we've seen over the last week something pretty amazing happen. We went on strike in one of the largest strikes that the United States has seen in decades, and the creativity and innovation and passion and love and emotion of our members was out on the street in the communities in the parks for everyone to see and I'm so proud of our members classroom teachers counselors, nurses, librarians psychologists, early educators, adult educators who took it upon themselves in record numbers on picket lines to express what we've all known, but has been a truth hard to tell sometimes which is that public education desperately needs attention from the city from the country from the state Angeles unified school district superintendent Austin Butin are also spoke to this day at the news conference explaining four key areas. Agreement had been reached the first was to provide a fair six percent increase who all who work in schools. The second was reduced. Class sizes provide more support educators in schools, more nurses, counselors librarians. The third was to invest every nickel we have in our classrooms while maintaining the fiscal solvency of Los Angeles unified. And the last probably the most important is to strengthen the voice of educators and provide more opportunities for collaboration for all who work in our schools. Well for more we're joined by two guests Arlene anyways, chair of the bargaining team for United teachers, Los Angeles or UT LA. She's also the secretary and Sarah Jaffe is with us here in New York. Reporting fellow at the type media center, formerly the nation institute, she's author of necessary. Trouble Americans in revolt. We woke me both to democracy. Now are lean in a way, let's begin with you. We see you in all of these images as the announce being made democracy now just returned from Los Angeles. Who went to the major rally right before the announcement where firefighters had joined with the teachers in protest. Testing talk about the green that was reached the striking teachers voted for last night. What exactly did you achieve? Yes. Thank you, Amy. This was a historic agreement and actually much even gave us more than we had expected. Although we had very very strong demands. And we were clear that we had these demands needed to be met, and they included basically investing in our students a respect for educators and to stop the privatization of our schools. So specifically we were able to lower class sizes by anywhere from up to seven one to seven students in class, depending on which kind of classroom you have and to eliminate a provision that was in our contract that allowed the district to unilaterally increase class sizes. So that's out, and we are also able to get a nurse at every school five days a week. Which was exactly what we what we ask. For more academic council. Lers? So that there's a racial five hundred to one we also asked for teacher librarians to be brought back into our middle and high school. So that's hiring a forty one additional teacher librarians mental health professionals. We're able to get funding for different sources. So we can lower the ratio for psychiatric social workers colleges. People service attendance counselors there were gains for a lot of our the diversity of our unions. Lot of the different groups such as substitutes such as early educators, such as adults educators, we have bilingual education in there. We have a provision to stop the to allow up for charter cap to be introduced at the state level. We have a state law that allows unregulated charter schools to be started up anywhere at and. It's an unlimited number. So now, we have a cap on that and also for the very first time a Colocation article in our contract. Meaning that we set we put the educators involved in the process that allows charter schools to come onto our public school campuses. And to take over the space that the district says unoccupied, and this is this is a state law that that's been very difficult for LA unified because we have basically segregated campuses where we have charter schools on one side and our public school on the other hand and sometimes charter schools, very often have lower class sizes. So we're able to compete with the charter schools by making our conditions better were also able to put into the contract community schools, which is our alternates to charter schools, and that's bringing the investments into the. Neighborhood school, and allowing the parents the educators and students to have a say in the curriculum. Whether it's music art dual language, a mess, Nick studies. Whatever it is that that community will be able to develop and be connected with parents. So this is our vision for public schools, and we were are so excited that we're able to move this vision forward and to address the unregulated charter school girls in LA which were ground zero floor here in we have over two hundred seventy unregulated charter schools, and we knew that this is about the survival of public education. It's about the desperate resources we've needed in our classrooms. It's we've had classes, I think you've heard, you know, in the thirties in our elementary school and forties and fifties, and even sometimes sixties in our high school, we have kissing class. That's. Correct. We do we've we've documented for example, the highest one hundred highest class sizes. We have secondary schools where they have a case load of five hundred three hundred to five hundred students on a case load. That's how many kids are educator seeing a date. Where's own these? We're going to go to break. We're gonna come back to this discussion Arlene in a way chair of the bargaining team for UT LA United teachers, Los Angeles. Sarah Jaffe will also be joining us who've been writing about the strike, this is democracy. Now when we come back, we'll talk more about the message this ascending to others around the country about the privatization of education, also Denver teachers just voted to go on strike. They'll be striking Monday. Stay with us. Gene. People have the power by Patti Smith. This is democracy. Now democracy now dot org. The Warren peace report, I made me Goodman in New York right now just fluent on the Red Eye from Los Angeles. When we came into us Angeles yesterday morning. We went to a rally of hundreds of teachers and firefighters from Los Angeles from New York as well unions that had come in solidarity to support the striking teachers we spoke with a number of those teachers and supporters just before the agreement was reached between United teachers, Los Angeles and the school district again, this was the first teacher strike in Los Angeles. And thirty years I began by speaking with teacher Marianne O'Brien. Can you tell us about the school where standing outside of? And you're a teacher. What grade you teach? And why? So we're at the Miguel control learning complex made of four schools the school that we're off as the Los Angeles school of global studies, and I'm a tenth grade English teacher, and why are you out here? We're out here today for a number of reasons. I mean, we do want better resources for all we want higher salary. We won't smaller class size less testing. But I think ultimately this spite is about the privatization of schools. We have superintendent Austin viewer who's right now pushing to privatize schools, and that's the problem for us because our students would be disproportionately hurt by that. And not have access to quality education. If all the funding for public schools pulled into charter schools, explain how that works. It's not a private school. It's a charter school. So a charter school works and that has more autonomy. So it would pull funding from public schools to make their own schools. And that's the problem because they have more atonomy. They're allowed to choose which students. To go to their schools in. They're allowed to kick out students. They're also allowed to fire teachers. So it's a problem because they get to choose what students go into their school. So they're not gonna choose the students who have peas who are English learners, and those are the students who. That's a special Ed individualized education plan, and what's your name? And where do you teach? What do you teach? My name is Lazarian. I also teach out the school of global studies with Marianne here. I teach mainly ninth graders now in an ethnic studies class, and I'm not just here for myself. I'm out here for my kids because they can't fight for what they deserve. And what they deserve our fully funded community schools, if the community school isn't the best school available, then that's a problem because the community school should be schoolwork every single student can come and get a quality education. So we've been doing is funneling money from community schools to establish a completely disparate system that enables certain individuals certain families access to a quality education at the expense of others. And my students deserve the best. My students deserve the most of my time. The most of my energy, but they also deserve. Serve a nurse on campus. Every single day of the week they deserve. Fully stocked library. They deserve psychiatric social workers. As so many have already mentioned our students come in with a lot of trauma. They need to those needs needs to be addressed before they can be able to learn in my classroom. So I'm out here for them. This isn't about us. This is not about our pay. That is by far the least important of our demands this is about our kids and what they deserve. This is the second largest school district in the country and it seventy five percent Latino. Yes. So this is about fighting for you know, this communities of color because those are the communities that are affected by this privatization that's taken over. And unfortunately, it's taken a strike to get tension to this really critical issue. I would much rather all of those would much rather be in our classrooms with our kids right now, we're out here because we feel like we have to because this is the only way that we can make our voices heard on behalf of our students. Teachers. The Miguel contrast learning complex, which houses four schools right before the announcement came down that the teachers and the district had reached an agreement to the teachers voted on it last night and more than thirty one thousand teachers will go back to school today. Our guests are Arleen in a way chair of the bargaining team for UT LA and utilize secretary that's United teachers, Los Angeles and Sarah Jaffe of the tight media center, formerly the nation institute. Sarah, you've been following this closely this deep concern about the privatization of public education, and the resources public resources being funneled to profit private corporations and particular concern in the wrath. I repeatedly heard yesterday from the teachers expressed against the superintendent Austin Butte ner who didn't come from an education background, but from hedge fund. Yeah, he's a Wall Street guy. He's certainly became a big hate object for the teachers. That I spoke to there were so many awesome mutineers gotta go chance and also from parents and students should say they definitely have a lot to say about us and buehner he came in seen as somebody who came in with a plan, which was to privatize district break it up into thirty two portfolio districts, which is something like that what they did in Newark with Cory Booker. And when he was when he was mayor. Yes. And so the teachers the students and the parents were angry at Allston beaten or to actually go to his house on Thursday evening and have a rally outside of his house and say, you know, we're we have questions about privatization. We have questions about the gentrification of our city. We want to live in an affordable place that has public schools that everybody can access and they see him as an obstacle in this and one of the teachers last night that I spoke with retweeted one of my tweets about the press conference saying he still has to go. So they are not satisfied. And actually, there's an interesting story to follow up on this. Which is that there's going to be a special school board election coming up very soon. Talk about the. Of that. What happened to the school board superintendent was chosen? Yeah. So the school board was elected in an election last year that had something like fourteen point seven million dollars in outside funding spent on it by charter school advocates big dollar hedge funds things like that the usual people that we see that role into these places. So they got a majority of pro charter school candidates on there. They put her in. And then one of the school board members in our leeann, I'm sure can talk much more about this had to leave the board because of a scandal about campaign funding. So now there's going to be a special election for his seat the teachers have their candidate who's going to be running. They have others that are going to be seen as more pro-child or school. And that's going to be the next big fight. Because well, if the teachers want gone that's going to be the way to do it. Arlene. Anyway, can you talk about the message that's being sent and your particular struggle around the school board, and what you want to see happen. How you see this whole debate around charter schools shaping up now that the strike has ended. Yes. Amy, I feel like this strike has sent a powerful message throughout the country and even the world that public educators are standing up for our schools our students and for ourselves, you know, we're we're looking at decades of cuts and the demonization of public schools and the the schoolteachers who work in them. This has been years in the making and the use of standardized tests to you know, rank students ranked schools close schools privatize schools. We know this is the model. That's that's coming and LA USD had through with Austin beaten, her how the reimagined Elliot's St. that we were very concerned about so what we have done through this strike through. This new contract is to say, no to the privatization of schools where we're. Zero and to say yes to investing in our public schools because we believe it's a foundation of our democracy and civic institution that every student needs a quality education. We have a higher percentage of special needs in LA unified because the charter schools do not have take the same proportion or choose to not accept the neediest kids in our city, and we are, you know, ninety percents students of color eighty two percent, poverty and free lunch program. We want to now invest in the students who have been stripped of a quality education. We've had the highest class sizes in the nation. We're forty eight out of fifty. So we're ecstatic that this turns is a turnaround a a real clear shift in the direction of art school district. And again, we are a union that four years ago set out. Out on this path. This is this just didn't happen. The last twenty one months when we've been negotiations, but for years ago, we said on a path to organize our schools to bring in parents and communities and to have a social Justice agenda and educational Justice agenda for all of our students. And so that's why it is so exciting to us because we see in fruition on this all coming to pass. And this is what other unions across the nation other. Teachers unions are also fighting for the same issues in different degrees. We have the same issues of the privatization of our schools and of the funding. So we are part of this movement. I wanted to begin with Chicago. I wanted to talk twelve continued the progressive union power caucus, Sarah and the significance of it within the UT LA. Yeah. So like Arlene said the movement that we've seen among teachers unions, really. We got a wind of it in Chicago. But there's been reformed currents within the UT LA for at least a decade. Teachers told me about movements going back to the two thousand eight financial crisis recession, the layoffs of a lot of teachers the attempts to form a caucus really coming out of that. And in two thousand fourteen becoming the union power caucus that took charge with teachers Earlene with Alex Caputo Pearl that brought in things like an organizing department research department of political department that the union didn't have before and actually voted to raise their own do's in order to do those things. So, you know, in the post Janice climate for public sector workers we really should be looking at a union that again got teachers to vote to increase their own do's to invest in really becoming a fighting organizing union. And when we talk about this district. I was really struck by how geographically huge it is right. I live here in New York, which is the biggest school district in the country, but you could fit I don't know how many New York's inside the nine hundred sixty square miles of the LA unified school district. So when they go. Ninety eight percent strike vote in this district that takes three hours to drive across. They really had to build from the bottom up structures. Got them in communication with every teacher in every school in order to do this and then to pull off the strike where pretty much every teacher went out. So talk about the significance of this strike. And what's now happening? We see Denver teacher. She was overwhelmingly voted to strike. I wanna turn to what happened last night. Denver teachers vote into strike for the first time in twenty five years and quarter of a century the strike could begin as soon as Monday. This is rob Gould lead negotiator for the DC. Ta that's the Denver classroom. Teachers association tonight Denver teachers, overwhelmingly agreed to strike. Ninety three percent voted to strike. They're striking for better pay. They're striking for our profession, and they're striking for Denver students. Arlene. Anyway, what are some words of wisdom? You have for your colleagues in Denver this strike to begin apparently on Monday. Yes. And we're excited for for the educators in Denver that they've taken the step. And I feel like what we've learned through the years is that when you communicate clearly what the messages, and you reach out to parents and community. Our collective power is what what got us to win. We have a chapter leader in every single school. And we have teams now organizing teams at every school, and we have constant communication. I think as you see Amy when you talk to any anybody any teacher or parent out there that we're on the picket lines. They will tell you the same message why we're fighting, and it's very clear to us. And I think by by being able to organize across the board and bring in the voices, the ordinary voices of of our parents, and our educators and. Myself, by the way, I'm speech and language specialists. I've I worked in eighteen years in LA unified. And we have a diverse work. Diverse membership, including speech and language, including health and human services. OT PT psychiatric social workers and so forth. And sometimes these little groups feel like their voices aren't heard, but we were able to give we were able to draw attention to all of the needs in our schools, all of the professionals and also the students, of course, and what they need and and really lift this up and to see it as an issue of social Justice in our schools. We are also able to bring in some non mandatory subjects of bargaining into our schools, which we call common. Good issues like green space on campus stopping the criminalization of youth through the Wanding. We were able to bring an immigrant defense fund. We're making the statement of our values and of what's critical for how our schools need to address the needs of our do you think that the district and super? Intendant ner. What do you think they miscalculated when it came to the power of the strike? I mean again and Los Angeles you went out for the first time in thirty years. Yes. And thank you for that question. Amy because I do believe I kept saying all along that has no idea of who he's fighting with because we have very very strong emotions varies tenacity in our members. And parents as as was reported earlier, they even went to his home to give to let him know how they feel and how serious this matter is I think when you come together with all of the voices, and including our students, I gotta say students are coming out in record numbers on the picket line. And as was mentioned in the earlier interview with Alex it's it's a beautiful sight to see I have never seen a strike like this where you're actually celebrating. It was like a love fast. And I think it's because of the the the affirmation and the Val. Today. Shen that are educators felt the connection with our parents. It was hard to conduct power. It was hard to conduct interviews yesterday. Because there's people driving by everyone was honking. The students were out with the teachers, you know, they weren't saying. This is great. This is a week off for us. They were saying no through the rain through the cold. We are here side by side because we know our teachers are here for us. So are used to live in Denver. And now you're covering the strike and talk about Oakland is well what's about to happen there? And let's just say Telefonia, and Colorado, these are two democratic dates polish now, the gutter Colorado, and of course, you have Gavin Newsom, and you have Eric or city, the mayor of Los Angeles who is the one who mediated the debate the negotiation. Yeah. In Colorado was still considered a red state when I lived there. It was I left in two thousand four, but what we're seeing is the sort of return to the blue states of the teachers rebellion. We saw last year was sort of red Fred strike, although Colorado did have a day of action during all of that. But this all really began again in Chicago. There was a reform movements in in places like Massachusetts and New York. And it's been a real challenge to these Democrats because again, California's been a blue state for as long as you, and I can remember, and it is forty third in per student funding that is on the level with some of these red states, and that is the same problem. They're facing in one of the top used to be one of the top in the country. And this is known to two point that as the proportion of students of color in those schools went up the number the amount of per student funding went down. And so when you see these fights happening in these blue states, right again, Democrats have been in favor of charter schools. I mentioned Cory Booker earlier, we've had this experience here in New York. It's been bipartisan policy to sort of beat up on teachers and argue that privatizing the schools will make them better. And we're finally really seeing really incredible pushback on that front, and it's changing the way a lot of people talk about it. It was notable when the end came out for a moratorium on charter schools recently, right? They had been in favor of charter. Schools. This is changing and it's changing because of teachers like Arlene it's changing because of the teachers in Chicago the teachers in Massachusetts. And now that teachers in Colorado and probably next in Oakland and Oakland. Yeah. In oakland. I spoke to teachers I was there in December. And the complaints are very similar to what they are in Los Angeles right there over-crowded. They're underfunded charter schools are cherry picking the best students, and that's the charter schools. I'm wondering they can push them out. But on the other hand, you have to apply to get into charter school, so already you get the kids whose parents are more involved to have time to do that who are somebody pointed out to me, you know, undocumented students their parents, especially under Trump are really afraid to fill out any form and put any information down. So that means that those kids don't get into charters because they're not applying to get into the things. Teachers kept repeating to me over and over yesterday was in charter schools, the teachers can be fired and the students we should mention that the exhilarated schools charter school in Los Angeles went out on. Strike with the this utilize strike starting last Tuesday. And yeah, they were telling me forty percent turnover at that school among teachers. I mean, how do you do anything when you don't know if you're gonna have your job next year? Well, we're going to continue to cover this wave of strikes again Oakland looks like they're about to vote and Denver teachers overwhelmingly voted to strike last night, the Los Angeles teachers over thirty one thousand or back in their classrooms today and at their offices as they have just claimed victory in the six day historic strike first one in thirty years. I wanna thank Arlene anyway, chair of the bargaining team for UTA and you te'o secretary Sarah Jaffe of the tight media center, formerly known as the nation institute, this is democracy. Now when we come back the supreme court makes a major decision will talk about it. Stay with us. Ten. Canfora? Blast. Touchdown. Is it? Newhouse totally the system. Accuracy. Now democracy now dot org. The Warren peace report, I'm Amy Goodman on Tuesday. The supreme court revived president Donald Trump's plan to bend transgender people from serving in the US military in the five to four decision. The supreme court lifted lower court rulings that had blocked the Ben from going into effect on constitutional grounds. Justice Steven Brier, Ruth, Bader Ginsburg, Sonia. So to my own Elena Kagan dissented Trump, I announce the Ben in two thousand seventeen but to lower court injunctions blocked it the rule which affects most transgender people will be permitted to go into effect as the ongoing lawsuits make their way up to the supreme court while the court lifted the two injunctions. It did not rule on the galaxy of the ban it self the Pentagon praised the court ruling, stating DOD's propose policy is not a ban on service by transgender persons DOD's propose policy is bay. Based on professional military, judgment and will ensure that the US armed forces remained the most lethal and combat effective fighting force in the world. They said well for more we're joined by chase strange chases staff attorney at the ACO you which is challenging the Trump administration's ban on service members who are transgender. Chase strangely. A trans lawyer himself. Welcome to democracy. Now talk about this decision. I just want to acknowledge how heartbreaking it is to once. Again, have the supreme court essentially green light patently cruel in discriminatory policy coming out of the Trump administration. So this is obviously disappointing in various scary for transfers members people wanting to serve and the trans community across the country. But if you important clarifications, I there is still at an injunction in place. So there's one nationwide injunction at the supreme court did not have before it. So the policy cannot immediately go into effect. By initial reports. And then the other thing that's important to clarify that the government is is out in their statement saying things like this isn't a ban on on transgender people serving and it's important to really break that down because what they're saying is that transgender people you can serve as long as you are completely comfortable serving and your signed sex at birth that you don't transition that you never have transitioned. And that you don't say that you're trans that is definitional Aban on transgender people serving. And so to suggest that it's not is really part of this administration's effort to say, we'll be fine with you. If you're trans as long as you're not trans. I mean is this just reviving don't ask don't tell for trans essentially, don't ask don't tell two point. Oh, but even worse in that, they're they're essentially suggesting as we've seen across this administration that trans people don't exist at all full stop that you can actually somehow suppress your trans and live comfortably in your assigned sex at birth. And this really is the goal. All of this administration. So we absolutely cannot let them get away with statements like the ones there, I wanna turn to petty officer first class, Brooke stone, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's ban on service members who are transgender Brock has served over a decade in the US navy, including nine month deployment to Afganistan being able to serve as a member has been very liberally. It's kind of weight off my chest. Honestly because I felt kind of like a head to hide and learn the big parts of naming they really hammering honor and courage, and I wanted to be up into myself. I didn't want to have to hide her worry about somebody seeing the wrong post on Facebook. When you know that was just a distraction my job duties, the navy's job. Kind of place. It's been an opportune. Carter something that's petty officer first class, Brock stone. He is the lead plaintiff in your case. Talk about him. Chase Brock like so many other transgender people who have been serving their country for many years. He he's someone who lived in the shadows and his service and had to not serve openly. And then came out of the shadows. When the Carter policy was first announced in two thousand sixteen under President Obama. And then here we are a few years later, and he's now at risk of losing his entire career and everything that he he's worked for because of what started as a series of impulsive tweets by the president in two seventeen surprising, not only the country not only transferred as members. But but the secretary of defense at the time. So there has never been military justification offered for for this this band. There is absolutely no question. It is driven by animus and discrimination. And we're going to keep fighting for people like Brock, and and our client. Who who have been working hard to enlist in the military, and I want to say something to a lot of people who I've been in community with for a long time. Who have very justifiable concerns about the actions of our US military and don't support the military for many reasons, this is this isn't a question about whether or not we support United States military policy. This is a labor issue. This is a survival issue. This is a question about whether the largest employer in our country can can tell transgender people that they are not welcomed that they cannot actively be who they are and retain their employment. So we should be incredibly concerned not only about what this means for trans people for our employment for our health care for our survival. And absolutely every context, but also whether or not we're going to accept a government policy that's premised on the idea that we don't exist, and that if we do exist, we should not be protected in any way, I just came back from Los Angeles this morning where I took part in discussion on racial Justice. And harmony that was curated by the. The well known director Eva do. Renee, and I spoke with Laverne Cox and author Jacqueline Woodson among the people who were there. Also, Stacey Abrams of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, it was a national day of racial healing. I asked Laverne Cox well-known, transgender actress and activist to respond to the supreme court news. I surprised Benham giving nature and the makeup if he was on the supreme court. When I look sort of historically and try to put things in perspective. This is part of a larger pattern of the attack of transgender people that really probably maybe started for years ago or so. I think after the passage of marriage equality, some conservative folks needed another sort of group to scapegoat impart and since arguably say two thousand fourteen transport been more visible in the media than we ever have before through YouTube cetera. The real lived experiences of trans people are actually being actually out there for people to excess. And so there was a conversation about backlash and the earlier discussion, I think that is also going on that we've seen on precedent. It'd introduced introduction of antitrust legislation state. Legislators Lakers all over the country probably been over four hundred these of legislation legislation introduced in state legislatures since two thousand fourteen. Guidelines about how transgender children and should be treated in schools where within did. Of course, the current administration had leaked memo last year that state if they wanted to change the definition of thanks. So that trench BASI, basically being what is on your birth certificate if that's not determine if Cuomo its own I don't know what kind of society does own test. And the idea of that is that trans to give transpeople no legal recourse under the law. They did not they've not want. What a lot, of course that determined. That transit Bill are covered under sex-discrimination title, seven and title nine. I could go on. There's so many. Being murdered with impunity. It's disgusting. So there's all of these things happening in the world. And I think part of that is about backlash. I think it's because we're more visible than folks are creating these these arguments, I did a deep dive recently on on YouTube, somehow, some anti trans video came up. And I was like let me see what these people are saying, and I usually don't expose myself to that kind of thing. And it was really fascinating how coordinated the anti trans movement. I would say it's very coordinated. They have very similar talking points. Their groups that organized introduce antitrust legislation all over the country. I mean, it can't be a coincidence. That all these pieces of legislation are being introduced a very coordinated movement to basically attempt to define gender based on what you were signed at birth also based on genitalia because that's usually how we assigned gender at birth. And it's a larger cultural issue. So that's the. The trends actress and activist Laverne Cox responded to the news yesterday of the supreme court upholding the ban, though, not ruling legally on it. But allowing it to be in place, the trends ban on trans people in the military until two cases make their way to the supreme court. I want to talk about another case now on Tuesday, the ACLU in the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the New York police department on behalf of transgender woman named Linda Dominquez who was arrested and charged with false personalisation after she provided police officers with both her previous and current legal names after she was stopped for walking through a park at night. This is Linda talking about what happened at the police precinct. Jovi the precinct. I saw that. Mock me, the policewoman looked at me as if there was something wrong with me because she looked at me, so ugly. They mocked me. That's a man. That's not a man. What's that? I went through so much trauma being arrested in this way. It really was very horrible experience. I was about to take my own life people who aren't as strong may take their own life. If they experienced this to give. I decided to do this with a lawsuit. So they don't keep doing this. I am the realization of my ancestors dreams, and I cannot allow the police to abuse us trans girls. So that's Linda Dominquez false personnel. Chase. Yes. So this is this is something that frankly, I'm shocked that the police and the prosecutors are still doing this in New York essentially saying that we're going to we're going to charge you with the crime of just existing of being yourself. And I want to know too that not only was was she charged with personnel which had to do with giving her her name and trying to comply with the police officers request, by the way in a city a state that is supposedly supposed to be very progressive on on trans issues, but she was also arrested for walking through a park at night. I can assure you that no white trans person. No white person has to worry about that. So this is an issue of racial, profiling this is an issue of the ways in which trans women of color are particularly profiled by the NYPD and across the country. And so we're we're suing on Linda's. A half and making a statement. So that the NYPD and prosecutors in New York City know that this is absolutely unacceptable. And I think just tying this both to what Laverne was saying. And to what's going on from the from the federal government is that we have to stay vigilant at every level of government. There are attacks on trans people happening, and that if we aren't paying attention in the in the progressive cities and the progressive states that we're going to end up with a system in which we may have formal equality in some places, but we absolutely do not have survival opportunities for trans people of color earlier this month chase New York state. Lawmakers approved a pair of bills aimed at protecting the LGBTQ community one Bill bans, licensed mental health professionals from participating in. So called conversion therapy talk more about these two bills and your concerns. So I mean, I I it's the Bill Genda is the one that has been pushing through the New York state assembly gender, and we have twenty six okay twenty. So basically, it's a nondiscrimination law so explicitly protecting people under state law, which is a good thing. But it comes with a hate crimes component. Just in the end incarcerates more people ends up allowing officers to arrest people of color for anti white crimes. You know? Trans and LGBT people for anti straight crimes anti crime. So we had to be very careful about how our reform efforts are actually building the prison industrial complex and fuelling mass incarceration, so for formal equality, but I think we should be more critical about how many people were sending to prison and how we're doing that in the service of what? Well, I wanna thank you so much clearly a conversation that needs to continue chase strangers staff. Attorney at the challenging the Trump administration spin on service members who are transgender at that. Does it for our show special? Thanks to my birthday. And it goes Carla wills dean Dennis moynahan and Libby ruining.

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Fact vs. Ficton | Jennifer LaGarde

The presenting sponsor for on education at school G school. Jeez. Passion lies in helping instructors and students have the best education experience possible. School G is a collaborative student focus, then back Ladies Center learning management system, students love schools, you because it gives them twenty four seven axes. The course materials real-time feedback from their instructors and easy to use collaborative tools. Teachers love the streamline workflow integrated apps such as Google and Microsoft, tools and the ability to view evidence of student learning for making instructional decisions to learn more about what is possible with school g simply visit score Jeep dot com. Am I losing my mind is really the question here. Probably. Welcome to on education. I'm Mike Washburn. And I'm Glen Irvine friends. We have an awesome pod for you. Today. We will discuss why twenty-first-century skills matter differentiating instruction without losing your mind. The potential strike this week by Denver teachers, and our guest this week is co author of the book fact versus fiction, Jennifer Lagarde. So let me tell you a story. I'm in the car, and I'm driving in Charles Charles, a teacher, we're both teachers. So we talk, you know, shop quite a bit, you know, in the car, and generally just anytime in I'm saying she's talking about a music project that she's working on with her kindergarten kids, and she's bringing like a bunch of our stuff like our extra empty like soup cans and bottles for kids to like bang on. And I think we were the reason why we started talking about this because she's looking at like these big thick milkshake straws she wants to buy and then bring to use as like drumsticks, or whatever, and you can also like, I guess cut them different lengths, and they make different sounds, and you know, kindergarten stuff cool. But what I was. I said to her I said, wouldn't it be cool? You have ipads when it be cool to download some sort of a soundboard app. You know, what I'm talking about the ones where like DJ's have where you press the squares and different sounds come out that Lum's, but you can program those things to make whatever sound you want you record a sound. And then it makes it I said wouldn't be cool to find a soundboard app. You can program it to play different sounds and get the kids to record. You know? Whatever sounds they want, and then they can they can use those to to make music. Yeah. Swear to God man, scrolling through Twitter this morning frigging ad for a soundboard app in my Twitter feed and listening. Are they like unbelie- interested in knowing look? I mean, we know that Siri like when you say, I don't want. Don't go off. Looking over at my phone. I don't want to say the wrong thing. But you know, when you say those words that, you know, the the automated things come up, we do go home. If I say, hey, Google. I I know that Google is listening, and and whatever I mean, I don't know I don't know anymore because pretty know why I don't know why that ad would be in my feed other under under normal circumstances. I'm not a freaking DJ guys. I mean, I should be. You can mix it. I think we should start a band in. But that's a whole other. That's a whole other discussion. I heard so many stories like that of a variety of different topics from Facebook ads to Twitter ads or whatever else. It might be where you were just having a conversation. You never actually even typed anything. That's the freaky part is if we type something into a social media site than we have to understand that. It's there's some artificial intelligence going on there real. Yeah, we're doing and it's going to target ads at us. But we're speaking in our own homes is it really prairie as hell, man. Is it really private or is now private I mean, so we're we're trading. Our automated grocery lists creation and in real time weather for. You know, maybe them listening to us. I man, but it was like I was like are you serious? I I don't know how that would have gotten on. There was that the right app. I don't know. Did you buy? On us. It scared. The hell outta me so much that the first thing I did was go onto the damn outline and write it out because I was like what's happening here. I need to talk about this. You know? So I didn't even download the app I just went onto Google docs and started typing in the outline that this happened. I mean, it was a mess. So anyways, that's my story for today. Soaker creepy man, Christmas, right? Lots of cool articles this week in lots of things lots of things going on. We came across an article in Edzard, it's two thousand eighteen so why do twenty first century skills? Still matter. I mean, I think the question answers it self a little bit frost. Anyways. What are your thoughts on this? I well, I mean, the article itself says something about that some educators have grown weary of the term twenty first century learning. Okay. And so I I don't know if that means that. That they don't believe that. It's essential to go to continue to focus on those types of skills. And I think twenty first century is now I mean, obviously, you know, we're almost twenty years into the twenty percent, exactly. And so it's it's a weird term. But we all know at least have an idea of what it means the four CS in other in other types of skills that we consider them to be twenty first century skills. I think maybe teachers get burned out by terms. Do you know what I mean after five or plus years of people hearing this than they go Kay? We get it. Let's just move on. But the article explains, yeah, we can't move on. Because this is this is just emerging. And we need to continue to push these types of things in schools because really we haven't we're barely at the surface of it in public education. I think were barely scratching the surface of being able to implement these things that have them be part. Of the things that we really focus on, you know, versus standardized skills were twenty years almost twenty years into the twenty first century, and we're still teaching like it's one thousand nine hundred eighty yes. And actually that fits with that other article that we were reading is far as what will people look like what will people, you know. What would we do, you know thirty forty years from now? And when we look back at this time will we go. My goodness. You guys we're still teaching like it was nineteen. What do you say? Mike like nineteen twenties thirties, you know, we're we're still doing the exact same things that were part of it. There was a historical reason. As you've stated before that. There's a historical reason why we did things a certain way we taught a certain way in rows the same way, you know, at at. But those things don't exist anymore, but we continue to do it. You know, they grow model the calendar, right? Me about before all of those things. There was a reason why it started. But why do we continue to do it just so it's so ridiculous? But we're so ingrained in it it all of these things kind of worked together all of the articles as we kind of fit this mold of we've done it this way in the past. Why don't we just continue to do it? I don't know this. It's so frustrating. I mean, our entire education system both in the United States in Canada is based on the Prussian education system, and I don't think Prussia existed in the twentieth century, let alone the twenty first century. Most people don't even know what that is there. Like, right and. The agrarian frigging calendar is what we base our school. You're on. So that our so is it can go, you know, cut corn down in the frigging field. I don't think Isaac seen cornfield for God's sakes. Let alone, you know, going and cutting cutting down on help with the harvest like us that would doing it our game to get his damn boots on and get out there and cut some corn his. That was not in school. That's a guess what you're supposed to be doing. When you're not in school in August is cutting the corn down. So let's get our asses out there and some Corey it's amazing all of the how all of this is all connected, though. Mike the article that you know, we were going to bring up I guess we're just mishmashing him together now. But it's okay. This is an article about grading, and and the grading systems of grading again were invented with a purpose in mind, a long time ago hundred years ago, maybe around that time, and it's like are we still living in that same time period? No, what have we learned many more things about what our portent, you know, for example, again going back to this foresees. Should we kind of be like, okay, it is important to read and write to we need to make sure we know some mathematical skills, but what else do we need to know in order for us to be highly functioning members of our society while we figured out. Hey, there's these things twenty-first-century skills that companies are demanding that their employees. These have maybe we should be teaching those sticks will how do we go about doing that? Well, there's a variety of different things that people are doing. But the number one thing though, is we don't even we don't have an emphasis enough that where we're like a we're betting this in everything it's the law were doing this because it's that important to us. We're like. Think about how you go about doing this. You know, maybe you'll do it on on one day week, try that creativity thing try that collaboration thing, you know, in your classes versus going. This is the way we teach now because it's important that we've learned that this is the what we should be doing moving forward. Well, and this is why I mean, I rail about hiring practices and stuff like that too is because you have teachers that literally sit there and open the same friggin day book that they've had for twenty years and just copied the the lesson plans from one year to another and literally they have they have the the what do they call them? Black line masters, the masters the master sheets for the for the the frigging worksheets. Right. And they literally just thank you all of their photocopying for their worksheets and on on Monday or Friday afternoon, and they just it's like brainless. You don't have to do anything. If you know if you already know what you're going to teach. Four weeks from now on a Wednesday. That's a good thing. It is. It means you're not even paying attention to what's actually currently happening with your set of students that are sitting down in your seats in your class instead of saying, hey, for efficiency sake. I'm just gonna do the exact same thing. I did every other year on this exact same day. Right. That that's bad. I mean, I I had a unit plan. Everyone has to have plans that India's right? And I'm like, I know when my active when my photography unit would generally start in generally end, but things change in the middle. And and I mean, listen differentially differentiating instruction is hard. And it's it is really easy. Actually, I think to lose your mind doing it, potentially. It's not easy. It's but it is the right thing to do. And listen, if if you wanted an easy job don't be a teacher. Sorry. That's so true. It if you were looking for an easy job, I do know some cornfields that need clearing. Well now right now in now right now here. Oh, it's not do that. Exactly. But, but there are some jobs where you don't have to just be so willing to be changed to your audience. And really what it is. It's it's a surprise every single day. You have to dept sorry, not change adapt to your your students. And because they are your customers you have to mold whatever you're doing to fit them, and that could be basically from lesson to lesson throughout the year as you do that. And then of course, from year to year as we went in the summers, you know, this that we would go back and reflected in revamp things that we were doing learn about more things, and then continue to push the envelope to make sure that we were. We were really doing a good job as far as pushing ourselves in making sure that we reach their students, whether it'd be about tack or just teaching skills, whatever it might be that you are trying to work on his far as in your classes. So I don't know if there's an answer to whether we should continue to use grading, and and in what way shape or form that needs to take it needs to be kind of revamped. And we're actually going to talk about outdated models and stuff in in the next segment as well. Yeah. So so we can continue to have that conversation. We did want to talk about the Denver. There's there situations going on in Colorado with teachers a lot of interesting situations. First, let's talk Glenn. You can talk about this a little bit the Denver teachers potentially going to have a strike over merit pay. So they're gonna this is Sunday were recording. And they said that they're set to strike this basically tomorrow, and it's basically over merit payer performance pay. And if you're not aware of that or that doesn't happen in your states or hasn't made it to. To to your areas. Basically, what it is is is a state teachers get a specific pay a on a let's say a salary schedule, and then you can make above and beyond that by fulfilling whatever it is that they considered it be the the merit. You know, the that you achieved certain things, and unfortunately, this is always connected almost always connected to standardized tests. I was gonna say grades yet. So it's what it is is basically a high stakes test that the students take, and then if the students perform the teacher gets paid now, you're not comparing students to themselves either might which was just disgusting. So you're not comparing Glenn Ervin in fifth grade to Glenn in sixth grade, it how much I grew between the two things than saying. Hey, if your students show, a growth of certain percentage than yes. Issue fulfilled, your merit pay which even that is not a good idea. But at least that would be more valid than what they're doing is comparing a sixth grader this year to a sixth grader from the past year. And then how much growth between those two completely different people and different classes. It's it's so ridiculous. But yet again, just like everything else that we talk about we continue to do it in this case, this merit pay is kind of what keeps like if you didn't earn that extra pay, Mike. You're not even you're not basically getting that raise. So it's a way of kind of holding back a raise and end in being able to say, Nope. You didn't earn it? So you just get the standard pay. You don't get this. You know, the the raise that you deserve so merit pay a performance pay. It might it. Sounds like one of those awesome ideas. When someone explains it to you, you know, gives you the pitch you're like, hey that that could be good. But when you see it, and you see the examples of what's happened in our different states. Even Obama was for it. You remember that race to the top those types of things Arne Duncan huge proponent of these types of things basic is performance pay. It sounds amazing. And it sounds like a possibly a thing to be able to have teachers grow. But there's just so many things wrong with them. And we haven't figured out a way to make it work the right way. While the problem is what it's tied to right. I mean, performance payer merit pay tied to things like coaching might be a good idea. I don't know tied to you know. Running clubs or extracurricular activities. I mean, which are things that people would generally say teachers are expected to do. But that's actually not the case. Like, I mean, teachers don't get that's not part of their salary. You know, an expert in job expectations to to to be coaches on teams, in fact in Ontario. What typically happens when there's work issues when there's labor issues is the the government on -tario government will tend to force teachers back to work almost right away. Like the legislative pass a law. Teachers are in a central service. They can't go on strike. They're not allowed to go on strike, which is you know, stupid and ridiculous. But raise what it is. So that'll that usually happens instantly, like even before a strike is enacted the, but then, but then the only outcome that that teachers have at that point is doing what they call work to rule in on -tario, which is basically. Only doing exactly what you are the contract supposed to be doing that gracious literally teaching in the classroom and grading assignments. And and doing report cards, and then you'll have teachers that do bare minimum of report card stuff. Even so I mean, and I'll tell you there's been an unfortunate casualty of this this kind of labor issue at and we're not going to get into the weeds on it. But I think because of our close relationship with our good friend, Noah guy, Sal who is the president of the CCF LT, Colorado, congress, a foreign language, teachers, all I nailed that. Nice. They have a conference and it was happening right now. Well, yesterday, I think and Friday, and so what happened is the Denver public school board, which you know, is obviously, Hugh. And definitely the largest school board in Denver. I are in Colorado by far by far told all of its teachers you could not attend this conference. They they were not permitted to attend it. And not not allowed to be present. There were presenters scheduled to present. Yes. That were members of DPS. And they weren't allowed to either. And you know, it's complicated. I get it. It's also completely ridiculous. And well, the CCF LT wouldn't wanna frame it as any sort of, you know, tit for tat type situation. I don't mind kind of suggesting that it might be. And I mean, I think that this is a really unfortunate thing to do to teachers who are looking to grow and develop and learn and learn from each other and teach each other and to say, you can't come and do that. It's it's a reminder that labour issues aren't always, unfortunately about the students, and sometimes have, you know, the students and teachers end up being the, you know, the pawns in things related to governments in money in and stuff like that. It's this is a really really crappy thing to do to a bunch of really passionate. Listen, if you're a member of organization that is strictly devoted and gives their entire like free time to foreign language teaching in developing foreign language, teachers, you're pretty passionate about this. And you know to then go and screw those people because of a almost like a retribution type thing. This is pretty pretty pretty dirty. Right Kennett was I think it was really sad to in. And. Really petty these teachers of bunch of them paid out of their own pocket for this conference. Yup. And now they can't attend in a bunch of them from other school districts are coming to this conference to go listen to some specific sessions in. Yeah. And the people that are presenting are in Denver public schools. They can't actually present their session. Yep. So then they entire conference is basically thrown into K on, you know, forty eight hours before their bout to go ahead and go on the show. You know, it's not like a happened before it just says, hey, you know, the the strike is looming. Sorry, you guys can't go. You can't attend this. You know, it's unfortunate. But that's just the way it is that just ridiculous before a variety of different ways. Number one. These people are passionate about the profession. Yeah. Talk about professionals. You're going out. You're either a. Venting or be presenting and attending or attending a session. So that you become a better teacher. There's nothing better than that. I mean, that's that's what we all want from our teachers, you know, as we call them professionals. We want them to go to continue to grow want to be passionate about what they do if the to learn the latest pedagogy, whatever might be that they're that they're going after it. You can't attend the session. You can't attend the conference of because of a contract dispute. I mean, it's a it's a bad situation. I, you know, in the name of making lemonade at a lemons there has been a bit of a I wouldn't call it a movement yet. But certainly a conversation has been sparked a surrounding PD in. We do wanna share the hash tag on Twitter. I guess hashtag liberate PD if you're interested in hearing what happened specifically with CCF LT. And and what's going on in Denver? But also kind of join in this conversation about what we do surrounding PD in general, I think that that might be a a good place to start. So again, that's liberate PD is the hash tag on Twitter. And that might be an interesting place to start when we come back. We're going to talk about this super interesting article on ED's surge that kind of talks about what schools look like today and. And schools in how they're going to look like in the future, and what we're doing you know to adjust into accommodate new changes going forward. Quests would've of class Christmas popular features with over one hundred thousand lessons created by teachers and three million learning objectives completed by students. So far is now part of class crafts free offerings in twenty nine hundred students won't just be learning. Multiple Keishing chemistry or any other content. They'll be saving the kingdom transform your lessons into adventures with quest today visit class craft dot com. For more information. All right. Welcome back to the podcast super interesting article came out in surge a couple of days ago in the future. Today's education will look like nineteenth century medicine. It was actually I think a speech a talk that Jeffrey c Riley gave at a conference called learn launch in Boston. And it was kind of documented in search. And it was there was tons of interesting things in in this this article in in this speech, you brought it up Glen. So what did you think was super interesting to begin with? I think what's you go in and take a look at it. The part that really was striking and anybody that teaches in the United States knows this is that there's a quote here. Basically that says the big secret of public education has that teacher quality, the very Asian and teacher quality is huge. And so and how does. That actually happen. Well, it happens because each individual state is so different than each other. As far as teetering rating is concerned in continued professional development is concerned. But not only that Mike, but each individual district within the state has a huge variance in what do they actually do for professional development? How much time do the actually give how good is the professional developments? And so you have this huge variation between amazing districts that are doing great things because our teachers are receiving the correct professional development. They're growing in the profession. They're passionate they're moving forward. And then you have the exact opposite, which is this Trix that have little or no professional development, or what they call professional development, isn't really anything. That's that's making a differences and a lot of this stuff. Always goes back to as we always talk about, you know, the big standardized tests. Thing whether or not the focus on that versus just good teaching, you know, and the battle between those two types of things, but that was one of the things that I saw in there right away that I was like okay that is so accurate. And so telling about why education is so different in all of our states in an even within our states all of our different districts as much as you, and I and you know, all of our. Of circle interact on Twitter constantly and are sharing constantly the reality is there's eight million teachers in North America. Hardly any of them are on Twitter. Hardly any of them are learning from each other and teaching each other and working with each other as much noise and and conversations are out there on Twitter. And you know, I could show you a video of my tweet deck and how fast it moves. It's like, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom. And and I'm I don't have I have like a third of the followers of even you Glenn. And and I mean, we see these conversations happening, and we think, wow, look at all the this engagement, but the reality is that there are in he references this where teachers aren't communicating there aren't sharing the and they're not they're not given the structure to do that either. Now, they're not given the opportunities in the time in the space and. You know? And then we'd literally just had a conversation about Denver public schools stopping teachers from coming to a conference. And and I mean, it there's missed opportunities all over the place. It's why we're doing this damn podcast for it's totally. We have another reason another way of people learning and sharing and communicating. We want people to talk to each other and the time in the space is just not being given to to have teachers participate in professional learning communities. This whole article was super interesting, and it really reinforced a lot of super interesting ideas that we've talked about in the past one of the other things that was interesting about this was a story that he told about a sale of fundraising sale, and that there was a complaint from a woman, and she was complaining, and he said. While I mean, people have candy sales all over the place. This is a kind of a normal thing. She said, I'm not complaining about the candy the candies. Fine him complaining about the price. And he still doesn't get it. He's like, okay. I mean, it was a dollar. Yeah. Everyone has a dollar, and and she says it's one hundred dollar men. They're selling them for five. What was happening was the kids were marking up the candy. They were trying. Touches of it, which I I can get behind that all day. I think it's hilarious. I laughed very loudly. When I read that part because I thought it was hysterical in it reminded me that you know, we need to give even kids the space to to be creative. And we had that interesting conversation. Remind me that interesting conversation we had a few months ago about the student who got in trouble who into still going through these issues with the hacking. And how I mean was this really something that the student needs to be punished for or something where we needed to then channel that students passions and interests into into other more more productive things with those abilities. And it's like we just votes, it was an absolutely teachable moment. And we need to continue to find those. And so this is a great example of finding teachable moments and pointing them out. Out and then building on them, and the idea that the idea that in the future, you know, we can be a little more precise with these things. I think the the point of the article that we're trying to sometimes we wanna take a cudgel to the education system. Yes. But in reality we could use a scalpel, right? Yes. No. I mean, that's exactly right. It's it's it'll be just interesting. And I think it's already interesting for us to just take a look back at it reminds me of that Twitter posts that you made that about glinting back at a smart boards and seeing that seeing the practice of that Mike, even though that was just seven to ten years ago and going God, we really could have done something better than that. Right. But magnify that times a million and say, hey, what are we actually doing in our schools today in looking back, you know, twenty five years from now twenty thirty years from now. In going man, we should have done so many different things we had the opportunity to do them. We just just were stuck in our ways, you know. They didn't want to go ahead and push beyond what we're comfortable with. I guess at scuttle. What what I would say it kind of like what's always been done as as we have said in the last segment. So I mean, there's there's ton what I took away from this article was that there's tons of opportunity. There's always opportunities to get better into learn to grow and to improve our system in the way, we teach people we just spent fifteen twenty minutes talking about it in the previous segment about what to do with grades and standardized testing. And so there's a lot of room here. And I I mean, the more our current system looks are Keck guess in the future makes me feel better. I mean, I'm hoping that are ingrained. Now looks like a mess where like what the hell were we do? Right. Yeah. No. It's so true. And you're so right about though, we feel like there's this certain momentum happening 'cause were within a group of people who all are super passionate about being a driving force in education. The reality is that is a miniscule part of the overall number of people out there, you know, of our of our fellow educators who are also on that same train, you know, and on it and heading in that direction. It we need to make sure we we let them know about it. Hey, come join us check this out. Check out the things that are actually happening. And all these great things that are going to make us all better teachers, make the education systems that much better. Awesome. Totally. So speaking of great things when we come back. We're going to be joined by Jennifer Lagarde. She's the author. Co author of the book fact versus fiction published by itchy. All right. Welcome back to the podcast everyone. We're thrilled to be joined today by Jennifer Lagarde. Jennifer is the co author of a new book called fact versus fiction published by itchy. Welcome to the podcast. Jennifer. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Jennifer. Can you tell us a little bit about who? You are what you do where you're from kind of the Jennifer Lagarde wanna one if you will sure. Well, I've been in education for gosh. More years than I care to admit at this point. But I started out my career as a middle school language arts teacher, and sort of winded my way into a school library media position. Which is where I think I found my true calling and helping teachers and students use technology, especially for literacy rich instruction and from there. I went to work for the North Carolina department of public instruction as what they called their librarian on. Alone. That is to say I supported all the librarians and the state of North Carolina through PD, and that kind of thing and then two years ago. I moved all the way across the country to Olympia Washington, where I now serve as a consultant for the evergreen public school district and then also for other school districts around the country, but my primary work is with evergreen school district here in Vancouver, Washington. So that's kind of my professional story. But really and truly I just consider myself a teacher still and love working with learners of all ages. So let's get right into this this book here. How big of a problem is this. I guess as someone who has I mean, I am a very passionate person of a word precision. I joke in a joke. All the time that I'm the guy that always makes a note of things there's a difference, for example, between socialism, and social democracy and democratic socialism, those three aren't the same thing. Anyways. But so I'm big on word precision. I'm big on people. Just using the right words in the right situations and fake news. Seems to be a pretty catastrophic problem to me am I overreacting or is. This really the beginning of the end because I mean, people are people can you identify facts? Or are they unwilling to even acknowledge facts, I guess that's a big question. And my losing my mind as you're not you're losing your mind. Fall little bit shy of thinking that we're all doomed that it's like there's no point in working towards a solution to this problem because the problem is pretty catastrophic. You're right about that. I think it's a huge problem that's gotten away from us. But I do think that we have the ability to right the ship. I do think that we have the tools and the skills. To bring back put the toothpaste SP toothpaste back in the two metaphorically speaking, or at least provide those kids that we work with now with skills that so many in our generation seem unwilling to use. It is huge. It is a huge problem in the book. We talk a lot about all the data out there surrounding the top news stories that have been shared on various social networks since the run-up to the presidential election and other sources of data around Americans inability to determine fact from fiction and online settings and those all of that data can make you feel very very hopeless. But I think there's a I think it's a combination of things really I think it's a matter of number one. I think we haven't focused on this very greatly in schools in a way that reflects how people really research consume. Information in there relies. So the skills that we teach in schools don't often translate to what we do in our realize and the number two were also entrenched in our own biases. Now that really it's about a change. In mindset. It's a change in a deci- a decision at constant decision that we don't wanna live here. Live like this anymore that we wanna live differently that we wanna different country. We wanna different way of talking to each other online at cetera. And so we have to make the decision to do things differently. We want a different result. We have to do things a little differently love this. It's it's we're dealing with an issue with an unmovable object versus an unstoppable force kind of thing and people are definitely operating in their own little worlds these days and unwilling to there's a great part in the book, actually where you talk about. How someone says when you hear this all the time? Now, no matter what you say, nothing's gonna change my mind. Right. It's. Yeah. And one of the things we felt very. Strongly about doing in the book is not simply just saying look, this is a massive problem. Now have fun dealing with it at. But really we wanted to create a sense of urgency around the problem for educators. And then also provide them with some resources for dealing with it, and one of the resources, I think that we. Sometimes skip over is the ability to just have conversation with another person around an issue that might trigger some deeply entrenched beliefs. You know, that's a skill set that we all need to develop because I'm guilty of it too. You know, I'll be online and somebody will say something that sparks a passionate reaction in me. And my initial response is either to, you know, smack them down with some sarcasm or to block them block. You know? That's and we have to sit we have to step back and think about what the more productive way to handle this. And what are some what's some phrasing that we can use when we have conversations around these issues that can hopefully lead us to a place of commonality because we do have more in common than we think. Sometimes. And that's the more productive approach we serve lost that ability one thing I do find that we all have in common because I tr-. Travel around the country talknet just talking about the book, but teaching workshops on media literacy in sort of a mobile age, and no matter where I am in the country. No matter what the political leanings are of that space. One thing that we can all agree on is that we've reached an all time low when it comes to our ability to talk to one another. And so we can start stream that place of we have that in common. Let's start with some skills. So that we can be better at that. And then try applying those to the conversations that are harder. So speaking of all time lows I love your history lesson at the start of the book. I'm a history major, and I actually took a propaganda elective during my undergrad. I studied a lot about British propaganda during World War One and World War Two and how that affected things and there are so many other. Awesome stories about fake news in history. I think about things like the Spanish American war, and and and tons of yellow journalism type stories as well this. This isn't a new thing right now, not at all and Darren my co author with a history major as well. And so that chapter for him with a huge like we had to really pair it down for being three hundred pages few which you see today because there are so many examples, and that has really been one of the most fun chapters for me seeing people's reaction because I have gotten tweets from people saying things like oh my gosh. You've ruined Ben Franklin for me for the rest of my life. You know, that kind of stuff people are sort of shocked when they learn some of those stories, but it's important for us to recognize that for as long as there's been a media and as long as there's been a populous people have used the former to try to manipulate the ladder. The difference is now that the technology makes. It so much more scalable. So now, you can do that in a way that is so much faster and affects so many more people. Whereas we look at the stories in the book, you know, it took months and months and months for some of those efforts to take root. Whereas now, it takes a millisecond one viral video boom, we're done. So it's the technology. That isn't the technology is not the problem. The technology is just made the problem more, scalable. It's exacerbated in a great quote. Yes. I mean, even just to be totally relevant in terms of timeliness, this this video of Alexandria or Kazuo Cortez. That's that was shared on Thursday already has like sixty million views. I mean, it's just it's everywhere. Now, it does not take long at all anymore for things to to spread. So I'm gonna go just say really quickly that I think that this speed at which something spreads should automatically be a red flag for us. We discuss some research in the book about the speed at which information that is false spreads is like six times faster than information. That is true. And so the more quickly we see things spreading throughout our network. I think that should be a red flag for us to step back and think let's wait till the whole story emerges. Because the initial report often is. Just if not false, at least a limited in terms of being told from one viewpoint, and when we spread out and see the bigger view of whatever the issue is often times the narrative changes in a more accurate way. So the the more quickly are Lenny has a hold of something that should just be a red flag to us that. Okay. Let's wait. Let's just take a breath. It's okay to not riposte this on the very first day when it happens. In fact, it's better to share it a couple of days later when we have all the information. I remember watching. I think it was face the nation. When Kellyanne Conway was being interviewed. This was right at the very start of the administration. And and she said the words alternative facts. And I I watched it again this morning. I actually watched it a couple of times because I wanted to be able to. Well, the the look on her face. I was saying this this morning. The look on her face when she said it. She knew that what she was saying was just absolutely ridiculous. Like, she knew that. She was about to the words where she couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth. But she wished she could. Right. That's the way the look on her face look like, and that's when I knew that this was a mess. And I think maybe I was a little bit late to the game. I'm curious if you have a time in this last gong show that's been three or four years. I guess now when you knew that this was bad. Well, I think Darren and I I can't pinpoint an exact date, but what I can say is that incidents like that. Yeah. Yeah. But also coupled with because Darren and I are connected educators. Most of the people in our networks, our fellow educators, and what we kept seeing in. You know, gosh, since I'm just going to say back to the middle of say twenty fifteen was so so many of the people in our network were sharing information that was so easily debunked and we found this so frustrating because we're connected with educators. It's not just, you know, the people we went to high school with or people that were related to distant cousins, or whatever we're connected with educators. And so he, and I I just kept saying like talked about how weary we were of being one having to constantly step in and say, you know, this has actually been proven false. You know, this is actually not true at cetera. Then you couple. That with incidents, like the alternative facts, and the constant bombardment of just the term fake news. When fake news was added to the dictionary, which I wanna say was in twenty seventeen at that point. They cited like a three hundred sixty five percent increase in the use of that term since the year prior. And what happened is in our estimation. Is that it becomes then not only a really lazy term for a lot of other more specific issues that might be housed within a specific story. But also, it just became a really easy way to discredit those people that you don't agree with if I don't agree with something you're saying, then I'm just going to hashtag it fake news. That's it. Right. You know? I we all of those things I think for Darren, and I just came to a boiling point around. The beginning of twenty seventeen and where we just said well instead of continuing to complain about this, what are we going to do about it? You know, like what can we do to try to affect it? And that's how the book was born for us. So Jennifer we were thinking there's actually an official like guide on how to teach this. And you're writing suggests that only about seven percent of schools have learning objectives related to fake news and most teachers are just making up the curriculum themselves. Have you been able to identify the reason for this disconnect? Well, I think it's like a lot of things it's a combination it's complex issue. So it's a combination of things I think one very important aspect of that is that in American schools were still very much driven by standardized tests that focus on basic English and math skills and throw those things are not tested. So therefore we. Don't spend a lot of time on them. Also because there isn't an adopted curricula rely around media literacy in most states. Teachers are left sort of to their own devices. And what often happens is that one teacher in particular is tasked with okay, we have to if our district is decided we're going to prioritize media literacy than will ask one teacher in the sixth grade to make sure that they go through x number of modules with kids and then boom were done. I see this in a lot of schools where they have been able to check off the media literacy box by putting kids in front of computers to do several online lessons in one particular grade. And then when that's checked off they feel like media literacy is complete like that's their they've done their their due diligence. Right because there are some states my home state of Washington, certainly is one California's one where they're starting to be some traction in the idea that this is something that needs to be taught in school. But the how of it has not been provided or the resources. Two schools so schools are scrambling to do that what we have found is that it takes an a teacher or group of teachers who feel a sense of urgency around the issue to embed it within their existing curriculum in a way that not only make sense for them in the teaching that they're already doing. But also makes it more meaningful for kids and relevant as opposed to. Here's our six lessons. And then once we're done, that's it. So it seems to me that you're actually making up for this shortfall a little bit. In the book. We talked before we went on air about all the resources in the book. And and I I did crack a little bit of a joke about the QR codes. But to be honest, there's a ton of stuff in the book, a lot of great resources, and ideas that teachers can use built right into your you could buy this, and almost you know, helping guide you in terms of. Bridging that gap and creating a curriculum. So that you're you're you are touching on. All the right things. Was that kind of the goal with the book? We yeah, we felt very strongly about making the book actionable of we didn't just want to have a situation in which we outlined a huge problem for teachers and then said, good luck have fun with it. You know, we wanted to provide educators, whether they're a school librarian or a classroom teacher or principal whatever their role is to be able to take back the very next day and start working on implementation. We wanted to make it practical practical and actionable, which is why we joked before we went on air about all the QR codes. Because you know, I think sometimes the I travel around to a lot of schools and see technology in use on the front lines with kids every day and the technology. Has often not caught up in the school to the way, we think it should be those of us who are outside of schools talking about where education should be cetera and a classroom teacher might be trying to hobble together a lesson on media literacy was just one or two ipads in the classroom or one desktop or a couple of Chromebooks, and we wanted to present those resources at a way that that teacher could just quickly scan one and have the resource ready available for their kids. So we tried very hard to make it about what would be the easiest for educators to implement right away in their building. But I also want to say that what else was important to us was that we focused a great deal on what how what information looks like and how we determine credibility in authority in a mobile environment as opposed to just on a desktop or a laptop because that is where. Most of us actually, do our real research where we interact with most information is on our phones or on our tablets, and it's even more true for the kids we teach and it's a lot harder to determine thirty on a news article that you've found in Snapchat, then whether on one the shooting up on your desktop, and we learn through our research that apps like Snapchat are really very popular news sources for our kids. Our kids follow news providers on the apps that they use the most and how do they determine credibility in those environments, if we're not teaching them those skills in schools, then the amount of time that we spend on media literacy in the classroom is kind of wasted. When it doesn't apply when they pull out their phone when they get home. That's so true. And so what we're wondering is how can our listeners. Get fact versus fiction, Jennifer, Ed where could people connect with you. Okay. Well. Fact versus fiction is available anywhere that books are sold. You can buy it on Amazon, you can buy us, must've, noble, etc. And if you're an SP member, you can buy it at the website for a discount. So that's always a good resource. And as far as connecting with me goes, you can't really escape me. I am all over media. At Jennifer Lagarde is my handle everywhere real creative. I know. And but you can also find me on my website, which is WWW dot library dot net. Very cool. Awesome. Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. This was fantastic. Thank you for having the appreciation it. Thanks for listening to on education. My name is Mike Washburn. My co host is Glenn Irvine wanna get in touch with us throughout our website at on education, podcast dot com. You can tweet us at on education. Pod. Len is at Irv Spanish on Twitter. I can be found on Twitter at Mr. Washburn. You can find us on Facebook by visiting Facebook dot com slash on education. Pod. If you're enjoying the show and think others would to we'd love if you shared it with them. Please leave us a rating review in the apple podcasts or Google play store. We leave a rating it gives a rankings of boost in this helps others. Discover the show we want to thank our presenting sponsor school G for supporting us check owed school G dot com. To learn how they can help you advance. What's possible? Thanks as always for listening. Stay awesome. And we'll see you soon.

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