Can we trust a U.S. DOE that approves of feeding our children Pink Slime?

Something is wrong with a DOE
who approves of feeding our children Pink slime!

How much money are you willing to bet that no one's children at the United States Department of Education will be eating any Public School Pink Slime burgers, or tacos?

Something is telling me that Arne Duncan's children won't be eating that ammonia-treated meat.  Something is very wrong with buying meat by products that were rejected by McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King, and approving it for public school school lunches. The U. S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 MILLION TONS for school lunches. 

Where is the outcry from Secretary of Education Duncan? 

Where is the outrage from a First Lady who wants to help end childhood obesity?

Where is the outrage from the American Medical Association? 

Something is very wrong in a Washington DC that feeds our children this stuff. 

Just what is this pink slime they are going to feed America's school children anyway? It is officially known as "Lean Beef Trimmings," a product made from ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. 

It gets all blended into regular meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties.

Read it for yourself @ http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/03/05/030512-news-pink-slime-1-3/

This is the problem when we turn children into test scores. We dehumanized them. Our schools are for sale, and so are our children. The United States Department of Education under Race To The Top is working with private venture partners to capitalize on the 58 million children that go to public schools in America. There is a for sale sign on our public schools, our children, our parents, and our teachers. 

It is time to occupy the DOE in DC.  Please call the First Lady this surely can't be part of the plan to fight childhood obesity? Secretary Status quo Duncan the Walking Man is coming to occupy the DOE house of shame in DC this March 30, 31, and April 1 & 2. 

http://unitedoptout.com/event/we-endorse-occupy-wall-street-with-action/

Silence and apathy are not acceptable when it comes to our children.

Ready to Occupy,

Jesse The Walking Man Turner

For those interested in a little extra credit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/school-lunches-and-the-food-industry.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

If you are wondering what the Walking Man is listening to on his walk this morning it Makana We Are The Many 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE 

Here are the lyrics for those of you coming to DC to start practicing for DC people

We Are The Many
Lyrics & Music by MakanaMakana Music LLC © 2011

Ye come here, gather ’round the stage

The time has come for us to voice our rage Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law

The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the courts We’ll occupy the offices of you Till you do The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right

Of every person to improve their plight But laws of this Republic they rewrite And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability

They own, but they are not like you and me Their influence dictates legality And until they are stopped we are not free

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the courts We’ll occupy the offices of you Till you do The bidding of the many, not the few

You enforce your monopolies with guns

While sacrificing our daughters and sons But certain things belong to everyone Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress

We have little to lose, we must confess Your empty words do leave us unimpressed A growing number join us in protest

We occupy the streets

We occupy the courts We occupy the offices of you Till you do The bidding of the many, not the few

You can’t divide us into sides

And from our gaze, you cannot hide Denial serves to amplify And our allegiance you can’t buy

Our government is not for sale

The banks do not deserve a bail We will not reward those who fail We will not move till we prevail

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the courts We’ll occupy the offices of you Till you do The bidding of the many, not the few

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the courts We’ll occupy the offices of you Till you do The bidding of the many, not the few

We are the many

You are the few

Who will teach our children? What I learned in Selma!

The lesson from Selma Alabama keep on marching

 

I want to comment on Valerie Strauss's article in last week’s Washington Post: Teacher job satisfaction plummets — Survey By Valerie Strauss. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/teacher-job-satisfaction-plummets--survey/2012/03/02/gIQAmB5lvR_blog.html Kevin G. Welner, Strauss’s guest blogger writes: " It’s not fun to be repeatedly punched in the gut. And we can now quantify how not-fun it is, at least when teachers are the punches.  Over the past two years of gut-punching, teacher job satisfaction has fallen from 59 percent to 44 percent."   

Yes teachers can quantify it, teachers can feel it, and teachers are under vicious attack from both the right and left.
The emerging problem: Who will teach our children if job satisfaction for teachers keeps plummeting?  Reflecting on that question I posted the above article on our Children Are More Than test Scores Facebook page with this caption: "Perhaps in the future our children will be taught by robots, machines with out feelings, without emotions, and who view all children as data to be crunch. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's policies inspire no one, but testing company CEOs. The DC DOE has failed from the very beginning of NCLB to understand rather than testing children they needed to find ways to inspire them.  To win their minds you need to win their hearts. They just don't get it."

Word from the street: Members responded quickly to this one. However one response from a teacher I highly respect, a teacher who has been fighting the good fight since her first day in the classroom stuck out among the others:  "No, they used "force" Jesse did I ever tell you about the regional meeting I went to out here in Southern CA a Principal sent me-she sent me because she wanted me to see, I think, what the machine looked like. A Fed ran it. It had to do with underperforming schools-back 7 years ago. In this he talked about forcing teachers to do these things. Using profanity, talking about shoving down our throats-whatever is necessary. Most unethical thing I ever saw." 

The truth: This teacher is right NCLB/RTTT is top down driven policy FORCE down our throats. The Feds have bullied children, parents, teachers, and public schools at every level. We have been isolated, marginalized, and threatened by the DOE in DC for over a decade at this point. Secretary Arne Duncan likes to say he respects teachers. If his reform policies are his way of supporting and respecting teachers than he must believe the Moon is made of cream cheese.  

A fact: the DC DOE has spent nearly a trillion dollars on experimental education reform models that have shown little or no effect on closing the achievement gap.  In 2001 the DOE said we needed new rigorous standards and new tests. All 50 states developed new standards and tests, and they failed to close the achievement gap. Now the DOE is saying once again we need new standards and testing Part 2. Of course if states want access to the very tax dollars they send to Washington they better shut up, and follow along. 

America's parents, teachers, and schools have a choice. We can go along to get along, or we can resist. We can learn about resisting from the Civil Rights Movement.

A little history: I view NCLB/RTTT policies as the new Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws were created to keep African Americans from voting, and living freely in the south. Jim Crow created two sets of laws one for whites, and another for blacks. Under the law Whites would have all the powers granted them under the constitution, and African Americans would be denied those very same rights. In particular the right to vote would be kept from African Americans. Thus the voice of African Americans would not be heard in state capitals. Opposition to Jim Crow is a long bloody brutal history of oppression against Black Americans. Our nation has a rich history of resistance to Jim Crow. My 400 mile-walk from Connecticut to DC to protest excessive high stakes testing in 2010 was inspired by the Civil Rights movement’s response to Jim Crow.   

Sometimes you go to the source: Last week I went to Selma Alabama for the Sunday Bloody Sunday Jubilee. I went to Selma cognizant that the Edmund Pettus Bridge is sacred ground in the Civil Rights Movement. I went to the place where I could draw strength, the place where I could draw inspiration. The sacred place where I could learn how to fight back against unjust policies. I went to place where I could learn from the elders. 

Those elders who marched on that bridge in 1965,

Those elders met by Governor George Wallace’s State Troopers,

Those elders who were gassed,

Those elders who were beaten,

Those elders who lost love ones,

Those elders who were brutally beat, but could not be beaten,

Those elders who carry sacred lessons,

Those elders taught us

Force won't turn you around,

Shame won't turn you around,

Lies won't turn you around.

You have a date with justice, you have a date with righteousness, and until that date comes keep on moving, keep on talking, and keep on marching.
Something deep in my soul tells me a change is gonna come.
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

If you want to know what the walking man is listening to today on his walk it's Leela James "A change is gonna come"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT-bolii83w&feature=player_embedded#! 

Spread the word from Selma Alabama's Education Summit

Sunday Bloody Sunday: the cost of freedom should not be forgotten

At the Education Summit at the Selma Jubilee a simple, but powerful truth emerged: Civil Rights is education, and education is Civil Rights! 

The history not on that Race To The Top test is "Sunday Bloody Sunday". 

Walking on the Edmund Pettus Bridge yesterday March 4 2012 I stood on that sacred ground, that place where a people said enough is enough. Where Black Americans demanded the right to vote. Selma is a people's legacy to democracy.
A rich noble American legacy where people stood up, spoke up, and marched into the history books.  Where Jimmie Lee Jackson a 26 year-old Deacon was fatally shot by an Alabama State Police officer as he protected his mother his mother from being beaten at Mack’s Café by the police. A legacy of non-violence met with brutal violent racism, a legacy written in the blood of an innocent people. In Education they test what they want children to remember. Jamie Lee Jackson is not on any NCLB/RTTT test, Sunday Bloody Sunday is not on the test, Civil Rights is not on their test. 

The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights was actually three marches. They represent the  Blood Cost of the modern civil rights movement. On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, 600 civil rights marchers marched six blocks to the Edmund Pettus Bridge where state and local lawmen brutally attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. The vote is paid for in blood. 

This legacy bridge is not on their test, but it is Sacred Ground in Civil Rights movement.

Spread the word Civil Rights is education, and education is civil rights. Race To The Top is a lie. No matter how many times you tell a lie it is still a lie. 

School equity is not a lottery,

A school choice where some children win, and some children lose is not equity,

Equity is not a race,

Equity is not schools competing.

Equity will not be found in a Secretary of Education who wants us to join his Race To The Top.

All children deserve equity not just the lucky few. 

Someone tell the Secretary of False Equity Arne Duncan, that the Walking Man Jesse Turner is coming to occupy the DOE in DC this March 30, 31, April 1 & 2. 

Spread the word from the Selma Jubilee Education Committee Sunday Bloody Sunday is more important than the test. The sacred is embedded into our memory not because it's on some test, but because it is sacred. 

In my younger days when I ran the streets we use to say two from the heart. Here are two short real clips from the heart from the Walking Man at the Slavery Museum in Selma Alabama:

Children should be more than Test Scores

60 seconds

  School equity should not be something children compete for!

59 seconds  

 Want to know what the Walking Man is listening to: Ain't no body gonna turn me around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kN6iEr7O9U

Still marching,

Jesse The Walking Man Turner