Day 2

Strike Day 2: Capo attendance drops to 30% (OC Reg)

Capistrano Unified schools are refining their operations and adjusting their lesson plans for students on Day 2 of a teacher strike that has crippled many programs and pushed attendance rates below even Thursday’s levels.

Orange County teachers strike continues into second day [Updated] (LA Times)

More teachers joined the strike Friday morning compared with the first day, according to district spokeswoman Julie Hatchel. ¶ About 200 classroom teachers — 11% of the teachers — crossed picket lines to get to their classrooms, down from 12% Thursday. Nearly 600 substitute teachers were hired to supervise classrooms. ¶ Attendance in the 51,000-pupil district was down substantially on Friday. High school attendance was 10%, down from 23% on Thursday; middle school attendance was 27%, down from 39%; and elementary school attendance was 45%, down from 48%.

Tea Party: Don’t Know Much About History

The Tea Party Challenge (Inside Higher Ed)

When considering the political scene of the moment, it is difficult not to see how historical allegory plays an important role in the public spectacle known as the Tea Party movement. From the name itself, an acronym (Taxed Enough Already) that fuses current concerns to a patriotic historical moment, to the oral and written references by some of its members to Stalin and Hitler, the Tea Party appears to be steeped (sorry) in history. However, one has only to listen to a minute of ranting to know that what we really are talking about is either a deliberate misuse or a sad misunderstanding of history.

Misuse implies two things: first, that the Partiers themselves know that they are attempting to mislead, and second, that the rest of us share an understanding of what accurate history looks like. Would that this were true. Unfortunately, there is little indication that the new revolutionaries possess more than a rudimentary knowledge of American or world history, and there is even less reason to think that the wider public is any different. Such ignorance allows terms like communism, socialism, and fascism to be used interchangeably by riled-up protesters while much of the public, and, not incidentally, the media, nods with a fuzzy understanding of the negative connotations those words are supposed to convey (of course some on the left are just as guilty of too-liberally applying the “fascist” label to any policy of which they do not approve). It also allows the Tea Partiers to believe that their situation – being taxed with representation – somehow warrants use of "Don’t Tread On Me" flags and links their dissatisfaction with a popularly elected president to that of colonists chafing under monarchical rule….(Continued)