Sunday lists.
Photo: NYCore. State of the Union Conference.
Friday night’s meeting at Crane High School didn’t ago according to plan. At least not according to Rahm’s plan. Small Talk has a report.
Are some teachers just baseball players with low batting averages? Larry Ferlazzo weighs in on the
Sunday lists.
Photo: NYCore. State of the Union Conference. Friday night’s meeting at Crane High School didn’t ago according to plan. At least not according to Rahm’s plan. Small Talk has a report. Are some teachers just baseball players with low batting averages? Larry Ferlazzo weighs in on the Harvard/Columbia study of teacher effectiveness. Back in July, [...]
The $4700 teacher. Some comments on the $2.5 million study.
When the NY Times wrote a story yesterday on the 20 year study by some Harvard and Columbia University economists on the worth of a value-added teacher here were some comments to the Times: I teach 12th grade. My student score high on college entrance exams. I wish I would take credit, but I know [...]
Saturday coffee.
Saturday’s coffee was at a small inn about twenty minutes east of Madison, Wisconsin. Anne and I decided to get away for a few days before I head back to work on Monday. When we made these plans we expected it would be a snowy weekend. But we arrived yesterday afternoon to 55 degree temperatures [...]
The guy closes libraries. What a schmuck.
Fresh from his video appearance promoting yahoo Kyle Olson and Islamophobe Juan William’s Anti-public Schools Week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel went back to work and closed down Chicago’s libraries. Or at least closed them on Mondays. Remember, it was just a month or so ago he got into it with the Chicago Teachers Union over [...]
A big new study: “All else being equal.” Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it?
Anne and I were at Peet’s this morning before heading off for a little get away to the land of Recall Scott Walker. “What are you laughing at?” asked Anne. “There’s a big new study of teacher value added that is reported on the front page of the New York Times,” I said. “And you’re laughing [...]
Would I announce my bargaining position before bargaining? No. But that’s me.
There was some concern about the way I reported Senate President John Cullerton’s statement yesterday. On the video I posted, Cullerton said plainly that the state employee unions, our leadership included, had expressed a willingness to negotiate adjustments in the pension benefits of union members. I wan’t shocked by Cullerton’s statement because our union leadership [...]
Van Roekel’s date with Kopp and Duncan not going over too well.
Matt Damon is a friend of education, but no friend of Wendy Kopp. When the 10,000 delegates to last summer’s NEA RA passed a critical New Business Item about Teach For America and another one sharply critical of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, few of us thought that meant for IEA President Dennis Van Roekel [...]
The sanctimonious hypocrisy of Rick Santorum.
Mother Jones has an interesting story on the very sanctimonious hypocrite from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum. Of course, Santorum has no more chance of being President than I do. But he’s typical of who passes for critics of public schools these days. Santorum is a homophobic (Google Santorum), self-described Christian who claims to home school his [...]
Will Rahm now appear at the right-wing “American Exceptionalism” rally in Deerfield?
Now that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has agreed to be the main spokesman on a video for Kyle Olson and Juan Williams and their National School Choice Week, I think it is fair to ask if he will also be appearing at their only scheduled Chicago event: An American Exceptionalism rally in Deefield on January [...]
Look who is behind the Emanuel, Williams, Olson video.
In a earlier post I showed the latest video by the not-so-strange bedfellows of Juan Williams (formerly of NPR until his racist Islamophobia got him fired), right-wing guru of the Michigan-based Education Action Group Kyle Olson and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Leave it to intrepid researcher Mike Klonsky at Small Talk to follow the money. [...]
Adjust pension benefits? Cullerton says the unions have “indicated a willingness to do so.”
As I discussed earlier, Senate President John Cullerton has chosen a different path in going after state employee pension benefits than his cohorts in the House leadership. Cullerton believes that a frontal assault will only waste time and money in years of court battles. Following the old notion that you catch more flies with honey [...]
Anti-public school allies: Kyle Olson, Juan Williams and Rahm Emanuel.
Are you ready for the latest trio of anti-public school allies? The head of the anti-union Michigan-based Education Action Group, Kyle Olson, features a new video on his blog this week. It is a promo of a new fake-umentary infomericial by Juan Williams promoting charter schools. You remember that Juan Williams was fired from National [...]
Ben Velderman stalking me is okay but filing a FOIA request about Sears tax breaks is illegal.
Last Spring Ben Velderman, the creepy guy pictured above, filed an Illinois FOIA request for all my work emails. After school district lawyers redacted the names of students and other innocent by-standers, hundreds of emails were delivered to Ben. Then this Fall Ben Velderman’s boss, Kyle Olson of the Education Action Group, having promised to [...]
Changing the narrative. And where are the administrators?
Administrators pensions are in TRS too. But they leave the heavy lifting to teachers. As usual. A Twitter follower comments on the last post: change the narrative to make this about children, and teachers’ pensions will be safe I understand what she means. She’s is concerned that talking about teacher compensation needs to include something [...]
Defending our pensions will need union leadership with spine. Uh oh.
GOP House Leader Tom Cross and Democratic state chairman and Speaker Mike Madigan. Separated at birth. An old Chicago joke: Chicago has two seasons. Winter and road construction. A bad joke: Illinois has two seasons. The General Assembly is in session so teacher pensions are threatened. And the General Assembly is not in session so [...]
John Wilson tells the future.
Until last year John Wilson was the Executive Director of the National Education Association. On his EdWeek blog called Unleashed, he makes predictions for the coming year. I thought number five was interesting: 5. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers will begin merger talks as they realize it is in the [...]
Listen to the kids.
My pal Matt Farmer has something to say about the value of the arts. And the kids have something to say to the rest of us: Stop driving them crazy!
Ravitch weighs in on the NEA TFA controversy.
DVR and Kopp. Maybe not such an odd couple after all. Education historian and leading critic of corporate education reform, Diane Ravitch, has weighed in on the controversial marriage (or maybe it was just a coffee date) of NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and Teach For America’s Wendy Kopp. Prominent teacher-activists responded immediately to the USA [...]
Kyle Olson needs a sick day. But that would require him getting a job.
Kyle Olson, of the Michigan-based Education Action Group, has teamed up with New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie to attack teachers’ sick days. Sick days? Apparently going after the children’s book Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type as being Bolshevik propaganda didn’t get much traction. Briefly, here is Olson’s premise: As part of the hated collective [...]
Yes we can.
I want to talk about Obama voting this morning. It sort of started back last July at the NEA convention. IEA President Dennis Van Roekel, in his infinite wisdom, decided we should endorse the guy two years ahead of the election. No discussion on the convention floor. Two speakers for and against at the IEA [...]