We Have Our Quorum But For June 17 (vs. June 10)

SUB-TEXT -- WHY OUR POLITICIANS AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA ARE TRYING TO DISTRACT US WITH INCIDENTS OF ALLEGED POLICE BRUTALITY RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON WHAT REALLY AILS OUR INNER CITIES!!!

In addition to our normal Participant Comments including our Short Quizzes and Suggested Answers Thereto, click here for John Karls’ 5/10/2015 posting entitled AMERICA’S APARTHEID “JUSTICE” SYSTEM -- BALTIMORE, AMERICAN INNER-CITIES AND TOM BRADY which occupied the first three sections of the face of this bulletin board until 5/14/2015.
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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

We Have Our Quorum But For June 17 (vs. June 10)

Post by johnkarls »

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: We Have Our Quorum But For June 17 (vs. June 10)
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, May 16, 2015 5:34 am – 6:?? am MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: Our Approximately 150 E-mail Recipients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Friends,

As of Wednesday, we had no positive RSVP’s for June 10 and negative RSVP’s had been received from 4 of our regulars in response to last Saturday’s weekly newsletter (a copy of which, for your convenience, is the second following item).

Accordingly, on Wednesday morning, the immediately-following e-mail entitled “Help!!!” was sent to the 14 attendees of recent meetings (our attendance has been averaging 11) with cc’s to 4 additional likely participants for our June meeting to ascertain whether a quorum could be salvaged for June 10 and/or a quorum might be possible for June 17.

Almost literally at 5 to midnight last evening, we achieved a quorum for June 17.

And nobody responded to either e-mail of Wed or last Sat that s/he would prefer June 10.

So we’re on for June 17!!! [Presumably the SL Library will be able to accommodate us and all other details such as time, providing coffee and cookies, etc., will be unaffected.]

NB: For those who plan ahead, our July meeting will have to be bumped to July 15 in order to maintain a minimum 4-week gap between meetings, but hopefully not too many of us will still be recovering from Bastille Day!!!

[By Aug 12 we will be back on schedule since Jul-Aug would have been our regular once-per-quarter 5-week gap between meetings.]


********************
SHORT QUIZ + CONFESSION

Since I was in NYC this past week and since I “of little faith” did not think we would make our quorum, I did not prepare a Short Quiz. Mea culpa!!!

However, one will be posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org later today or tomorrow, and the suggested answers, per usual, will be contained in next week’s e-mail.

And when posted, it will focus on two crucial points made by our author =

(1) The Snake Oil of the purveyors of the school-privatization movement (such as vouchers and school choice) that such programs are more effective than our existing public schools was debunked in Prof. Diane Ravitch’s earlier book (“The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”) which was the focus of our 9/12/2012 meeting, and

(2) The Snake Oil of the purveyors of the school-privatization movement (such as vouchers and school choice) that our public-school system is “broken” and “failing” is debunked in our current focus book from Prof. Ravitch who analyzes at length the only available data capable of evaluating such claims. [It shows that student capabilities have been steadily improving over the last 43 years.]

The most amusing aspect of Prof. Ravitch’s new book???

It was published mid-2013, almost a year after our 9/12/2012 meeting.

And although I am used to Talking Heads on Sunday Morning TV shows quoting verbatim without attribution from our Short Quiz Answers and from our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns (which, quite frankly, is one of the main reasons why I have kept at this Labor Of Love for more than 9 years -- the others are the friendships with all of you and the opportunity to exchange ideas with you), Prof. Ravitch has incorporated in her mid-2013 book without attribution a sarcastic comment contained in our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail campaign following our 9/12/2012 meeting =

“‘School Choice’ is treating a SOCIOLOGY problem as an EDUCATION problem and makes no more sense than closing a police precinct in whose jurisdiction a crime is committed and hiring amateurs in their place.”

At least Prof. Ravitch does not quote our statement verbatim, so giving us attribution is probably not necessary from a technical viewpoint.

And I am always delighted when a Sunday-Morning Talking Head (and now even Prof. Ravitch) compliments us by providing a louder voice for our ideas!!!

Message to them = please feel free to do so and don’t worry about giving us credit!!!


********************
OUR FOCUS BOOK

Because our politicians and the news media continue to try to distract us with cases of alleged police brutality RATHER THAN CONCENTRATE ON HOW TO MAINSTREAM THE PERMANENT UNDER-CASTE OF OUR INNER CITIES, our focus will be on How To Mainstream The Permanent Under-Caste Of Our Inner Cities by reading/discussing "Reign of Error, the Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to American Public Schools" by Prof. Diane Ravitch ($11.87 + shipping or $10.18 Kindle from Amazon.com – 355 pages sans notes & index).

Hint = The SINGLE-DIGIT graduation rates for our inner-city high schools is a SOCIOLOGY problem rather than an EDUCATION problem and the proposals of the school-privatization movement (such as vouchers and school choice) make no more sense than closing a police precinct in whose jurisdiction a crime is committed and hiring amateurs in their place.


********************
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Diane Ravitch is N.Y.U.’s Research Professor of Education and a historian of education. In addition, she is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education.

Among her hundreds of publications is “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” which was the focus of our 9/12/2012 meeting.


********************
NY TIMES BOOK REVIEW BY JONATHAN KOZOL

Three book reviews of Prof. Ravitch’s new book are posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the Reference Materials section for our meeting.

The NY Times Book Review posted in that section was authored by Jonathan Kozol.

Jonathan Kozol’s award-winning books over the last half century have tried to convince America that it has created a permanent “untouchable” under-caste as a result of its racism – (1) The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005); (2) Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (2001); (3) Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995); (4) Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991); (5) Rachel and Her Children (1988); (6) Illiterate America (1985); (7) The Night is Dark and I Am Far From Home: Political Indictment of US Public Schools (1975); (8) Death at an Early Age (1967).

In Honor of Jonathan Kozol was written by John Karls “Inner-City Holocaust and America’s Apartheid ‘Justice’ System” which is described at length in the third and fourth sections of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.

For additional information on inner-city education, please see the materials for our 9/12/2012 meeting which focused on Diane Ravitch’s earlier book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” and the materials for our 1/13/2010, 5/16/2009, and 1/22/2009 meetings which also focused on inner-city education.


********************
RSVP’s REQUESTED + FIRST ROUND OF DRINKS FOR NEW ATTENDEES (AND THEIR INVITERS)

Although we have enough RSVP’s to satisfy our minimum quorum, for the sake of good order please RSVP if you haven’t done so already and you plan to attend.

And since we always need new voices, please think hard for at least 60 seconds who, among your friends, acquaintances, etc., might make a good participant in our meetings.

Our policy has always been that first-time attendees are not expected to read the materials and Yours Truly recently instituted a new policy that at our post-meeting celebration at Canellas a half block south of the library, he will buy the first round of drinks for any first-time attendee and for the person who invited her/him.


********************
SKYPE PARTICIPATION

Non-Utah-residents are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype.

AND ANY OF OUR REGULARS WHO ARE GOING TO BE OUT OF TOWN ARE ALSO INVITED TO PARTICIPATE BY SKYPE!!!

If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.


**********

We hope to see/hear all of you on June 17th (NOT June 10th).

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."





---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Help !!!
From: readingliberally-saltlake@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, May 20, 2015 4:23 am - EDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The 14 To's and 4 Cc's Listed Below
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Attendees February - April

Joe Andrade
Denise Chancellor
Thomas Chancellor
Judy Donnell
Fred Gurney
Ted Gurney
Tucker Gurney
Jay Hansen
George Kunath
Bill Lee
Attila Relenyi
Diane Samie
Janice Shawl
June Taylor

Cc:

Ellen Birrell
Vicky Norton-Strong
Aaron Stander
Tony Violaris


Dear Friends,

So far there have been no positive RSVP’s for our June 10 meeting in response to last Saturday’s weekly e-mail (a copy of which follows below for your convenience).

And four of you who have attended every meeting Feb - Apr have regretted being unavailable to attend in person on June 10, which means that although our attendance has averaged 11 for the 4 meetings, the odds of achieving a quorum of 6 for June 10 are now extremely long.

Accordingly, IAW our normal policy, the meeting is due to be cancelled as of Friday evening.

However, it strikes me that What Ails Our Inner Cities is one of the most important topics that we have selected during the last year. And that it would be important to go to heroic lengths to have the discussion, if at all possible.

[Indeed, Prof. Diane Ravitch’s book was originally recommended 4/1/2014 by Ted Gurney and his recommendation, which had been elected 8 days later as the focus for our ill-fated May 2014 meeting, was re-recommended 5/2/2015 at the request of several of our regulars who wanted to discuss what really ails our inner cities in the wake of so many recent cases of alleged police brutality.]

Accordingly, could each of you please hit your reply button right now EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY REGRETTED SINCE YOU MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT SKYPE IF YOU ARE OUT OF TOWN, to indicate --

(1) Whether you would be available June 10 in person;
(2) Whether you would be available June 10 by Skype;
(3) Whether you would be available June 17 in person if the meeting is postponed by a week; and
(4) Whether you would be available June 17 by Skype.

Please do so even if your response is no-no-no-no.

The result will be communicated in Saturday’s regular pre-dawn weekly e-mail.

Thank you for your interest and cooperation,

Your friend,

John K.


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement – for June 10th
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, May 16, 2015 1:43 am - 4:05 am MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: Our Approximately 150 E-mail Recipients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is Wednesday evening, June 10th, at the Salt Lake Public Library (210 East 400 South) in Conference Room C.


********************
OUR FOCUS BOOK

Because our politicians and the news media continue to try to distract us with cases of alleged police brutality RATHER THAN CONCENTRATE ON HOW TO MAINSTREAM THE PERMANENT UNDER-CASTE OF OUR INNER CITIES, our focus will be on How To Mainstream The Permanent Under-Caste Of Our Inner Cities by reading/discussing "Reign of Error, the Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to American Public Schools" by Prof. Diane Ravitch ($15.79 + shipping or $11.99 Kindle from Amazon.com – 355 pages sans notes & index).

Hint = The SINGLE-DIGIT graduation rates for our inner-city high schools is a SOCIOLOGY problem rather than an EDUCATION problem and the proposals of the school-privatization movement (such as vouchers and school choice) make no more sense than closing a police precinct in whose jurisdiction a crime is committed and hiring amateurs in their place.


********************
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Diane Ravitch is N.Y.U.’s Research Professor of Education and a historian of education. In addition, she is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education.

Among her hundreds of publications is “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” which was the focus of our 9/12/2012 meeting.


********************
NY TIMES BOOK REVIEW BY JONATHAN KOZOL

Three book reviews of Prof. Ravitch’s new book are posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the Reference Materials section for our meeting.

The NY Times Book Review posted in that section was authored by Jonathan Kozol.

Jonathan Kozol’s award-winning books over the last half century have tried to convince America that it has created a permanent “untouchable” under-caste as a result of its racism – (1) The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005); (2) Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (2001); (3) Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995); (4) Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991); (5) Rachel and Her Children (1988); (6) Illiterate America (1985); (7) The Night is Dark and I Am Far From Home: Political Indictment of US Public Schools (1975); (8) Death at an Early Age (1967).

In Honor of Jonathan Kozol was written by John Karls “Inner-City Holocaust and America’s Apartheid ‘Justice’ System” which is described at length in the third and fourth sections of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.

For additional information on inner-city education, please see the materials for our 9/12/2012 meeting which focused on Diane Ravitch’s earlier book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” and the materials for our 1/13/2010, 5/16/2009, and 1/22/2009 meetings which also focused on inner-city education.


********************
RSVP’s REQUESTED BY NEXT FRIDAY

In accordance with our quorum-policy revision of 6/12/2013, instead of waiting until the last week before each monthly meeting to request RSVP's and canceling if we do not have our minimum quorum of six, RSVP's are requested in our first-of-the-monthly-cycle weekly e-mail.

Those who have RSVP’d will be informed immediately when we reach six so they can proceed to read the materials with assurance a discussion will take place.

If there are not six RSVP's by 11:59 pm next Friday, then next week's weekly e-mail will announce that the 6/10/2015 meeting is cancelled.


********************
SKYPE PARTICIPATION

Non-Utah-residents are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype.

If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.


**********

We hope to see/hear all of you on June 10th.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."

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