It’s about the profit, stupid
Please take a few minutes to read this sharp analysis of why the Penny Pritzkers of America suddenly seem to care about our children’s education, by David Sirota in Salon.
Here’s a taste:
On one side are self-interested teachers unions who supposedly oppose fundamental changes to schools, not because they care about students, but because they fear for their own job security and wages, irrespective of kids. In this mythology, they are pitted against an alliance of extraordinarily wealthy corporate elites who, unlike the allegedly greedy unions, are said to act solely out of the goodness of their hearts. We are told that this “reform” alliance of everyone fromRupert Murdoch to the Walton family to leading hedge fundersspends huge amounts of money
90 school day minutes wasted on testing – I rest my case
Take a look at this photo, from the Tribune’s story this morning about school days in state school districts being nearly as short as Chicago’s.
The time distribution for this school day in Rondout School in suburban Lake Forest provides 90 minutes — the longest period of any during the day — for “ITBS testing,” 10:15 to 11:45 am.
You can’t tell from the schedule if this is actual testing (perhaps pre-testing for the year, since this is a