If a mother shouts for justice in the Youtube forest, and no one sees? Is her pain any less?

A mother of two arrested after confronting McDonald's President about poverty wages. Ten years to reach 8.25 an hour, and she can't afford shoes for herself.  He gets to drink Champagne, shrug it off, and she gets handcuffs . 

Perhaps I am alone, but I can't figure out why she is not on every news network, why the clergy is not marching, why our leaders are not standing by her side, and why we are not all shouting for a living wage? My own mother worked 6 days a week as a waitress collecting nickel and dime tips to put food on the table. It was never enough. With a husband and father who walked out on her she did what she could. There are no support payments in the house of poverty. Poor men disappear into some dark void. Working Mothers ride that late night bus alone, and their shoes come last in their world of love and pain. Take a look at the link below America?  Frederick Douglas that sacred voice of our past, that fugitive slave turned freeman, turned author: said: "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." Tell me do you see some lazy woman reeling in the dough, or do you see like me our nation's greatest shame?                                                                                                                                     

I give my heart, my love, my pen, and my words to the mothers who ride our late night buses. 

With the deepest respect,                                                                                                                                                           Jesse my mother's only son

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn4KnC1QmEU 

"I see redemption in an angel's eyes"

I see a working mother crying out,
I see my mother 50 years ago crying,
After 10 years she reaches 8.25 per hour,
After 10 years she can't afford shoes,

In this America, the home of richest, the most famous, and the most powerful, I see my shame,
I see our shame,
A mother shouting out for a raise to the elites, the connected, the powerful, the Golden 1%,
I feel her pain,
My mother's pain,
A pain that all mother's feel who can't make ends meet for their children,
Our children,
Let me tell you something Golden 1%,
This America is not your house;
It's our house,
Mi casa es tu casa,

This mother crying out for a raise,
This mother crying out for justice,
She is God's witness to our brutality,
She is God's witness to our injustice,
This mother,
This woman,
She is every mother,
She is God's Angel come to give us one last chance,
She is our American angel of redemption,

Some see her,
Some cannot,
Some stand with her,
More not,
Some saved,
More damned,

This American choice
Are we some soon to be fallen new Rome,
Or do we grab Langston Hughes last line of hope,
Let America be America,

Do we draw a line in the sand of equity?
Do we say enough is enough?
Do we stand with our mothers?
Or do we stand against our mothers,
Our angels of redemption?

I see a mother,
I see my mother,
I see all mothers,
I see an Angel,
I draw a line,
I stand on her side,
I stand with the angles of redemption,
Where do you stand America?

Jesse The Walking Man Turner 10/11/13

If you are wondering what the Walking is listening to on his walk over the mountain today. It's an old Irish one, we Irish sing sometimes after we had one too many, and our hearts fill with longing for our mothers lost. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWj4oN-mi84 <

John Merrow get off the Education Reform Status Quo fence

Well, Mr. Merrow, you missed the boat, the mark, and shot yourself in the foot with your blog about Diane Ravitch not being worthy of hero status.
You appear perplexed about teachers calling Diane Ravitch a hero. Perhaps you should be asking teachers. Why they are feeling under assault by many of the Ed Reformers you so often, have let off easy over the years?

She has stepped up to the plate for millions of teachers who feel our profession, our unions, and our professionalism is under attack. She is doing this during a time, when you and so many others seem to be playing it safe by sitting on that status quo fence of Education Reform. Staying on the fence never makes anyone a hero. I understand you never called yourself a hero. I just want you to know those people sitting on status quo fences can never be heroes.

One condition for being a hero is you need to get off the fence, and risk failure, and earned the love of the people by standing up for something worth fighting for. America's public school system is worth fighting for John. 

Dr. Ravitch, unlike most education reform pundits calls it like it is, takes on the education reform billionaire's club, and a status quo United States Department of Education that has spent 1.2 trillion dollars over a decade on policies that have failed to demonstrate real effects.

My five simple rules for being a hero for me are:

1. You stand for something that goes against the grain,

2. You fight for a truth that is not popular with the powerful and the mighty,

3. You give voice to the marginalized, 

4. You change people minds, including your own, and

5. Finally you are loved by millions.

Dr. Diane Ravitch's last two books, her endless quest to honor teachers and defend our public education system in every speech since 2010 changed my mind on her. You see John Merrow in 2010 I walked 400 miles from Connecticut to Washington DC to protest this testing reign of terror. The following year I would walk it again, and helped Save Our School March plan a DC conference, a rally, and a march to protest high stakes assessment. We had no major speaker for our conference. Then Diane Ravitch was speaking at Yale, and I ask her afterwards would you be a speaker for us. We could not pay for her to speak, or even pay for her travel and housing as well. All we could offer was a pat on the back, Her answer Mr. Merrow was YES.  You see Mr. Merrow, before she said YES she was just another respected education historian who failed to meet that final bar. You know rule number 5, to be loved by millions. That yes, and her passionate defense of our public education system in her last two books, and a thousand speeches honoring and defending our public schools and teachers met rule number 5. 

Counting myself as one of those that love her,

Jesse The Walking Man Turner

For those interested in what song the Walking Man listened today on his walk, it was Mariah Carey's Hero http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IA3ZvCkRkQ

One standard for a nation

What would happen if our public schools focused on one standard instead of a series endless Common Core content facts? What if we focused on one standard deeply rooted in who we are as a nation? A standard that molded the character of generations of Americans. A standard that ended slavery, a standard that men and women have been imprisoned and died for. A standard that inspired presidents, workers, and a civil rights movenment. A standard that is more of a core belief rather than a fact. A standard we have never reached, but one our hands are always reaching for.

Here is my one standard America:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -The United State Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776
Am I alone in imagining a public school system that inspires our young people, not with some cowardly fear of not being competitive in some future world market, but with a curriculum rooted in the character of equality, life, liberty, and dare we even imagine the pursuit of happiness?

I bet one John Adams would applause my one standard. “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” ~ John Adams
No Common Core Groupie,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

If you want to know what the Walking Man listened to on his walk over the moutain today...it's Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM