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Friday, July 27, 2012

Won't Back Down - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Won't Back Down - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:


Won't Back Down




July has been what Michelle Rhee might call a crappy month for democratic public education.
• We have Emergency Manager Roy Roberts of Detroit Public Schools claiming that the new, imposed contract with teachers--which allows class sizes up to 60 for secondary classes and 40+ for elementary schools--is "good for kids."
• Not only will kids across the country be taking more tests, they'll be taking them on-line--which means that schools in poverty will come up short-handed on essential hardware. The tests are more likely to measure students' familiarity with technology than actual knowledge--and worse, the precious computers won't be put to their best use: actual student-directed learning.
• A voucher program in Louisiana:
...has the potential to shift well over a billion dollars a year in taxpayer money out of the public system into the hands of private for-profit and non-profit schools. Surely that gives state officials not just the right but the