Duncan's Extortion Effort to Make Title I Funding Contingent on Adoption of Gates-Broad National Testing Plan
The edu-thugs who came up with the RTTT plan to bribe states to adopt the Business Roundtable plan for segregated corporate schooling in America have done themselves one better. It is called extortion, and it says simply: if you want to keep your Title I money intact, play ball with us on P-21.
No, a P-21 is not a new Pentagon weapon but, rather, a weapon that is being developed by the charlatans who are paid to turn unrestrained corporate greed into national education policies that feed that same corporate greed at the expense of American children. From Ed Week:
No, a P-21 is not a new Pentagon weapon but, rather, a weapon that is being developed by the charlatans who are paid to turn unrestrained corporate greed into national education policies that feed that same corporate greed at the expense of American children. From Ed Week:
Ravitch on the Central Falls Massacre
An interesting take by former neocon ed policy guru, Dr. Diane Ravitch. From HuffPo:
FIRST, LET'S FIRE ALL THE TEACHERS!
By Diane Ravitch
Imagine that you are a teacher in a high school in a high-poverty district. Many of your students don't speak English. Some don't attend school regularly because they have to earn money or babysit with their siblings while their parents are looking for work. Some come to school unprepared because they didn't do their homework.
But you are idealistic and dedicated, you work with each of the students, you do your best to teach them reading, writing, science, math, history, whatever your subject. But despite your best efforts, many of your students can't read very well (they are struggling to learn English), and many of them don't graduate. If your school eliminated all its standards, you could easily push up the graduation rate.
About 45 minutes away is another high school in a much better neighborhood. Its statistics are far better than yours. The children are almost all born in the U.S., and their parents are almost all college graduates with good jobs. Their kids don't go to school hungry, they have their own room and their own computer, and they have stellar test scores to boot. Their graduation rate is very impressive, and most of their graduates go to college.