Stevie Nicks - The Lighthouse (Official Music Video)

Trump's Bullying Continues to Control The Washington Post

America's only former president and wanna-be dictator has been berating and threatening the media for years, and even today, just days before the most important election in American history, his bullying continues, and it continues to pay off for him.  

I offer Exhibit 1 from today's Washington Post online edition.  Here's the lead story, page 1:

Now let me ask you, regardless of your political persuasion: Is there any news to this story, the single one that WaPo's Editorial Board decided is the most important in the entire world, not just the U.S., but the entire globe? Hasn't the aged and senile speed freak and former President been attacking the media for correcting his endless Niagara of lies for the past decade at least?? 

Of course he has. And that is exactly why he gets front page, above the fold, and with a presidential-looking photo as well.  Just goes to show: the squeaky psychopathic bully gets the grease.

In contrast, where is WaPo's big story about Kamala Harris today? Well, you have to scroll down, past other news stories, beyond the opinion pieces, past the banner ads, past "More Top Reads," past "Better Living," and finally this, a story that actually is about a proposed policy by the leading presidential candidate:

Would Harris get better placement for a real story if she berated the media, threatened the First Amendment, belittled and besmirched reporters, and made a mockery of common sense and the truth?  No doubt she would, if the recent history of the New York Times and the Washington Post can serve as a guide.

 

WaPo and New York Times Duck and Cover to Protect Their Cowardly Asses

Chris Hayes asked last evening, Why must we read this news in a British newspaper? 

Well, Chris, it's because American newspapers self-censor, thus hedging their bets in case the authoritarian gangster clown, Trump, wins the election and tries to shut them down.  Cowardice, plain and simple.

Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States. . .

KIPP Orchestra Teacher Sentenced to 30 Years for Sex Abuse of KIPPsters

 

     Convicted sex abuser Jesus Concepcion                    David Levin KIPP Co-Founder and enabler

The Bronx KIPP Academy's first star orchestra teacher was not Jesus Concepcion (pictured above), but the highly-respected teacher, Charlie Randall, who was hired by David Levin a couple of years after New York's first KIPP school opened in 1995. Randall is the focus of an extended interview with a former KIPP student from that period, and she is just one of the child victims that Randall groomed and sexually abused during his 8-year tenure at the Bronx KIPP Academy. You can read that lengthy in-depth interview here.

Randall, who grew up poor in Florida, was able to do a couple of things for Levin that made him indispensable, regardless of how many times Charlie came to school drunk or how many sexually-charged comments and inappropriate public acts he initiated with the students under his tutelage.  

First and foremost, Charlie would create a positive publicity and marketing machine for Levin's KIPP, one that could get the attention of the corporate media and begin to shake loose the large contributions from New York's philanthrocapitalists and their corporate foundations. Secondly, Charlie knew the South Bronx (having worked as a teacher there since 1972) in ways that Levin, a white privileged nebbish with a Yale degree and no education training and little experience, ever would. 

And so when Randall suggested a protege who was one of his own former violin students, Jesus Concepcion, as an assistant in 1999, of course Levin went along.  So Randall would serve as Concepcion's musical mentor, but he also provided a model for how to successfully molest young school girls.  Concepcion observed Randall's grooming techniques that included providing gifts, food, money, rides home and to school. He observed Randall's openly salacious talk at school about students and their mothers in the presence of Levin and other teachers. He observed Randall drinking from the bottle of Johnny Walker Black that Randall kept in the orchestra room.  He observed Randall offering girls alcohol, and he was tipped off by Randall as to which girls might be the most vulnerable.

When Randall's behavior finally became too much even for David Levin, who was actively hawking KIPP's musical wares during interviews and media appearance, Jesus Concepcion was ready to assume Randall's position as orchestra director, as well the KIPP Academy's child sexual predator. 

In Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner City Schools and the New Paternalism, published by the conservative Fordham Institute in 2008, author David Whitman promotes the cultish behavioral neutering that takes place in No Excuses schools like KIPP. Whitman describes Levin's authoritarian school orchestra leader, Jesus Concepcion, as a "dapper conductor and benevolent baton-wielding despot on the podium" (p. 152). He devotes more than ten pages to Concepcion's "KIPPnotizing techniques." In this brief excerpt, Levin provides the spin:

In the last half-dozen years, the orchestra has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Apollo Theater. During four summer tours, it has given concerts in 18 cities around the country and performed with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and Al Green, the famed rhythm and blues and gospel singer. Playing at Carnegie Hall is a heady experience for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from the South Bronx, many of whom had never ventured into Manhattan. But for Concepcion and Dave Levin, the founder of KIPP Academy, the orchestra’s appearances in legendary concert halls are less important than the learning that takes place in a lowly rehearsal room in the South Bronx. 'Jesus is an incredible teacher — the kids come first for him,' says Levin. 'He worries first about building the character skills and academic skills and only then about the orchestra.' The orchestra, Levin adds, is 'such a visual example of what we are trying to teach in every aspect of the school. It demonstrates a type of greatness that is possible when students are willing to work together and sacrifice' (pp. 154-155).

The payoff for Levin was great.  The publicity generated by the KIPP school orchestra got the attention of the Gates Foundation and Donald Fisher, whose $15 million gift in 2000, followed by another $20 million over the next four years, allowed co-founders Levin and Feinberg to take KIPP's total compliance cultural sterilization model nationwide.

Levin allowed Randall (who died in late 2023) and Concepcion unfettered access into the lives of KIPP children. Both Randall and Concepcion grew up poor, and both knew the South Bronx.  Randall had taught there since 1972, and Concepcion grew up just blocks away from where he became KIPP's second star school orchestra leader. As Whitman describes in his paean to the KIPP Model, 

. . . Concepcion soon fell in love with the students at KIPP Academy, despite their lack of musical sophistication. In many respects, their stories were his story. He knew what it meant to grow up poor. He made sure to keep a small stash of toiletries in his office to protect orchestra members from feeling embarrassed for going without. He knew what it was like to walk home to the projects alone at night — and after rehearsals started giving several students rides home when a parent or grandmother could not pick them up. He knew, too, that some single parents had chaotic households or demanding work schedules that led their children to be late for school — and so he started driving students to school in the mornings, too (p. 165). 

And now we know that Concepcion was also driving KIPP children to New Jersey motels, where he engaged in sexual acts, both "oral and vaginal." And that Concepcion engaged in these sexual acts with at least four middle school children in KIPP's own "music room and in the back room of School-1’s [KIPP's] auditorium," as well as "in his car, at motels, and at his residences."

Former KIPP students have been bringing civil suits alleging sexual misconduct against the Bronx KIPP Academy and its complicit employees since 2015. With Concepcion now sentenced to 30 years for sex crimes committed after KIPP gained autonomy by being granted charter school status in 1998, KIPP can no longer hide behind the New York City Board of Education, pretending to have no culpability in these horrors. 

Perhaps now Levin, the KIPP Foundation, and the complicit employees who failed to report what they knew or suspected about sex crimes at KIPP, will be held to account for their failure to protect KIPP students and to do what the law required.  Perhaps now the victims will receive some compensation for crimes that can never be fully compensated.  Perhaps now KIPP and its negligent employees will come to understand the real meaning of NO EXCUSES.

At this juncture, the most significant difference between KIPP co-founders Mike Feinberg and David Levin is that the KIPP Foundation fired Mike Feinberg for his sexual misconduct, while David Levin still collects over $495,000 every year for sitting atop the KIPP pyramid with the title “Co-Founder.” Of course, Mike Feinberg was, himself, the alleged assailant, while David Levin inexplicably sat on his, er, hands and did nothing while the Bronx KIPP Academy's child sexual predators had their way with school children ages 9-13. 

Then, again, Levin’s feigned blindness to the sexual atrocities committed against his students is not “inexplicable” at all.  You see, Levin was desperate to get visibility and publicity for his new KIPP Bronx middle school.  That was required in order open the money spigot from philanthropists and corporate foundations. What would be more impressive to the New York Times Editorial Board or the pornographically-wealthy nouveaux riche vanguard of self-serving do-gooders (venture philanthropists) over on Wall Street than a group of well-trained black and brown children of the poor and oppressed from The Bronx, no less, demonstrating their ability to play white classical music. 

                From interview with Brian Lamb, CSPAN 2004

J. D. Vance Fails Coach Walz's One Question Oral Exam

Following the failed insurrection on January 6, 2021, the majority of the Americans who had believed or spouted Trump and Giuliani lies about Trump winning the election eventually allowed the truth to seep into their consciousness. For some diehards, the Big Lie remains central to their political identities.  When I encounter these people, I move off in the other direction, preferring not to spend my time with anyone living in the anti-democratic alternate universe occupied by liars, losers, and authoritarian louts. 

In short, anyone refusing to acknowledge by this late date that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and that Joe Biden was duly elected in the free and democratic way that the Constitution sets forth, well, those anyones should be avoided just as their views on the matter should be shunned and/or ridiculed.

Near the end of last night's debate, J. D. Vance proved that, despite all his slick sophistry, cardboard charm, and well-lubed rhetoric, he remains a devout dead-ender who does not deserve the slightest consideration for the Constitutional office to which he aspires.  Vance let the world know that he would surely fail the test of anyone aspiring to be Vice-President: if he had the opportunity to do the bidding of Boss Trump, he would refuse to certify the votes of the Electoral College, thus blocking the peaceful transfer of power that undergirds our democratic republic. The entire transcript can be found here, but here near the end of the debate is the core part of that exchange last evening:

TW:  . . . . This [January 6 insurrection] was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?

JDV: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?

TW: That is a damning--that is a damning non-answer.

Governor Walz concluded the debate with this, which, in his commonsense cut-to-the-chase way, sums up the choice on November 5:

America, I think you've got a really clear choice on this election of who's going to honor . . . democracy and who's going to honor Donald Trump.

 

Free Course Syllabus for Graduate Level Ed Leadership Program

I am offering this syllabus to anyone who wants to use it in its entirety or in part. All that I ask is acknowledgement of its origin. --James Horn

Course #______ Antiracist School Leadership

Department Name: Educational Leadership

Program: Educational Leadership

Course Title: Antiracist School Leadership

Syllabus: James Horn, PhD

Course Dates and Time:

Class is designed for 6 class meetings. It was taught as a weekend intensive in-person course. It was last taught in 2023.

Six Meeting dates TBD, each 9 AM-4 PM

Description:

The course will provide school leaders opportunities to understand how schools can be a powerful force for equity and equality in American society. Through readings, presentations, and critical discussions, students will identify effective strategies for identifying and countering institutional racism and for creating and sustaining antiracist schools and communities. This course will engage school leaders and prospective leaders in strategies and tactics for creating and maintaining school policies and practices consistent with democratic principles of equity and equality. Central to the course will an examination of specific frameworks, principles, strategies, and tactics that may be used to design effective antiracist school programs and environments. 

3 Graduate Credit Hours

Course Content and Design:

This class will operate principally as a readings-based critical discussion, even though lecture may be offered to provide connections and contexts among the ideas, events, and concepts that form the focal points of the course. Because assigned readings will provide the focal point for our discussions, it is essential that students read with a spirit of inquiry, mindful awareness, and collegial sharing.

Course Requirements:

Students are required to:

•  Attend all classes

•  Engage in all assigned readings, activities, posting, and assignments

•  Exhibit professionalism and civility at all times.

Required Readings:

Aguilar, E. (2020). Coaching for equity: Conversations that change practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Paper $23.80)

Benson, T., Fiarman, S. & Singleton, G. (2020). Unconscious bias in schools: A developmental approach to exploring race and racism (Revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. (Paper $30.40)

Lewis, A., & Diamond. J. (2015). Despite the best intentions: How racial inequality thrives in good schools. New York: Oxford University Press.

Recommended Readings Not Required:

Brooks, J. & Theoharis, G. (2019). Whiteucation: Privilege, power, and prejudice. New York: Routledge.

Bryant, T., & Arrington, E. (2022). The antiracism handbook: Practical tools to shift your mindset and uproot racism in your life and community. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press.

Fritzgerald, A. (2020). Antiracism and universal design for learning. Wakefield, MA: Cast, Inc.

Kendi, I. (2019). How to be an antiracist. New York: One World.

Love, B. (2020). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Boston: Beacon Press. (Paper $12.69)

Other readings and videos will be assigned as the course proceeds to supplement these basic texts.

Outcomes of the Course:

1. 1) Students will analyze, understand, and reflect upon the role of schools in a free society to advance antiracist programs and practices that strengthen democratic governance, equality, and equity;

2. 2) Students will understand how societal power relations are reflected in schools in ways that advance and inhibit equity, equality, and social justice;

3. 3) Students will understand that commitments to organizational structures, curriculums, and assessment practices have deep ethical implications for the ongoing development of healthy, informed, citizens who are capable of making life choices that work for them and for the good of society;

4. 4) Students will understand where their own values fit within a range of political and moral constituencies and special interests;

5. 5) Students will understand that academic achievement gaps are focused on in ways that conceal education debts to oppressed groups that have gone unpaid for generations;

6. 6) Students will explore current awareness strategies for achieving best practices for antiracist ideas and actions within the school community;

7. 7) Students will interpret, explain, and critique specific educational policies and practices that impede or encourage healthy antiracist practices in schools and the communities they reflect;

8. 8) Students will reflect carefully and critically on their own assumptions, educational background, cultural history (vis-à-vis race, ethnicity, language, SES, etc.), that affect our values, ideas, and actions to structural and institutional racism;

9. 9) Students will understand that the organization and curriculum of schools reflect widely varying levels of commitment to democratic principles and conceptions of equality.

Procedure

This class will operate principally as a readings-based critical discussion, even though a number of lectures will be offered to provide connections and contexts among the ideas, events, and concepts that form the focal points of the course. Because assigned readings will provide the focal point for our discussions, it is essential that you read with a spirit of inquiry and mindful awareness.

Assessment 1:  Discussion questions from the readings— 6 @ 50 points (300 points)

Your contribution to the class is essential.  In large part, your contribution will depend upon your timely and reflective engagement with the assigned written and visual texts.  In order to help the reflective process, I am as asking you to write one (or more) insightful question(s) for each of the assigned readings for our six class meetings. These questions should focus on important insights, claims, ideas, themes, concepts, or theories that are central to the readings and that are worth discussing among the group.

Your questions should indicate that you have thought about potential responses to your questions and that you are prepared to weigh in on responses from your classmates and the professor. Discussion questions should require students to think critically and analytically and to provide explanatory or interpretive responses that indicate a close reading of the written and/or visual texts. Your questions, too, should lead us toward fulfilling the goals and expectations for the course.

Please send me a copy of your questions prior to class as a Word doc, rtf file, LibreOffice file, etc. (No Google docs, please). Remember—write at least one good discussion question from each of the assigned reading/viewing for the day.

Assignment 2: Class Participation (200 points)

Evaluation guidelines for Class Participation

A = 200 points

1. Attends all class sessions

2. Consistently contributes to class discussion and group activities

3. Exhibits a constructive, civil, and positive attitude

4. Always ready for class as evidenced by assignments completed.

Assignment 3: Analysis of Racist and Antiracist policies and practices (250 points)

We will spend much of the semester unpacking two of Professor Ibram Kendi’s definitions that are central to this course:

Racist: One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea.

Antiracist: One who is supporting an antiracist policy or practice through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.

Furthermore, a racist supports policies and practices, by action or inaction, that maintain or increase racial inequity, while an antiracist supports policies and practices that reduce racial inequity.

This assignment asks students to use all that you have learned during the semester to identify a system-wide policy or practice, a school policy or practice, or classroom policy or practice that discriminates against or disenfranchises a certain group or groups of students based on race or ethnicity. Remember: racism may be intended or unintended, conscious or unconscious. The effects on students are the same, however, regardless of the intent.

You are asked to use our readings and discussions and your own insights to analyze the policies or practices in ways that address these questions:

• Specifically, what are the effects on students that make the policy or practice racist?

• Whose power was exercised to put the policy into place?

• How do those charged with administering the policy or practice deal with criticisms and attempts to change it?

• What would be the most effective way to neutralize the racist effects of the policy or practice?

• Who wins and who loses by the continued implementation of the policy or practice?

This assignment will be discussed further each time the class meets.

Assignment 4: Final Exam (250 points)

The three books we have read this semester, along with the videos and our discussions of them, offer entry points to many important concepts, insights, theories, strategies, and tools for becoming and continuing to be effective antiracist school leaders. As you reflect on where you started this semester and where you are today with regards to knowledge, skills, cultural competence, will, and emotional intelligence, how would you assess your progress in these and other relevant learning areas during the term? How have the materials and discussions (be as specific as you can) that we have engaged in contributed to your personal and professional growth toward understanding race and racism? What do you see as your primary opportunities and challenges to becoming the equity-focused educational leader that you want to be? (1,500 words minimum)

Grading Scale for Course (1000 points):

930-1000 A

900-929 A-

870-899 B+

800-869 B

Below 800 NC

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to maintain integrity in all academic work. They will not attempt to get grades by any means other than honest academic effort. All work must be completed by individual students except for group projects. It is not permissible to hand in the same work for different courses.

Plagiarism is the use of another’s work, thoughts, or language without giving credit. Cambridge College students will not summarize, copy, or use the work of another person or source without proper acknowledgement. Plagiarism is dishonest and a serious academic offense.

What Is Plagiarism at Indiana University? You will find a short quiz with immediate feedback, as well as other resources.

Part II – Class Agenda

Session 1

Topic: Course overview and beginning the immersion

Required Readings:

Benson & Fiarman (2020), pp. 1-29 (Introduction and Chapter 1)

Aguilar (2020), pp. 1-48 (Introduction and Chapter 1)

Lewis & Diamond (2015), pp. xiii-17 (Prologue and Chapter 1)

Activities and Assignments:

As you become familiar with the readings for the course, examine the Contents pages, prefatory comments, indexes, references, etc. Please bring to class at least one discussion question derived from each of the assigned reading. These questions may be related to how your own experiences relate to the ideas, concepts, and positions taken by the authors.

Videos viewed during class:

A Look at Race Relations through a Child's Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVNJgfDwpw

Kids speak their minds about race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OKgUdQF-Fg

RACE – THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created

https://vimeo.com/133506632

Other resources:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack:

https://nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/Knapsack_plus_Notes-Peggy_McIntosh.pdf

Worksheets and Other Resources for Coaches—Aguilar

https://brightmorning.wpengine.com/coaching-tools/

Session 2

Required Readings:

Benson & Fiarman (2020), pp. 31-72 (Chapters 2-3)

Aguilar (2020), pp. 49-76 (Chapter 2) .

Lewis & Diamond (2015), pp. 17-44 (Chapter 2)

Required Viewing Prior to Class

If you are not a member of Vimeo, go to this site and sign up. It’s free.

Once you have joined Vimeo, please pay $4.99 for access to this 3-part documentary: Race: The Power of an Illusion. Once you have done so, watch Part 1 prior to class on June 25.

Activities In-Class:

Disparate Treatment of New Jersey Teens at Mall

https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-response-mall-fight-prompts-outrage-investigation-treatment/story?id=82927516

Session 3

Required Readings:

Benson & Fiarman (2020), pp. 73-117 (Chapters 4-6)

Aguilar, pp. 73-100 (Chapter 3)

A deadly Ideology: How the “Great Replacement Theory” went mainstream

In class:

Jay Smooth: how to tell someone they sound racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc

Jay Smooth TedX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU

Berkeley Diversity Dashboard:

https://diversity.berkeley.edu/reports-data/diversity-data-dashboard

Pedro Noguera—the color of discipline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHykVTKqahM

What’s your race got to do with it? Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Q9Ue3slCY

What’s Your Race Got to Do With It (Vimeo)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whatsracegottodowithit

What’s your race got to do with it? Social Disparities and Student Success (printable facilitator’s guide)

http://www.whatsrace.org/images/WhatsRaceGuide.pdf

Ron Ferguson tripod surveys:

https://tripoded.com/about-us-2/

Examples:

https://tripoded.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Tripod-Survey-Instrument.pdf

Aguilar tracking tool example:

https://brightmorning.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Teacher-to-Student-Tracking-Tool-Example-1.pdf

Session 4

Required Readings/Viewing:

A Class Divided. PBS Frontline.

Benson & Fiarman (2020), ; 117-175 (Chapters 7-10)

Aguilar (2020), pp. 101-174 ( Chapters 4-6)

Viewing (in class):

Race: The Power of an Illusion, Part 2

Links:

Coaching lenses by Aguilar:

http://www.brightmorningteam.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Coaching-Lenses.pdf

Session 5

Required Readings:

Aguilar (2020), (Chapters 4-6, 9-12)

Session 6

Required Readings/Viewing:

Lewis & Diamond (2015), pp. 45-180 (Chapters 4-6)

I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin documentary)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PaAbmRJ9bQ

In class viewing:

Explained: Racial Wealth Gap

SAT Scores and Family Income

Stamped for Kids

Waiting for Superman: An Assessment from a Social Justice Perspective

At Success Academy School, a Stumble in Math and a Teacher’s Anger on Video

Success Academy's War Against Children

The Moynihan Report Resurrected

Student presentations for Assignment 3.