New Jersey's big fat corporate ed reform liars
*Al denounced the idea of charters when it became clear that the concept had changed and was being hijacked by corporate and business interests. In Al’s view, such hijacking would result in the privatization of public education and, ultimately, its destruction — all without improving student outcomes. — Edith Shanker* [image: Chris Christie and Laura Waters wreaking havoc on Garden State education]It all started a few days ago when Edison scoundrel and Broadyte Chris Cerf published a fact-free diatribe extolling the charter school solution to a non-existent problem. To say that Cerf ... more »
Fixing the Future
Educate our children: Show them New Documentary Fixing the Future: PBS
Biblical Capitalists and Philanthropods in Crusade to Destroy Public Education
From AlterNet: [image: AlterNet] The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education By Rachel Tabachnick, AlterNet Posted on May 6, 2011, Printed on July 19, 2012 http://www.alternet.org/story/150868/the_devos_family%3A_meet_the_super-wealthy_right-wingers_working_with_the_religious_right_to_kill_public_education Since the 2010 elections, voucher bills have popped up in legislatures around the nation. From Pennsylvania to Indiana to Florida, state governments across the country have introduced bills that would take money f... more »
The Gates Techno-twits and Data Miners Are Ready to Ruin the University, Too
The NYTimes has an extensive piece today on the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), which is now bringing to campus the same kind of algorithm-driven-peering-over-your-shoulder creepiness that now suffuses any visit to Facebook or Netflix. With money from Gates and his Gang at ED, things are moving quickly. Since 2009 when things were put in gear by a Gates grant, the philanthrocapitalist machine has become much more efficient, as evidenced here with a piddling grant to Missouri that demands matching funds and that gets into 14 state colleges in one whack. From NYT...more »
McIntyre's Plan to Charterize Knoxville Schools
It was 2008 when Pilot Oil magnate Bill Haslam and the Chamber of Commerce boys in Knoxville put their school board posse onto a jet to head up to Boston to fetch down a fresh Broad-trained graduate to begin Knox County's transition to corporatized schools. The latest stealth attack by corporate stooge, Supt. Jim McIntyre, comes in the form a brazen attempt to put himself in charge of deciding which public schools in Knoxville will be converted into corporate welfare charter schools. From the RFP, p. 4: Conversion of existing schools to charters may be initiated through reorganiz... more »
Talking Education Issues on WBAI
*The Gary Null Show* *GUEST*: Prof. James Horn *DATE*: Tuesday July 17, 2012 *TIME*: 12:20 pm (Eastern time) *Live Broadcast*: WBAI (Pacifica) in New York City *Rebroadcast:* Columbus OH, Los Angeles, Miami, Norfolk *Live Simulcast*: Progressive Radio Network (PRN) www.prn.fm The show’s audio files are archived for downloading and streaming at the PRN website – www.prn.fm -- under the “Gary Null Show” in the “Archive” page by the end Tuesday’s working day for your perusal. Horn segment from 35:15 to 48:30:
Debate over common core begins today in the NY Times: the first round
This will be posted today (July 17) online on the NY Times website To the Editor: The common core movement seems to be common sense: Our schools should have similar standards, what students should know at each grade. The movement, however, is based on the false assumption that our schools are broken, that ineffective teaching is the problem and that rigorous standards and tests are necessary to improve things. The mediocre performance of American students on international tests seems to show that our schools are doing poorly. But students from middle-class homes who attend well-funde... more »
Research Does Not Support Claims by Common Core Advocates
Got tougher standards and higher cut scores, and expecting big jumps in achievement? Keep wishing. From Ed Week in February: Will the Common Core State Standards improve student achievement? Not according to a new study out today. The crux of the argument in the Brookings Institution report is that there is not much of a connection between standards—even rigorous ones—and student achievement. If there was a connection, we would have seen signs of improvement from states' own individual standards—all states have had standards since 2003—but NAEP scores don't bear that out, author...more »
Wake County Votes to Restore School Diversity Plan
BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH AND T. KEUNG HUI, TGOLDSMITH@NEWSOBSERVER.COM CARY - In a partisan battle that raged into the early hours of Wednesday morning, members of the Wake County school board’s Democratic majority passed a motion calling for a return to a diversity-based student assignment plan for the 2013-14 school year.The vote, which came shortly before 1 a.m., directs staff to come up with a revised student assignment plan that goes back to tying each address to a specific school. The motion says that the new plan should promote student achievement, proximity and stability, includi... more »
The New Totalitarianism
*Sara Robinson at AlterNet offers a sobering assessment of our new reality under corporate domination and why public education is intentionally being destroyed along with academic freedom and critical thinking. Have a good day.* *Education: Testing, Not Teaching* My eighth-grade civics teacher used to terrify our class with grim stories about the education endured by our unlucky peers in the USSR. Communist education, she said, was nothing but rote learning -- no discussion, no critical thinking skills, all aimed at preparing kids for high-stakes standardized testing that would ult... more »
Where your tax dollars are going: More testing
Sent to the Los Angeles Times, July 15 “… the relentless emphasis on covering tested material” with the resulting de-emphasis on creative and critical thinking, so necessary in today’s world (“Education's pendulum: Thinkers or test takers?, July 15), is going to get worse. The reaction of the US Department of Education to the excessive testing demanded by No Child Left Behind is to do it harder: Test more grade levels, more subjects, and add interim tests. There may even be pre-tests in the fall. Stephen Krashen Sources: More grade levels to be tested: http://www.parcconline.o... more »
GUEST POST: The Factory Store, Douglas Storm
The Factory Store by Douglas Storm or Telling Lies to Children, or Education in America. So, do you remember when you were a child and someone asked you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I don’t either, but let me ask differently, have you asked any child this? This magical, mystical, and ultimately mystifying question was answered once, and to my mind definitively, by Bill Watterson in Calvin & Hobbes: *Calvin:* “When a kid grows up, he has to be something. He can’t just stay the way he is. But a tiger grows up and stays a tiger why is that?” *Hobbes:* “No room for improvem... more »
"Research-based" is code for "systematic intensive phonics"
How to improve reading: What the research really says. Sent to the Christian Science Monitor, July 13 If students succeed in suing their school district for failure to help them learn to read well, what kind of intervention will follow? (“Michigan students sue school district for violating their 'right to read',” June 13). According to the Monitor, the district must use “research-based approaches.” Many of us in the language education field understand that “research-based” is code for “systematic, intensive phonics,” a method goes well beyond teaching the basics of phonics. Studies ... more »