Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Mother Crusader: Sorry Mr. Brown, but I gotta DIS your opinion piece

Mother Crusader: Sorry Mr. Brown, but I gotta DIS your opinion piece:


Sorry Mr. Brown, I gotta DIS your opinion piece

I have a thought or two about Neil Brown's guest opinion column. 

I am disappointed by what is said by many of those who will establish recently approved charters. When asked what is special about their school’s program, they often say something like: “We plan to hire high-quality teachers and have longer hours.” My former students would call that a “duh” statement — their fancy term for a tautology.
All too often, proposed schools seem more like boutiques, catering to communities 

Hechinger Report | Two of nation’s largest Head Start providers must fight for funds in Obama administration quality push

Hechinger Report | Two of nation’s largest Head Start providers must fight for funds in Obama administration quality push:


Two of nation’s largest Head Start providers must fight for funds in Obama administration quality push

Lady Bird Johnson visiting a classroom for Project Head Start in 1966.
New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) is at risk of losing a $190 million grant, after the federal government included it on a list of 132 substandard Head Start agencies across the country this week.
Head Start is the half-century-old federal preschool program for low-income children. ACS, among the oldest and largest Head Start agencies in the country, did not meet the “quality thresholds” set by the federal Office of Head Start, according to a list made public Tuesday by the Administration for Children & Families, which oversees the 

This Week In Education: #LAUSD: The Story Behind John Deasy's Mystifying Labor Deal

This Week In Education: #LAUSD: The Story Behind John Deasy's Mystifying Labor Deal:


#LAUSD: The Story Behind John Deasy's Mystifying Labor Deal

School-zone-stop-225x300A couple of days ago on a Souther California Public Radio station talk show, two longtime education reform allies, LAUSD superintendent John Deasy and former LAUSD board member Yolie Flores, got into their first public disagreement. There with UTLA head Warren Fletcher to discuss the proposed new UTLA / LAUSD agreement, Deasy and Flores disagreed over whether the proposed deal would gut the accountability and competition elements that were key to 2009 Flores' Public School Choice initiative, a two year-old program that gave low performing schools over to new groups including outside charter organizations.

Deasy, UTLA, E4E, Randi Weingarten, and others have lined up behind the deal.  Charter organizations, some LA teachers, and reformers including Ben Austin and Mike 

#EDreform I Heard It Through The Grapevine-I'm a parent - How the hell am I supposed to hear anything?

On Bullying | The Jose Vilson #edreform #1

On Bullying | The Jose Vilson:


On Bullying



Maria was a girl who was not so different from other girls in my neighborhood. As young kids, we spent the majority of our time in 6th grade avoiding her because of one person’s little rumor. They said she smelled. Badly. And if she smelled, then that means she has some sort of disease. As that rumor spread, she became lonelier, to the point where people wondered if she had any friends … or anyone outside of her family. Throughout that year, I never remember actually smelling this scent that everyone said permeated her pores, but, as someone who got picked on for his weight, I didn’t need any more reasons to draw attention to myself. If I could make it out of elementary school without doing any number of little things that would ostracize me from my friends, I’d go somewhere where I could make a new reputation.
Sometime in May of that school year, we sixth graders got our autograph books, hoping everyone who we built 

Jersey Jazzman: They Say This Cat Darcie Is One Bad Mother...

Jersey Jazzman: They Say This Cat Darcie Is One Bad Mother...:


They Say This Cat Darcie Is One Bad Mother...

Shut your mouth! 

Just talkin' 'bout Darcie Cimarusti - and her new blog, Mother Crusader. And if the posts are going to be anything like this, you're going to be talking about her too:
I just can't let Justin Barra's statement to Gannett Statehouse reporter Michael Symons regarding my meeting with Acting Commissioner Cerf go unanswered.  

Department of Education spokesman Justin Barra said acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf met in August with Cimarusti and others from Highland Park, who were opposed to the proposed Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School, which 

Kenzo Shibata: In Defense Of The Mic Check #ows #edreform

Kenzo Shibata: In Defense Of The Mic Check:

In Defense Of The Mic Check




 After years of attending Chicago Board of Education monthly meetings, on December 14, 2011 I felt like I left one where the community was actually heard, by the public and by the board. During the "public participation" segment of the meeting, a lone voice stopped the business-as-usual.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Adourthus McDowell, a Chicago Public School parent and member of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, began the takeover by rising from his chair and interrupting a presentation by Chicago Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard on a new $660 million capital construction plan.



Using a 'mic check' technique borrowed from Occupy Wall Street protestors, McDowell read 

School Tech Connect: We've Totally Caught Up To Finland

School Tech Connect: We've Totally Caught Up To Finland:


We've Totally Caught Up To Finland

This is just unbuckingfelievable.  H/t to Mike Klonsky.

It's such an obvious shell game, and yet they get away with it all the time.

Two things:

1. Drop-out rates and graduation rates are a thing shrouded in eternal, purposeful mystery. According to Matt Farmer, and it bears out here, the 88 Collins graduates in 2011 represent two-thirds of the number of 9th graders enrolled in 2007. That's a graduation rate of 66%. Fully a third of the kids vanished. Yet if you go to the AYP data on the Illinois Interactive thing from NIU, they're posting a graduation rate of 80%.

Big Education Ape: 12-20-11 PM Florida parents win round #1 in court vs. budget cuts EDition #OWS #1 #edreform

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now:

Published by Coopmike48 – 6 news spotters today

Taking It to the Next Level With CPS and AUSL

huffingtonpost.com - Did I miss a recent press conference at Chicago's Collins Academy? You know, the shindig where Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard announced that Collins, as of November 2011, was no...
DianeRavitch

Malloy outlines broad principles for education reform

ctmirror.org - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today outlined six broad principles that he says will guide the debate on education reform next year, including "intensive interventions" by the state in troubled school syste...
DianeRavitch

Charting a course for charter schools

dothaneagle.com - At Pataula Charter Academy, they do things differently. At the K-7 school in Edison, Ga., teachers use an education philosophy called expeditionary learning, where real-world applications of school...
DianeRavitch

Turnaround cronyism at Collins High

michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - Be sure and read Matt Farmer's excellent Huffington post on Chicago turnarounds. He lays bare the crony relationship between venture capitalist Mike Koldyke's Academy for Urban School Leadership (A...
mikeklonsky

Live Twitter stream on

@coopmike48/big-edu-ape-news-11

coopmike48 profile
coopmike48 Mexican Student-Teachers Protesting for More Jobs Killed by Police - Hispanically Speaking News -goo.gl/gIVU82 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
coopmike48 profile
coopmike48 US military: unconstitutional orders are unlawful; defend Americans, don’t NDAA “disappear” us |Dailycensored.com - goo.gl/3XMZh42 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all

Throwing Angels Under a Bus

jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com - Everyone working in a schools knows the hardest job is teaching special education - especially to the most challenging children. Like all elementary music teachers, I work with special education te...
K12NN

SocietySee all

Overworked, understaffed and still broke. « Fred Klonsky

preaprez.wordpress.com - Which state has the lowest number of government workers per capita in the nation? Scott Walker’s Wisconsin? Chris Christie’s New Jersey. Florida? Ohio? Michigan? Certainly not patronage rich Illino...
fklonsky

StoriesSee all

Tells the Facts, Names the Names

counterpunch.org - My arrest, or, more accurately, my assault was personal. I was taking photographs of the police arresting Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at the December 12 Winter Garden flash mob, which had been...
leoniehaimson

On Women and Guilt « MomsRising Blog

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - On Women and Guilt « MomsRising Blog: On Women and Guilt Misty McLaughlin at MomsRising Blog - 26 minutes ago Another smart post from our friends at Role/Reboot. -Eds. I’m on the board of a...
coopmike48

PoliticsSee all

Blog posts on this issue

whitehouse.gov - The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 20, 2011 James S. Brady Press Briefing Room1:26 P.M. ESTMR. CARNEY:  Good afternoon, everyone.  Thanks for being here.  ...
coopmike48

Signs of a Broken American Democracy

elections.firedoglake.com - Paul Krugman posts a very interesting piece on his blog today by Kim Lane Scheppele about the current state of politics in Hungary.  Scheppele notes that after winning the last election the Fidesz ...
coopmike48

Blog posts on this issue

whitehouse.gov - The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 20, 2011 James S. Brady Press Briefing Room1:59 P.M. ESTTHE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  Sorry to interrupt. MR. CARNE...
coopmike48

EnvironmentSee all

Council Mandates City Alerts on PCB Dangers – SchoolBook

nytimes.com - Dec. 19, 2011, 5:39 p.m. The City Council voted on Monday to require the city to notify parents when toxic chemicals are discovered in the fluorescent light fixtures illuminating many of the classr...
leoniehaimson

LeisureSee all

#owsSee all

Tells the Facts, Names the Names

counterpunch.org - My arrest, or, more accurately, my assault was personal. I was taking photographs of the police arresting Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at the December 12 Winter Garden flash mob, which had been...
leoniehaimson

Occupy's Reach Exceeds the Media's Grasp

my.firedoglake.com - “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” — Mark Twain The corporate steno pool media is anxious to write the obituary for the occupations around America.  Early drafts of the predict...
coopmike48

#1Read this paperSee all

PhotosSee all