Center for the Study of Jobs and Education

www.jobseducationwis.org Welcome to the Center - Director Dennis W. Redovich Redovich@execpc.com Reports and commentaries are available by clicking on the titles from 295 to 59 below. Most of these commentaries and reports have been posted on www.EducationNews.org

Dennis W. Redovich retired as Director of Research, Planning and Development from the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1991 after 28 years of service. He served as Assistant or Special Assistant to four presidents of MATC (Emeritus President Parkinson and Presidents Ramsey, Taibl and Slicker) 1969 to 1991 He has taught chemistry and math at three Wisconsin high schools (Clinton, Wilmot, Whitefish Bay) and chemistry at MATC, UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University. Education: B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison 1955, M.S. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 1960, M.A.T. Indiana University 1963, Ed.D. Marquette University 1971. Presently Dr. Redovich is an educational consultant, public speaker and Center Director of the Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin. Dennis W. Redovich has presented at six international educational conferences, (U. of Twente Holland 1987, Trier Germany 1989, Brussels 1992, Jerusalem 1996, Helsinki Finland 1997 and Beijing China 1999)

Click to order book published -The Big Con in Education: Why must "all" high school graduates be prepared for college? By Dennis W. Redovich universe Inc. July 2005

The following reports and commentaries are available by clicking on the titles below

295 Wisconsin Projections of Employment 2006 to 2016: Education and Training
By Dennis W. Redovich June 2008

The great numbers of high paying jobs of the future that are claimed to require college graduation and high academic skills for all high school students are a hoax. The majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin and the United States are low or average paying jobs that require short term or moderate-term on the job training and do not require high-level academic skills in any academic areas, particularly in higher mathematics.

Higher mathematics, except as an extremely important college entrance requirement, may be the most insignificant academic subject taken by students in elementary and secondary schools. Higher mathematics proficiency is not important for everyday living nor is it required for more than 90% of jobs. But high stakes mathematics testing and higher mathematics course requirements are being used to retain students in lower elementary grades and prevent students from graduation from 8^th Grade and high school. Why is testing math proficiency more important than any other academic subject, other than reading, at every level of K-12 education?

Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans in 2007 consists exclusively of people worth $1.3 billion or more, up $300 million from 2006. As a group, the 400 are worth a record $1.54 trillion compared to $1.25 trillion last year, a gain of $290 billion. The media highlights the richest American each year, Bill Bates a Harvard dropout, who increased his wealth from $53 billion to $59 billion from 2006 to 2007. However the media ignores America’s richest family, five Waltons in the top ten who had a combined Wal-Mart fortune of $77.9 billion in 2006. In 2007 Helen Walton, 86 year old widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died and left a $16.4 billion fortune to charity and relatives and is no longer on the 400 fortune list. In 2007 six members of the Walton family in the top 400 had a combined wealth of $69.7 billion without Helen Walton’s $16.4 billion.

This report consists of an analysis of the top 203 occupations in the United States in employment projected for 2016 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics November 2007. As shown in Table I below, these 203 occupations are projected to total 135,884,000 employment in 2016, or 81.7% of total employment (166,220,000) in all occupations in the United States projected for 2016.

This is the first of a series of Center reports that will be prepared from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) U. S. Employment Projections 2006-2016 published in the Monthly Labor Review November 2007.

The United States leads the world in technology, scientific research and the quality of its scientists because U.S. science education is the worlds best. From 1950 to 2007 Americans have won 208 or 57% of the 363 Nobel Prizes awarded in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry.

What is the rationale for all United States high students passing three advanced courses in math and science to receive a high school diploma? What is the rationale for “all” high school graduates satisfying the requirements for admission to a four-college program? There is none!

The Wisconsin Technical College annual follow-up reports reflect the reality of employment in the State of Wisconsin and the U.S. and not the hype from the universities and business interests about the so-called high tech jobs of the future, the new information based economy and the shortage of educated skilled workers that is reported in the popular media. The data in this report for each of the 16 WTCS Districts was obtained from the WTCS System, Madison Wisconsin.

Milwaukee Area Technical College numbers of graduates by program and enrollments by instructional divisions were obtained from the Wisconsin WTCS System. The summary table 1, Summary 2006 Milwaukee Area Technical College Graduate Follow-Up (pages 2 to 5) was prepared from data provided by the Wisconsin WTCS System.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel April 2007 article, “Regents to revise admissions” and subsequent articles indicated that the University of Wisconsin System Regents had agreed to accept race as one factor in admissions to all UW System universities. The objective is to increase the numbers of minorities admitted to the UW-System. There would be no change in using academic achievement as the most important factor in admissions at all UW-System universities.

The May 28, 2006 Edition of Newsweek, lists the “The Top 100 High Schools” in America in 2006. The rankings of the top 1,253 of 27,468 public high schools in America have been ranked according to a ratio devised by Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews. Fourteen of the top 1,253 public high schools in America in 2006 are located in the State of Wisconsin (Table I) and fourteen of the top 1,200 in 2005 (Table 2) and thirteen of the 1,061 in 2004 (Table 3) and nine of the top 804 public high schools in 2003 (Table 4) that had a ratio of 1.000 or above were located in Wisconsin. Milwaukee Rufus King was overwhelmingly the top rated high school in Wisconsin in 2006 2005, 2004 and 2003. The Milwaukee Public Schools as a District are often labeled “failing schools” without challenge by the Milwaukee media, Choice school politicians and the business interests. 281 What is the Rationale for Requiring Higher Math and Science for All? By Dennis W. Redovich April 2007

What is the rationale for all Wisconsin and United States high school students passing three advanced courses in math and science to receive a high school diploma? What is the rationale for “all” high school graduates satisfying the requirements for admission to a four-college program? There is none!

The motivation for this piece is the book; The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, N.Y. Times foreign affairs columnist. The book has been on the bestseller list for 93 weeks (January 2007) and was number 1 on the list for numerous weeks in 2005 and 2006. The false conclusions stated in this book that claim American public education is failing, particularly in math and science education, have been highlighted in the media without challenge. President Bush and all the 2008 presidential contenders, Republican and Democratic repeat the hogwash claims of a crisis in American education.

Milwaukee Area Technical College numbers of graduates and by program and enrollments by instructional divisions were obtained from the Wisconsin WTCS System. The analysis of MATC 2003 to 2006 graduates in this report and the six tables in this report came from data provided by the Wisconsin WTCS System

The State of Wisconsin in 2006-07 is projected to spend $110.5 million on 124 approved City of Milwaukee Choice schools. The 2006-07 MPCP state aid amount is the 2005-06 $6,351 per student increased by $200 to equal a $6,501 maximum voucher amount per student for 2006-07. “Milwaukee Public School Board President Joe Dannecker said that $7.6 million of the $16.5 million increase in the amount of property tax to be collected for schools this year is due to the voucher program, and that each voucher student increased property tax collections by $447, while each MPS student increased collections by $91.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 11/21/06 p.9A)

The United States leads the world in technology, scientific research and the quality of its scientists because U.S. science education is the worlds best. From 1950 to 2006 Americans have won 206 or 58% of the 357 Nobel Prizes awarded in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. In October 2006, Americans were awarded all five of the Nobel Prizes for science achievement.

This report is the third of three reports the Center will prepare analyzing the Wisconsin Employment Projections 2004-2014 of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. This report analyzes the top 100 occupational job titles in numbers of workers and summarizes the three Center Wisconsin 2004-2014 Employment Projections reports.

Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans in 2006 consists exclusively of people worth $1 billion or more. As a group, the 400 are worth a record $1.25 trillion compared to $1.13 trillion last year. The media highlights the richest American each year, Bill Bates a Harvard dropout, who increased his wealth from $51 billion to $53 billion from 2005 to 2006 However the media ignores America’s richest family, five Walton’s who have a combined Wal-Mart fortune of $77.9 billion in 2006.

This report is the second of three reports the Center will prepare analyzing the Wisconsin Projections 2004-2014 of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. This report analyzes the occupational job titles that typically require higher math and science education. Less than 5% of jobs in Wisconsin and the United States require higher math and science preparation.

270 Just Another Big Con: Public Schools - Public Menace By Dennis W. Redovich August 2006

Joel Turtel is the author of the book “Public Schools: Public Menace”. Joel Turtel claimed in an interview with Michael Shaughnessy in a August 3 EducationNews.org, article http://www.educationnews.org/writers/michael/An_Interview_with_Joel_Turtel.htm that: "Teachers might also blame the poverty of low-income families or broken families for the miserable performance of kids in inner cities. That might be partially true. However, when these same kids from poverty backgrounds get a voucher to transfer to a private school, like they do in Milwaukee, all of a sudden these same kids do much better in school."

The Wisconsin Technical College annual follow-up reports reflect the reality of employment in the State of Wisconsin and the U.S. and not the hype from the universities and business interests about the so-called high tech jobs of the future, the new information based economy and the phony shortage of educated skilled workers that is reported in the popular media.

There is an impending job crisis in the United States, fallaciously attributed to failing American education.

This report is Part 2 of and a continuation of commentary and report 267 Just Another Big Con: Jobs and Education in the United States: United States Employment Projections 2004-2014:

The motivation for this piece is the book; The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, N.Y. Times foreign affairs columnist. The book has been on the bestseller list for 50 weeks (April 2006) and has been number 1 on the list for numerous weeks in 2005, including the month of October.

The words con, deceive, mislead, misinform and bogus can appropriately be used to describe the Achieve Inc. report, “Closing the Expectations Gap”, 50-State Progress Report on the Alignment of High School Policies with the Demands of College and Work. The February 2006 report provides absolutely no factual validated evidence to conclude that the “American high school diploma has lost its currency”. (See www.achieve.org/ for the Achieve report)

263A An Evaluation of Education Week’s Grading of the States Quality Counts 2005 State of the States By Dennis W. Redovich January 2005

The MPS District was one of the best large urban School Districts 1937 to 1951 when I attended MPS schools and it is one of the best large urban districts in the U.S. in 2006.

The United States is the uncontested leader of the world in scientific research in respect to published accomplishments, Nobel Prizes, volume of research and expenditures on scientific research. The United States is the leader of the world in technology and the unchallenged leader of the world in the global economy. The United States dominates the world because of its educational systems, including K-12 public education, post-secondary colleges and universities that produce the most highly educated, productive and successful workforce in the world.

260 Nobel Prizes in Science: U.S. Science Education the World’s Best By Dennis W. Redovich November 2005

The United States leads the world in technology, scientific research and the quality of its scientists because U.S. science education is the worlds best. From 1951 to 2005 Americans have won 195 or 56% of the 350 Nobel Prizes awarded in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. In October 2005 the Americans were awarded four of the eight Nobel Prizes for science achievement..

259 Wal-Mart and Public Education: Corporate greed in the United States and the world By Dennis W. Redovich November 2005

In the United States today, over 500 times what their employees earn. The result is that the top 1% in the U.S. now owns more wealth than the bottom 95% and we have by far the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world.

The Center for the Study of Jobs and Education in the State of Wisconsin has done an analysis of the graduates of the UW-Madison 1990 to 2000 and UW-Milwaukee 1989 to 1999 from data obtained from their web sites and from the UW-Madison Department of Student Tabulations. The analysis includes trends in numbers of graduates by School and College and by major. Special attention was given to majors related to high tech job related fields such as computers, science and math and biotechnology.

Prologue: University research is claimed to be the panacea for the nation’s education, and economic problems and the creation of high paying jobs. In Milwaukee the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the business interests claim that increasing research funding to UWM alone will create significant numbers of new employers and high paying jobs in Milwaukee. Public education and poorly educated workers are used as the scapegoats for all of Milwaukee’s social, economic and employment problems,

257 Dennis Redovich 'Takes Five' His views of education policy aren't conventional From the Oct. 13, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Call Dennis Redovich a contrarian. The retired Milwaukee Area Technical College researcher is a passionate advocate for views that challenge the main thrust of education policy-making today.

In the United States in 2005, greed, selfishness and moral arrogance are being used as weapons of mass destruction against public education and public health and social services. Tax breaks for the rich, corporate welfare and no increases of taxes of any kind, regardless of need, are of the highest priority for the holier than thou politicians and electorate of the United States.

Author The Big Con in Education Why must “all” high school graduates be prepared for college?”Copyright 2005 Dennis W. Redovich Publisher iUniverse Inc, New York Lincoln Shanghai . www.iUniverse.com 1-800-288-4677 Also available at http://www.amazon.com/ and bookstores Interview by Daniel Pryzbyla, an EducationNews.org columnist and former Chicago and Milwaukee public school teacher

The math wars and the bashing of American public education over test scores on standardized math tests are nonsense and are much ado about nothing. The claimed math crisis in the United States by public school critics is based on insignificant standardized test scores and bogus analysis of international math test results by country.

The inspiration for this piece is a July 13 Education week article, “Dual Enrollment Spanning the Border Between High School and College—And Reshaping the Landscape of Public Education” By Piedad F. Robertson.

251 Choice Schools in Milwaukee 2004-2005 By Dennis W. Redovich June 2004

The State of Wisconsin in FY2004 is projected to spend at least $76.2 million on 115 approved City of Milwaukee Choice schools, 45% of this amount ($34.3 million) will come from state aids deducted from the Milwaukee Public Schools state aid and the rest ($41.9 million) will come from the state general fund. The 2003-04 MPCP state aid amount is the 2002-03 amounts of $5,783 per student increased by $99 to equal $5,822 per FTE

The Wisconsin Technical College annual follow-up reports reflect the reality of employment in the State of Wisconsin and the U.S. and not the hype from the universities and business interests about the so-called high tech jobs of the future, the new information based economy and the phony shortage of educated skilled workers that is reported in the popular media.

247 The Crisis in American Mathematics Education: Much Ado About Nothing By Dennis W. Redovich May 2005

The inspiration for this piece is an April 27, 2005 Education Week article, The Real Scandal in American School Mathematics, by Anthony Ralston. Anthony Ralston is a professor emeritus of computer science and mathematics at State University of New York at Buffalo. He lives in London England.

246 The Nonsense of the NCLB Act and High School Reform By Dennis W. Redovich April 2005

The inspiration for this piece is an article by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. (Our High Schools Need Help, By Margaret Spellings Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A21 Washington Post) A few quotes from the article stated below are followed by the writer’s comments.

The inspiration for this piece is an article, Math Emerges as Big Hurdle for Teenagers, H.S. Improvement Hinges on Critical Subject by Debra Viadero, Education Week, published March 23, 2005. A few quotes from this article that follow illustrate the insanity of high stakes testing in math prevalent in the United States in 2005. The writer’s comments about high stakes testing and requirements in math follow the quotes.

The writer has been reading newspaper articles and commentaries or reports that claim that American K-12 public schools are failing and that public schools of the “past” were superior to current public schools since the1960s. The specific time period when schools were better (the 40s, 50s, 60s 70s etc.) or the valid factual data that proves them better are never stated. The continuing fallacious total belittling of American K-12 public schools in 2005, without any exceptions, is unbelievable.

Diane Ravitch says in a September 13, 2000 Education Week interview headline, "Contemporary School Ills Trace Roots to Progressive Movement". Nothing could be further from the truth. She uses quotes from as far back as the 19th Century (President Lincoln) and the public schools of the 20’s (in particular Winnetka Ill.) as her inspiration and models for 21st Century public education. And she uses quotes of progressives of the early 20th Century as her evidence of the causes of contemporary public school ills. It is incredible that any rational person would take what she says about education seriously.

The great numbers of high paying jobs of the future that are claimed to require college graduation and high academic skills for all high school students are a hoax. The majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin and the United States are low or average paying jobs that require short term or moderate-term on the job training and do not require high-level academic skills in any academic areas, particularly in higher mathematics. 242 Message to Washington: Eliminating Successful Programs Won’t Make them Stronger Why the Carl Perkins and the Adult and Family Literacy Programs Must Be Saved By Paul Gabriel With a preface by Dennis Redovich February 2005

The war against public education in the United States is being callously waged, using useless high stakes standardized tests as weapons, by the Bush Administration. And now the opponents of public education have targeted vocational education and the Perkins Act for vocational education for devastation. It is unbelievable and appalling because there is absolutely no rational reason for national high stakes academic testing for vocational or K-12 public education in the United States.

241 The War Against Vocational Education in the United States By Dennis W. Redovich February 2005

This commentary is an introduction to a major commentary and report to be released on February 28 by the Center for the Study of Jobs & Education In Wisconsin and United States on the reauthorization of the national Perkins vocational education legislation that is currently being debated in the U.S. Congress.

240 Greed, Self Interest and Moral Arrogance, are Dominant Forces in the Economy of the United States By Dennis W. Redovich February 2005

The weapons of mass destruction of the economy of the U.S. are greed, self-interest and moral arrogance. They are being used as weapons of mass destruction against public education and public health and social services. Tax breaks for the rich, corporate welfare and no increases of taxes of any kind, regardless of need, are of the highest priority for the holier than thou politicians and electorate of the United States.

The writer will spend the next few months updating and revising his book “The Big Con in Education” in an effort to get it published. It said by critics and some friends of Dennis Redovich that he repeats the same points over and over again in his writings. And that is true. The reason being that the critics and enemies of public education in the United States of all persuasions keep reiterating the same criticisms of public schools over and over again and the popular media keeps reporting them without serious challenge.

The Education Week January 2005 Quality Counts 2005 is divided into two sections. “Financial Evolution” examines the special theme of this year’s report and the “State of the States” section. The Center’s evaluation of the “Financial Evolution” section of Quality Counts 205 is presented in this commentary. The report was found to be inadequate because the report completely ignores the primary reason for large increases in K-12 education expenditures, business operational costs and state and local expenditures, which is healthcare insurance for employees and retirees.

An evaluation of the of the eighth annual Education Week report, Quality Counts 2004 Count Me In: Special Education in an Era of Standards, by the Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin and the U.S. gave a grade of F or unsatisfactory to the report. Quality Counts 2003 released in January 2003, Quality Counts 2002 released in January 2002 also was rated an F by the Center. (See Education Week’s Grading of the States Receives a Grade of F www.jobseducationwis.org report 129) The Education Week report Quality Counts is useless for comparing the quality of public education by state. It is unbelievable and incredible that anyone, including the media, could take the ratings of states for Standards and Accountability seriously.

It is claimed by critics of American public education that K-12 public education in the United States is failing and that the future of the American economy and the availability of a skilled American workforce in a global economy is imperiled if significant school reforms such as Charter schools to replace traditional public schools are not implemented. It is a hoax!

The use of K-12 public schools as the scapegoat for any current or envisaged future social, economic and employment problems of the United States has reached a culmination in the 21^st Century. This is a continuation of the never-ending disparagement of American K-12 public education in the 20^th Century.

One of the primary weapons used in the war against American public education is the spurious analysis of standardized test results of any kind on any academic subject that can be construed to show that K-12 schools in the United States are failing. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 math test is an excellent example of a ridiculous test that has absolutely no validated proficiency levels to assess the abilities in math of 15-year olds from 41 countries.

Grandpa and Grandma Redovich enjoyed a grand Thanksgiving holiday with the families of their son and four daughters that includes sixteen grandchildren ages’ 3 months to 17 years. Grandpa is very confident that all sixteen grandchildren will prosper in life like their parents and grandparents. But the economic future of the United States in the near future is frightening. The most vulnerable to an economic depression in the United States are the elderly and poor and lower middle class adults and children. And it has nothing to do with public education.

The United States national government under George W. Bush is an active participant in a military world war against terrorism, a world economic war for economic superiority and a war against public education in the United States.

The presidential election results of November 2004 suggest that the war against public education in the United States will continue and perhaps escalate. Outrageously, public education is being used as the scapegoat for the serious economic and social problems of the United States. Useless NAEP standardized testing and bogus analysis of international test results, ACT, state by state testing and college entrance testing are being used to falsely claim that there is an impending skilled worker crisis in the United States. Incredibly it is said that an education crisis may result in the United States becoming a second rate economic power behind large population countries such as China and India. (See www.jobseducationwis.org 230 The Myths of a Global Economy)

The myths of the high tech, high skill and high pay jobs of the future have survived and flourished since the 1960’s. The New Economy is the fiction of the economists and the casino royal players on Wall Street. The most frequent business media story line from the 1960’s to the 2000s is that there is an impending serious skilled worker shortage in the 21^st Century because it was projected with certainty that the number of high skill jobs would significantly increase and the number of high skill worker retirees would eventually exceed the number of new workers. Unbelievably, the myths of the 1960’s are still being highlighted without challenge by the media in 2004.

There is no crisis in education in Wisconsin or the United States; there are problems that require immediate attention. There is an impending serious economic and job crisis in the United States and Wisconsin. The economic conditions of the 1930’s and the maldistribution of wealth are being replicated in a high tech and so-called information based global economy. The majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin (2002 to 2012) as well as the United States will be in short-term on the job training (one month or less) or moderate length on the job training (one to twelve months with informal training) jobs. The great majority of jobs do not require above average academic skills, most particularly in mathematics.

228 Analysis of Wisconsin Employment by Job Title 2002-2012 By Dennis W. Redovich October 2004

The United States leads the world in technology, scientific research and the quality of its scientists because U.S. science education is the worlds best. From 1951 to 2004 Americans have won 191 or 56% of the 342 Nobel Prizes awarded in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. In October 2004 the Americans were awarded six of the eight Nobel Prizes for science achievement. The country of citizenship of Nobel Prize winners in 2004 is; Medicine: American 2, Physics: American 3, Chemistry: American 1, Israel 2. (See page 2 Nobel Prizes in Science 1951 to 2004)

There is an impending serious economic and job crisis in the United States and Wisconsin. The economic conditions of the 1930’s and the maldistribution of wealth are being replicated in a high tech and so-called information based global economy. As will be shown in this report, the majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin (2002 to 2012) as well as the United States will be in short-term on the job training (one month or less) or moderate length on the job training (one to twelve months with informal training) jobs. These jobs are often lower paying jobs that do not require high academic skills or higher education.

In the United States today, CEOs of major corporations make over 500 times what their employees earn. The result is that the top 1% in the U.S. now owns more wealth than the bottom 95% and we have by far the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world.

The author’s analysis of the reading proficiency levels of Milwaukee Charter schools, including instrumentality and non-instrumentality Charter schools established by the Milwaukee School Board, Charter schools established by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the City of Milwaukee concludes the following. It is impossible to compare the quality of instruction of “all” Charter schools to “all” regular public schools based on the average test scores of any size sample of schools. Valid evaluations can only be made on “individual” Charter schools or regular public schools that include student characteristics and multiple measures of academic achievement. Designating any school to be a Charter or Choice school does not make the school superior to any public school. Regular MPS public schools compare favorably to Charter schools on State of Wisconsin tests.

223 The United States is the Greatest Nation in the World

But money is too precious to waste on the working poor, poor children and the elderly

By Dennis W. Redovich September 11, 2004

The United States of America was the greatest country in the world in September 2001 and also is the greatest nation in the history of the world. I am not saying that the United States in September 2001 was not without especially serious flaws, nor am I saying that through its history the United States was not significantly flawed and without serious sins. But in comparison with the nations of the world over time there is no doubt that in September 2001 the United States had grown better over time (As Will Rogers once said, “the good old days never was”) and is at the summit as the leader of the economic, political and military world on

Earth.

222 The United States is the Greatest Nation in the World 2001-2004 But money is too precious to waste on the working poor, poor children and the elderly By Dennis W. Redovich September 2004

The Unites States is the Greatest Nation in the World was originally written in September 2001. Updates were written in September 2002 and 2003. (171 The United States is the Greatest Nation in the World was posted on EducationNews.org on 9/15/2003) This piece is a September 2004 update.

The Bush administration, the business interests and the stock market entrepreneurs have been boasting about U.S. job gains in the last few months to enhance their own greedy self-interests. The media is unquestioningly reporting the BLS monthly employment reports as if the gains after several years of job losses are significant and that an impending job boom is imminent. It is nothing but hype. Reality is that the recent gains in employment are a blip of a majority of lower quality jobs in an economy that will continue to be stagnant and lose and gain jobs in economic cycles.

"In order for somebody to undertake a Big Lie, they must first believe Niccolo Machiavelli's premise (in "The Prince," 1532) that the end justifies the means.” (The end goal of critics of American education is the privatization and obliteration of public education, a government monopoly) “Two steps were necessary to promote a Big Lie so that the majority of the people in a nation would believe it. ---- The first was to reduce an issue to a simple black-and-white choice that "even the most feebleminded could understand." “The second was to repeat the oversimplification over and over. If these two steps were followed, people would always come to believe the Big Lie.” (What Would Machiavelli Do? The Big Lie Lives On, Thom Hartmann CommonDreams.org)

The inspiration for this piece is the hysterical critical reaction to a August 17 NY Times article about an American Federation of Teachers analysis of NAEP charter school achievement data (which is presented in the same way NAEP results are typically reported) that shows charter school students mostly under perform and sometimes score about as well as regular public school students. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, the creator of the Texas miracle that turned out to be a scam, says with no evidence that the AFT study is flawed. Flawed may be too mild a term to describe some of the pro-charter and anti-public school research done by well-fed conservative think tank researchers. .

Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian have written the most well documented and researched book written on Corporate America’s plans, led nationally by the Business Roundtable (BRT), to privatize American public education. The authors never specifically answer the direct question, “Why is corporate America bashing our public schools?” In 205 pages of concisely written and documented examples from the 1980s to the 21^st Century of the BRT’s plans for “systematic reform” of public schools are obviously designed to use high standards and testing to uniformly label all of public education as failing and to claim that the private sector is the only salvation for “all” students to be prepared for higher education or for “all” 21^stCentury jobs.

The Bush administration, the business interests and the stock market entrepreneurs have been boasting about U.S. job gains in the last few months to enhance their own self-interests. The media has been unquestioningly reporting the BLS monthly employment reports as if the gains after several years of job losses are really significant and that an impending job boom is imminent. It is nothing but political hype

The inspirations for this piece are two major July 31 national media stories about the American economy, “Federal deficit to hit all time high of $445 billion this year”, and “Economy slows to 3% GDP growth”. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ($10.5 trillion or $10,446 billion in 2003) is not growing as fast as the rate of growth of the national debt (6%) to more than $7 Trillion dollars ($7,000 billion) at the end of FY 2004. (U.S. Treasury July 2004) The interest on the national debt that has been declining since 2000, ($361 billion) to $315 billion in FY 2003 and $275 billion in FY 2004 only because interest rates are at record lows. (www.publicdebt.treas.gov/, July 2004)

An Education Trust article posted on EducationNews.org on July 23, 2004 “Current Perkins Bills: NOT GOOD ENOUGH” is the inspiration for this piece. The Education Trust says, “Right now, the federal program (known as “Perkins”) is at best ambiguous and ambivalent about the need to ensure that vocational education programs integrate strong academics along with more narrow technical and vocational skills.” All high school graduates – regardless of whether they plan to enter college or go directly into the workforce – need strong reading, writing, and math skills. These bedrock skills of lifelong learning are an absolute necessity for our future citizens, soldiers, and workforce. Baloney! Nothing could be further from the truth!