SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL PUBLIC EDUCATION

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) In spending the Memorial Day weekend with an old teacher friend who lives and works in an upscale bedroom community out on Long Island, New York, I was unexpectedly enlightened by yet another lesson as to how the purposefully failed predominantly poor minority filled innercity public education systems in this country bear no resemblance to the still excellent public education that remains the rule in the suburbs, where the affluent middle class live and can still exert their substantial financial influence.
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30

05 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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COORDINATED ACTION WOULD SPEAK LOUDER THAN MERE WORDS

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Why do a broad range of factions- that we commonly label as liberal- continue ad nauseum to content themselves with only reporting the latest irrational, depressing, and demoralizing behavior of our exclusively profit-driven corporate controlled American government? At the same time these liberals content themselves with merely preaching a clearly more rational alternative view of what could be possible to people who already agree with them. They seem to purposefully avoid like the plague any ACTION designed to make their own progressive ideas the basis for more rational alternative actions by government.
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7

05 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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NO "FULL DISCLOSURE" IN KPPC LAUSD PENSION REPORTING

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) One of the most disturbing and regrettable trends in today's news reporting is the systematic and often premeditated failure to even mention often highly relevant facts that if merely addressed would most assuredly cause the reader to come up with a completely different interpretation or conclusion after reading the article. One recent case in point can be found in a KPCC 89.3 FM reporter Kyle Stokes' article: What should LAUSD do about its ballooning benefits costs? While Stokes approaches this issue through the respective positions of incumbent LAUSD Board Member Steve Zimmer and his challenger and charter schools backed opponent Nick Melvoin, in how they each would deal prospectively with what now amounts to a looming $13.6 billion unfunded health and other benefits package, nowhere in the article is the easily verifiable fact mentioned that for the last 8 years LAUSD has already been "dealing" with this problem by systematically and illegally targeting and removing with clearly fabricated charges, teachers at the top of the salary scale and/or others about to vest in expensive lifetime health or other retirement benefits.
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29

04 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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TRUMP AS OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTION OF THE BODY POLITIC

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Comparable rules apply In dealing with the human body or the body politic. When the threat of sickness and dysfunction is present in either of these systems, look out. Whether it is the normal T-cell immune response to the the invasion of the human body by foreign entities, which can cause disease and death- if left unchecked- or the checks and balances immune response built into our constitution as a limit on power by our Founders to protect the body politic from that which, if left unchecked would destroy our democracy. Both involve the dismantling of normally functioning immune system responses.
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27

04 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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WHEN IT COMES TO ENGAGING IN MEANINGFUL ACTION, WHY DO LIBERALS CONTINUE AVOIDING IT LIKE THE PLAGUE?

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One question liberals not only seem unwilling to address, but will actually become downright nasty if you persist in asking it is: Why continue to do the same things that experience has shown you will not bring about any measurable change, while continuing to avoid doing things that history has shown actually do work?
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25

04 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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SMMUSD'S NEW SUPERINTENDENT- FINALLY RACIAL JUSTICE?

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) On Sunday April 2nd the Committee for Racial Justice in Santa Monica had as their guest speaker Dr. Ben Drati, the relatively new African American superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD). What Dr. Drati discussed in his presentation was SMMUSD's decision to once and for all effectively deal with the unacceptable realities behind why African American and Latino students have continued to do poorly at SMMUSD and what could be done to finally close this achievement gap in a manner where the positive results are independently and empirically verifiable. While I found that I had some problems with Dr. Drati's approach to achieving minority student parity with their usually more affluent and academically successful non-minority peers, what I nonetheless found refreshing in his approach was a willingness and openness to incorporate any ideas that might help him and SMMUSD to finally allow minority students to achieve their potential.
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4

04 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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WHO PROFITS AND PAYS FOR RAMPANT AGE DISCRIMINATION?

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In watching a recent 60 Minutes program on how the H1B visa is being used to get rid of an older and more expensive professional American work force in favor of imported workers, whose best "skill" is that they will work for a fraction of the salary and benefits of their present work force, the link between this phenomenon and higher profits at any cost should not be missed merely because it is not reported by the mainstream corporate owned media that not so coincidentally behind this phenomenon designed to increase corporate profit at any cost. Even foundation dependent NPR is loathe to go against the interests of its equally compromised corporate owned and controlled foundation supporters, who assure that NPR will never "bite the hand that is feeding them."
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2

04 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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THE "ALTERNATIVE FACTS" BEHIND SB 807

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) Right up there with motherhood and apple pie is the notion of a vibrant and functional public education system, where everything is done to get and keep the best teachers. Nothing could be further from the easily verifiable truth of a public education environment that is and has been over the last 7 years openly hostile to teachers- and especially the more expensive high seniority teachers.
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29

03 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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"BLACK CULTURE"- THE LATEST EXCUSE FOR NOT EDUCATING

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) Dr. Chris Emdin, associate professor at Columbia University's Teachers College in his new book "For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood ... and the Rest of Y'all Too," completely misunderstands why poor minority students continue to fail in public school and in the process he comes up with a clearly bogus "white hero teacher" alternative facts rationale to explain why these poor minority children continue to fail, that literally has no basis in fact.
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23

03 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
2 Comments

Charter Schools: A Cancer Destroying Our Public School System By: Francisco Martinez

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When I first heard that Broad was planning to dismantle public education by taking 50% of students out of LAUSD and putting them in charters schools, I thought it was time for me to get active. Originally, I was one of those people who thought that charters were an alternative to our struggling inner city schools that were infested with gangs, under performing, and multiple other problems. Soon, I began to comprehend that behind the appealing and usually misleading propaganda publicized by charter school operators, there is an undeniable truth purposely hidden by proponents of the charter school industry: Charter operators are in business to make money at the expense of our children's education.
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22

03 2017


by Leonard Isenberg
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