Schools Matter: Diane Ravitch Pt. 2 in New York Review of Books
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Schools Matter: Diane Ravitch Pt. 2 in New York Review of Books:Diane Ravitch Pt. 2 in New York Review of Booksby Jim HornLast week the New York State Education Department and the teachers’ unions reached an agreement to allow the state to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. The pact was brought to a conclusion after Governor Andrew Cuomo warned the parties that if they didn’t come to an agreement quickly, he would impose his own solution (though he ... more »
OCCUPY EDUCATION - occupywallstreet: NYC Student Assembly National.. #ows
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OCCUPY EDUCATION - occupywallstreet: NYC Student Assembly National...:occupywallstreet: NYC Student Assembly National Day of Action...occupywallstreet:NYC Student Assembly National Day of Action to Defend Education
SBE Agenda for March 2012 - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education)
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SBE Agenda for March 2012 - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education):SBE Agenda for March 2012Agenda for the California State Board of Education (SBE) meeting to be held on March 7 and 8, 2012.State Board MembersMichael W. Kirst, PresidentTrish Williams, Vice PresidentCarl CohnAida MolinaJames C. RamosPatricia A. RuckerIlene W. StrausCaitlin Snell, Student MemberVacancyVacancyVacancySecretary Executive Officer Hon. Tom TorlaksonExecutive DirectorSusan K. BurrSchedule of MeetingLocationWednesday, March 7, 20128:30 a.m. Pacific Time +STATE BOARD OF EDUCATIONClosed Session – IF ... more »
Participatory Democracy: Good for the Goose, Gander & Goslings | Lefty Parent
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Participatory Democracy: Good for the Goose, Gander Goslings | Lefty Parent:Participatory Democracy: Good for the Goose, Gander Goslingsby Cooper ZaleIn my opinion, there is no more thoughtful and well-written person out there contributing to the discussion about the continuing development of American society than my friend and activist for education alternatives, Ron Miller. His recent piece, “Toward Participatory Democracy”, published in Education Revolution, eloquently elaborates on an activist thread in American history that motivates my own cheerleading for a more ... more »
Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Common Core: David Coleman is no Doug Lemov…
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Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Common Core: David Coleman is no Doug Lemov…:Common Core: David Coleman is no Doug Lemov…This week, my student teacher and I were discussing questioning techniques during reading of texts to guide student learning, and boy this was timely with some recent discussions about Common Core ELA.Thanks to Tom Hoffman, I’m learning more about Common Core standards than my district is sharing with me (even though a chunk of our districts $81M budget for ... more »
Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's Backers Include Obama Bundler Billionaire, Big Romney Backer
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Michelle Rhee's Backers Include Obama Bundler Billionaire, Big Romney Backer:Joy ResmovitsHuffington Post education reporter.GET UPDATES FROM JOY:Like779Michelle Rhee's Backers Include Obama Bundler Billionaire, Big Romney BackerPosted: 02/24/12 05:16 PM ET | Updated: 02/24/12 05:16 PM ETRhee with husband Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, at the premiere of 'Waiting for Superman.'Politics is once again making strange bedfellows. A top Mitt Romney supporter and one of Barack Obama's wealthier contributors have a common cause: They're both backing Michelle Rhee.Until now, identi...more »
Frerichs kicks off his council campaign | Davis Enterprise
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Frerichs kicks off his council campaign | Davis Enterprise:Frerichs kicks off his council campaignby Enterprise staff Lucas Frerichs, chairman of the Davis Planning Commission, invites the public to the kickoff of his City Council campaign at a “Celebrate Green” event Saturday, March 17. The fun runs from 2 to 4 p.m. at Blue Oak Energy, 1560 Drew Ave. in South Davis. The minimum donation is $25 and the maximum donation is $100 per person.This will be a family-friendly event with ... more »
NYC releases teachers’ value-added scores — unfortunately - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post
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NYC releases teachers’ value-added scores — unfortunately - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:NYC releases teachers’ value-added scores — unfortunatelyby Valerie StraussThis takes some kind of special nerve: New York City’s Education Department publicly released the rankings of 18,000 public school teachers based entirely on student standardized-test scores — after pleas from educators not to do it because it would be unfair and disparaging. And then it told the news media not to use the results to disparage teachers.Read ... more »
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dishonest Discussion
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Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dishonest Discussion:Dishonest Discussionby Charlie MasThe Seattle School Board will soon consider terminating the District's contract with Teach for America. There is disagreement about this on the School Board, so we are likely to hear a discussion of the question with Board directors advocating for each side. This is good and healthy. This is what democracy looks like. I welcome a full discussion regardless of the eventual conclusion. I will, however, be deeply disappointed if the discussion ... more »
U study: Segregation, performance woes persist in metro charter schools | StarTribune.com
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U study: Segregation, performance woes persist in metro charter schools | StarTribune.com:U study: Segregation, performance woes persist in metro charter schoolsArticle by: PAUL WALSH , Star Tribune Updated: February 24, 2012 - 1:12 PM6comments resize text printbuy reprintsMost charter schools in the Twin Cities still underperform academically when compared with traditional public schools and are highly segregated by race and income, according to updated research released Friday by the University of Minnesota.The new data, collected in 2010-11 and augmenting a ... more »
HEY NEW YORK: High Test Scores Tell You Nothing About The Quality Of A Teacher
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HEY NEW YORK: High Test Scores Tell You Nothing About The Quality Of A Teacher:HEY NEW YORK: High Test Scores Tell You Nothing About The Quality Of A Teacher It is possible to encourage excellence in an organisation, even a large one such as a public-school system, without relying on statistical performance metricsDiane Ravitch, the education-reform advocate famous for having long advocated chartered schools and centralised assessment of teachers only to turn against both reforms in the past few years, ... more »
Sabrina Stevens Shupe: 'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics
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Sabrina Stevens Shupe: 'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics:Sabrina Stevens ShupeTeacher-turned-activist; WriterGET UPDATES FROM SABRINA STEVENS SHUPE Like15'Bad' Women, Teachers, and PoliticsPosted: 02/24/2012 3:25 pmJust three months into 2012, as the Republican primary season continues, the tenor of the political conversation around contraception and other "women's" issues has grown increasingly alarming (to those of us firmly grounded in the 21st Century, anyway). Though there is a long historical tradition of projecting social anxieties onto women's (especially 'bad' women) beha... more »
Arne Duncan Loses Temper, Deviates from Backroom Strategy | Truth in American Education
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Arne Duncan Loses Temper, Deviates from Backroom Strategy | Truth in American Education:Arne Duncan Loses Temper, Deviates from Backroom Strategyby James BellArne Duncan has made a strategic mistakeShane and many others have noted that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was attempting to bully South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in his most recent statement:“The idea that the Common Core standards are nationally-imposed is a conspiracy theory in search of a conspiracy. The Common Core academic standards were both developed and adopted ... more »
Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers. « Fred Klonsky
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Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers. « Fred Klonsky:Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers.by Fred KlonskyQuad City Times:Gov. Pat Quinn wants to slash state spending on a health insurance program for more than 65,000 retired teachers and community college retirees.Under the governor’s plan, the state would no longer share in the cost of the system that helps pay for the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program and the College Insurance Program, which administers health insurance for community college ... more »
Today's Big Education Ape - PostRank Top Mid Day Posts 2-24 #edreform #soschat
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Danza: School cuts signal to kids ‘they really don’t matter’ - Philly.comBig Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All)-1 hour agoDanza: School cuts signal to kids ‘they really don’t matter’ - Philly.com:Danza: School cuts signal to kids ‘they really don’t matter’February 23, 2012|By Kristen A. Graham, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERThe speakers came from different backgrounds - an actor-turned-teacher, two union officials and a state senator - but their message was the same: budget cuts have hit the Philadelphia School District too hard ...more »
First Interim Status Report for 2011-12 - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education)
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First Interim Status Report for 2011-12 - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education):State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson: One Student inThree Attends a School District in Financial JeopardySACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson warned today that the latest review of school district budgets shows that one-third of public school students in California attend a district in financial jeopardy.The state's First Interim Status Report for fiscal year 2011-12 indicates that 127 districts are either in negative or qualified financial status, totaling ... more »
Hyper-accountability, Burnout and Blame: A TFA Corps Member Speaks Out - Living in Dialogue
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Hyper-accountability, Burnout and Blame: A TFA Corps Member Speaks Out - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:Hyper-accountability, Burnout and Blame: A TFA Corps Member Speaks Outby Anthony CodyGuest post by Jameson Brewer.The rhetoric of educational policy is an ever swaying pendulum from the conservative right to the progressive left. However, in reality, in the decades leading up to and the ten years following the passing of No Child Left Behind, it has been neoliberal policies and practices that have ... more »
Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education Supports of AB1172
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The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:
Blue Jersey:: Dysfunctional School Aid
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Blue Jersey:: Dysfunctional School Aid:Dysfunctional School Aidby Jersey JazzmanSchool financing in New Jersey is like a dysfunctional family's Christmas. Everyone wakes up early, runs downstairs, and anxiously divvies up what's under the tree. Some favored children get a big pile of shiny new toys; others get socks. No one knows why, and everyone knows next year will be different; it all depends on Daddy's mood the night before (and how deep he got into the eggnog bowl).Here in Jersey, "Daddy" ... more »
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Looking back to '09: Boy was I wrong!
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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Looking back to '09: Boy was I wrong!:Looking back to '09: Boy was I wrong!by Mike Klonsky Three years ago today, opponents of Renaissance 2010 protest Chicago school board decision to close or "turnaround" 16 schools.It was three years ago yesterday, still joyful from the great election victory three months earlier, that I took a swipe at Diane Ravitch for her comment: "It looks like Obama's education policy will be a third term for President George ... more »
City Teacher Data Reports Are Released – SchoolBook
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City Teacher Data Reports Are Released – SchoolBook:City Teacher Data Reports Are Releasedby Fernanda Santos12:00 p.m. | Updated After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the city Department of Education released individual performance rankings of 18,000 New York City public school teachers to the public on Friday, after admonishing the news media not to use the scores to label or pillory teachers.The reports, which name teachers as well as their schools, rank teachers ... more »
Getting everyone to the table. « Fred Klonsky
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Getting everyone to the table. « Fred Klonsky:Getting everyone to the table.by Fred KlonskyI was not reassured by Governor Quinn’s budget speech.Luckily he only has two sides of his mouth.That seems to have created a limit on the number of different positions on pension reform that the governor could take.On one side said he supported pension reform that is constitutional and fair to pension members.On the other side he said that when it came to public employee pensions, everything is ... more »
War on teachers continues: Publication of Teacher “Data” Reports « JD2718
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War on teachers continues: Publication of Teacher “Data” Reports « JD2718:War on teachers continues: Publication of Teacher “Data” ReportsFEBRUARY 24, 2012 PM29 1:07 PMtags: Gotham Schools, Insideschools, Michael Bloomberg, New York Daily News, Teacher Data ReportsThe court forced NYC to hand over the reports? That’s what Bloomberg claimed on the John Gambling Show on WOR: “I think what people miss is the courts have ordered us to release the data.” Typical of that weasel. The media filed FOI requests because ... more »
This Week In Education: Media: NYT & WNYC Publishing Old, Inaccurate Teacher Scores
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This Week In Education: Media: NYT WNYC Publishing Old, Inaccurate Teacher Scores:Media: NYT WNYC Publishing Old, Inaccurate Teacher ScoresYou'd think it would be the small, scrappy, online-only publication that would do something rash and regrettable, not the venerable legacy media outlet. But that's not how it's playing out in New York City, where everything is upside down right now. Tiny GothamSchools has declined to publish individual teacher ratings and the massive New York Times has come up with a fancy ... more »
Obama 2013 Discretionary Budget Invests in Kids | First Focus
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Home | First Focus:December 20, 2011The Recession’s Ongoing Impact on America’s ChildrenA new First Focus analysis authored by Brookings scholar Julia Isaacs reveals the recession’s continuing effects – often unseen through conventional economic metrics – on America's children. The paper offers a national snapshot and state-by-state breakdowns of three key economic indicators of child well-being: the number of children living with an unemployed parent; the number who rely upon the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps); and the ... more »
Are charter schools succeeding nationally? | The Daily Circuit Blog | Minnesota Public Radio
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Are charter schools succeeding nationally? | The Daily Circuit Blog | Minnesota Public Radio:Are charter schools succeeding nationally?Posted at 9:05 AM on February 24, 2012 by Emily Kaiser (0 Comments)Filed under: News TrendsFrom The Daily Circuit's Tom Weber:Reporter Tim Post brought us the story during Morning Edition about a new study that finds charter schools in the Twin Cities metro area underperform academically in comparison to their traditional public counterparts and are more racially segregated.The report is from the Institute ... more »
White Hat can't add Columbus charter school, state says | The Columbus Dispatch
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White Hat can't add Columbus charter school, state says | The Columbus Dispatch:White Hat can't add Columbus charter school, state saysByJennifer Smith RichardsThe Columbus DispatchThursday February 23, 2012 1:30 PMThe state has denied White Hat Management’s request to open four of six new charter schools it hoped to open, including one in Columbus.White Hat, the state’s largest for-profit charter-school manager, wanted the Ohio Department of Education to sponsor six new Signal Tree schools. One was planned for the West Side.Education ... more »
Weekly Update: Smart ALEC, Black Teachers Fired En Masse in Chicago and Chalk Face | Seattle Education
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Weekly Update: Smart ALEC, Black Teachers Fired En Masse in Chicago and Chalk Face | Seattle Education:Weekly Update: Smart ALEC, Black Teachers Fired En Masse in Chicago and Chalk Faceby seattleducation2011Glen Ford nails it in his commentary on A Black Agenda Radio Black Teachers Fired En Mass.In his introduction Mr. Ford states:Educational policy in the Obama era isn’t about education at all. It’s about replacing skilled, experienced teachers with rootless temps better suited to serve in the privatized holding tanks ... more »