Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Mis-education in Newark, NJ Schools


Newark, New Jersey the Struggle of Education as a Right Not a Privilege, Principals Silenced for Challenging School Closures
By Malik Sekou Osei
28 January 2014
      We have seen a number of decades go by with Blacks in offices as elected officials, and still the African American has no real power of his life. From a number of mayors to governors and now, even as the president, yet there no political traction to move beyond high unemployment, lack of health care, police Stop-and-Frisk and the question of the right to education and training.
      As we look across a river, we see the injustice still blooms very large in for the African American people of Newark as they whisper the screams of a sterile flower of Black political representation that only represents the attempts of Black elected officials of getting paid. They all preform a chaotic loud musical of silence as a militant minstrel show of emptiness. For it’s all just posture of becoming the brokers of discontent of a failed populism. Newark was one the first cities to have a Black mayor Ken Gibson, Sharpe James up to Cory Booker and still Black people  still have no political capital. After the symbolic dance of militants of a spirited house that brought a house Negro to the mayor’s office in 1970, who still behaved as a house Negro in protecting the corporate interests of the city under the poems of artists of identity. Where the status quo would never use them as brokers of discontent, thus in their symbolism they would never draw up history for lessons.
      Now, it seems under the present Black leadership of protest, we are still stuck in 1967 and growth of empty flowers of plastic without any real scent only pretty to look at as plastic roses of Black political symbolism without the reality of power for the poor.
      While, in reality there are objective laws, if you put broken ice on the side walk you’re wide up with a wet street and nothing more. It seems that the symbol of militant reform can mobilize a militant populism, never drew up the lessons of history and the racial betrayal for access to recourses, by racial militant careerist. For the history of militant culturalism through of sloganeering of some great poetry in Newark has never created an urban populism.
As similar forces continue this same empty dance of militant populism around getting elected or around elected officials, will only leave the empty tune of symbolism and failure. What has to be understood is the role of African American careerist as collaborator.       
... cami anderson in this file photo spoke of her successes overCami Anderson
      While, as the people of Newark faces this question on the right of education on January 17, Cami Anderson, the Newark public schools superintendent picked by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was to suspended five school principals, including four who spoke at a local community meeting in Newark to oppose the “One Newark” program, one of the most up to date attempts to privatize public education in Newark.
       What has to be understood is that under the “One Newark” plan, so-called because students will be permitted to register in any school in their age group in the city, while in fact, many public schools will be closed, and their students forced to show up in schools in other places, often at vast distance from their residences. The empty school buildings will be filled by privately run, as publicly funded charter schools.
Principals H. Grady James
blogjames
       Principals H. Grady James of Hawthorne Avenue School, Tony Motley of Bragaw Avenue School, Dorothy Handfield of Belmont Runyan School, and Deneen Washington of Maple Avenue School were all suspended for declaring and expressing their opposition to the plan at a meeting at the Hopewell Baptist Church on January 15. The meeting was organized by Democratic city councilman and mayoral hopeful Ras Baraka (son of Amiri Baraka the poet and writer), who hopes to exploit opposition to the reorganization plan to further his own electoral ambitions.
Ras Baraka


      After public protest, four of the principals resumed their duties last Monday, and one, Deneen Washington, was told to report to the central office of the school district.
Deneen WashingtonDeneen Washington

      It must be noted that the city of Newark has a population of just fewer than 300,000 and is New Jersey’s largest city. According to the latest statistics, roughly a third of Newark’s residents lived at or below the federal poverty line, and Newark is still largely African American.
      The Newark public school system, with about 40,000 students and 3,000 teachers, has been in state receivership since 1995. The rights of teachers in particular have been under sustained attack for several years. In 2012, the Newark Teachers Union signed an agreement—widely advertised and hyped in the media as a “landmark deal”—with the state that applied a merit pay system based on the determination of a teacher’s classroom performance.
Tony MotleyPrincipal Tony Motely  
Dorothy HandfieldDorothy Handfield 

       The contract abolished the annual raises for experience, standard for decades in American public schools, and abolished automatic pay increases for those teachers who obtained advanced degrees. Since teachers who already had advanced degrees were allowed to opt out of the new system—and most did—the Newark public school system now effectively has a two-tier system of appraisal for teachers.
       The Newark schools were the recipient of a $100 million gift from billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010. Some of this money was used to found new charter schools, while much of the remainder was kept in a pool for teachers’ merit pay.
       While speaking on the phone and E-mail with teachers they believed that the standards for student performance were set so high that they have little hope of receiving any raise. In fact, only %5 percent of eligible teachers received a merit pay raise last year in 2013.
       In addition to this degrading of teachers’ rights, fully accommodated by the union, Cami Anderson laid off over 100 school employees last June.
      Anderson, a personal friend and political ally of former Newark mayor and current US Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat, is portrayed in the media as a “gutsy reformer” who is challenging the out-of-date Newark educational system.
Topic: Clinton Convicted (Read 4515 times)Corey Booker
     The truth is that the “One Newark” plan aims at transferring public wealth from the working Black people into private white corporate hands. This process has been going on at a national level with cities such as Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, and New York as the vanguard.
      As elsewhere in the US, the domination of charters in Newark will allow for easy firing of teachers and the slashing of their pay, along with the subordination of education to standardized test scores and the labor demands of private corporations.
     What separates the situation in Newark—and sets a treacherous pattern —is the anti-democratic silencing of opposition by educators to the privatization plan.
      Teachers and school workers spoke about the issue at a recent public meeting on the suspension of the principals. They highlighted that they were under a gag order from school authorities and feared retribution if they remarked publicly.
     It should be said, that Chris Christie was the one to give Anderson her job. She has no training in pedagogy or care about education. Her role is to drive out higher-paid teachers. Right now in Newark they already changed the tenure system, now for a teacher to get their tenure they must teach five years instead of three. While will happen at the fourth year the administration would make moves of changing teachers or giving bad reviews and holding low  test scores against the teacher as the  means to denies tenure and to seek to buy out senior teachers and replace them.
    The game that the flunkies for Governor Christie will argue is that the Newark schools have very low enrollment. However, this was done because Superintendent Anderson was to close down feeder schools. Now those students under One Newark can go anywhere rather than local schools, where they are slated to go.
      Now, forces in Newark are using the example of New Orleans and Katrina, where the excuse in Newark is low attention to begin the growth of charter schools on the public watch. If local teachers and administrators speak out, they are under the threat to be suspended.
      As of right now Newark schools are %100 percent managed and controlled, while at the same time Camden and now Jersey City has only half of its schools are state run. They local leadership of these cities is selling the city’s property to make a personal windfall profit.
     Now the fight around the right of education has become the struggle of not turning local teachers and administrators into proper pantomime of silence. For looking at the history of Black elected officials this has been their political method of political survival.
      They would provide limited concessions to keep the urban space governable without challenging white corporate power. For in the long range objectives of corporate capital as they bring further austerity is to makes their political representative regardless of color dance as pantomimes without real music as empty symbols of actual distractions.
     Unfortunately, Newark has had a long history of this, from the July 12, 1967 beating of the Taxis driver John Smith was beaten after he was picked up by the police and taken to the police station at the Fourth Precinct. At this point the people refuse to dance the pantomime in silence. They came out of the Hays Housing Project, while John Smith was the lit match of conditions that torn down Springfield Ave.
     While, there was no formal organization and it was a spontaneous eruption against racialist police violence and without actual political leadership the motion collapse into cultural militant symbolism that would become broker of discontent that has left Newark politically vulnerable because of a tradition that never prepared anyone outside of militant symbolism to be the vehicles of militant sounding Black elected officials that was help by corporate monies to keep the cities governable for private profit.
     For the people of Newark, history is on their side, but not time…

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Call for Submissions for a Black Arts West Anthology of Poems for Amiri Baraka, Edited by Marvin X




COMMENT

Marvin, with the passing of our beloved Amiri Baraka, flooding tears started coming into our work. However, just as The Creator & Ancestors would have it, Amiri has left us all with a song to carry along. As such, I saw your Call To Action for Poets to submit poetry in honor of him.


Seeing that you are asking for the donation of $100 from Poets to help with the publication costs, & knowing that this might be a hardship for some (me included), may I suggest that you consider putting together an Amiri Baraka Poetry Festival @ different locations here on the West Coast to be used as a fundraiser for the book publication project? 

I see the emerging of new works resulting from this effort: namely, a national and international tour of a lineup of Poets & Musicians, live recordings for sale to the general public, & appearances of those who participate in the tour working as much as they want to revitalize the Black Arts Movement & keep it forever more front & center in the hearts.
--Chache'--










Split this Rock Poetry Festival


savethedate14

LATEST NEWS


2014 Festival Registration Now Open!

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2014 invites poets, writers, activists, and dreamers to Washington, DC for four days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation. Featuring readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, parties, and activism, the festival offers opportunities to speak out for justice, build connection and community, and celebrate the many ways poetry can act as an agent for social change.
 Registration ends on Thursday, March 20, 2014.
Download this year's schedule in PDF format:
*Schedule is Subject to Change - Last updated 1/8/14*
Note: Online registration is preferred but if you have trouble accessing the form, click here for a hard copy.  For assistance, contact Camisha Jones at camisha@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210.

Eliza Griswold Wins Inaugural Freedom Plow Award for
Poetry & Activism

Split This Rock & The CrossCurrents Foundation present the inaugural Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism to:
Eliza Griswold
for her work collecting & introducing the folk poems
of Afghan women to America
Congratulations, Eliza!
(Eliza Griswold photo by: Antonin Kratochvil)


Announcing the 2014 Festival Featured Poets!

Split This Rock is pleased to announce the 16 poets who will feature at the fourth national biennial Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness in Washington, DC, March 27-30, 2014. Among the most significant and artistically vibrant writing and performing today, they also exhibit exemplary public citizenship as activists, teachers, and supporters of marginalized voices. The poets to be featured are Sheila Black, Franny Choi, Eduardo C. Corral, Gayle Danley, Natalie Diaz, Joy Harjo, Maria Melendez Kelson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dunya Mikhail, Shailja Patel, Wang Ping, Claudia Rankine, Tim Seibles, Myra Sklarew, Danez Smith, and Anne Waldman. They represent the great diversity of poets writing and performing in the United States today.

 

Please Support Split This Rock

Split This Rock depends on a strong financial foundation. Your tax-deductible contribution supports grassroots outreach, communications, and planning for the biennial festival and other programs — and helps us create a stable organization you can count on to serve your interests as a socially engaged poet. Gifts of any size are deeply appreciated. We hope you'll consider giving $50, $100, or more—or adding a recurring donation. Donate online or mail contributions to: Split This Rock, 1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036. We thank you.

Third World Press Tribute to AB

Amiri Baraka

(1934 to 2014)

Third World Press pauses to pay tribute to Amiri Baraka—poet, activist, historian, cultural critic.  He was one of the most significant voices of our times. As we reflect and honor this man and his legacy, we are also reminded of his words, his revolutionary voice, and his unmistakable urgency.
Amiri
 
baraka
“always
come in a
place
later.”
rushin to catch words that came before him
tho that don’t much matter,
him got his own words, music, dance, dramatics
& bright ideas even if some of them used cars
& don’t work.                              but baraka works
works harder than 15 men his age,
da, da da, do    who been around
long enough to tell his time
in places where people have tried to
beat the beat & tempo out of his talk & walk.
monk, trane & duke played secrets
that saved him and us even if we didn’t
accurately hear their da da, doos
baraka did.  they spoke musically to him.
he gave us his many languages & genius.
his comin in time is getting better & best & less late,
even for this sage still makin up stories
actin on his own stage & firing truthpoems
that compel liars & politicians to exit early and often.

For Amiri Baraka

 
© 2004 by Haki R. Madhubuti
from Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet’s Handbook published by Third World Press
 
Baraka II
 
 
i saw The Dead Lecturer in a Chicago airport.
pacing, fast walking probably quick thinking about
unfinished projects like plays, poems and essays about
“successful” negroes supporting Bush & Ghost
and the secrets of whites with rhythm and
mass graves in Rwanda;
mostly Tales  of The System of Dante’s Hell out of school
really way past graduate courses taught
on the rough-neck streets
of Newark. A kind of Funk Lore in 3/4 time.
recently, i saw Black Fire, In Our Terribleness—older and
small but still a witness with missing teeth, grayer hair with a
fast smile in a blue shirt, accentuated by a smokin Egyptian
print tie—on the south side of Chicago.
Spirit Reach with his Hard Facts was alone and
standing close to a pay phone without an assistant,
credit or debit cards, without lovers of literature or Jello
supporting him. No Kawaida Studies here.
his aloneness frightens me, approaching him I wondered
why this genius of serious music,
of transcendent literature wasn’t
surrounded by readers, fans, collectors of fine words on pages
seeking instructions and autographs.
It’s Nation Time is still asleep.
where were the Blues People and Black Magic folks?
S.O.S. for the Slave ships and The Motion of History souls.
where were the consumers of best sellers, few sellers & the
new line of negro confessional booty-call stores. maybe
they just didn’t notice this Wise, Why’s, Y’s poet,
this lover of language, passionate protectors of
sound and the laughter of children.
maybe they were blinded by their bones of contradiction—
and pimp juice traversing their veins. they looked past this
original and complicated seer of Black life, this The Moderns
updated, reworked beyond Transbluesency,
there will be no Eulogies here,
no Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note,
just an older and able African son going Home,
pacing the floor of Midway Airport
on the southside of Chicago, thinking and
alone with a swift—smile. 
“whats happenin bro?”
 
 
© 2004 by Haki R. Madhubuti
from Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet’s Handbook published by Third World Press
 
 
 
 
Baraka III
 
It’s difficult to be talented 
& genius
yet, often called crazy to your face
in a place that rewards moneymakers
who build and worship skyscrapers as monuments
to the individuality of dollar
bill collecting and preemptive war making
& whose poets and artists are viewed
as handicapped, a bit mad with water colored hands & ideas.
artists who work at beauty, wear words
bathed in nature & music,
talk in complex sentences, odd metaphors & swinging
feet are confusing to themselves and others.
they also think too much about
the nature of flags and forests,
the truth of institutions & religions
of language and lawyers, bankers & brokers;
the why & who of homelessness,
the question of collateral damage and
the battle between cultures, races & classes out of school.
 
actually, being a complete artist
in a place that worships skyscrapers, money, war,
misconceived thought and hummer2,  over children
   requires a bit of madness.
 
 
© 2004 by Haki R. Madhubuti
from Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet’s Handbook published by Third World Press
 
Haki R. Madhubuti
Poet, Founder and Publisher of Third World Press

His latest book is Honoring Genius: Gwendolyn Brooks: The Narrative of Craft, Art, Kindness and Justice.
Copyright © 2014 Third World Press Inc., All rights reserved.
You're receiving this campaign because you signed up previously at www.thirdworldpressinc.com or TWPBooks.com.

Our mailing address is: 
Third World Press Inc.
7822 S. Dobson
P.O. Box 19730
ChicagoIL 6061

Billie Holiday : Fine and mellow (1957)





Billie Holiday – Fine & Mellow Lyrics


Songwriters: BILLIE HOLIDAY
Billie holiday

My man don't love me
Treats me oh so mean
My man he don't love me
Treats me awfully
Hes the, lowest man
That Ive ever see

He wears high trimmed pan
Stripes are really yellow
He wears high trimmed pan
Stripes are really yellow

But when he starts in to love me
Hes so fine and mellow

Love will make you drink and gamble
Make you stay out all night long repeat
Love will make you drink and gamble
Make you stay out all night long repeat

Love will make you do things
That you know is wrong

But if you treat me right baby
Ill stay home everyday
But if you treat me right baby
Ill stay home everyday

But you're so mean to me baby
I know you're gonna drive me away

Love is just like the faucet
It turns off and on
Love is just like the faucet
It turns off and on

Sometimes when you think it's on baby
It has turned off and gone