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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

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The Biggest Problem in U.S. Education Is….?

Chris Lehman has written an excellent post pulling together solid data about the “reformers’” solutions and the issue that refuse to address: poverty.
What is the problem in U.S. education? What is the cause of low test scores? Is it bad teachers, as the reformers claim?
Or is it poverty, where the U.S. leads the advanced nations of the world?
Can school reform cure poverty? Has it?
If you don’t address the causes, you will never solve the problem of low academic performance.
Nice job, Chris.


This Union Is a Hero of Public Education

The United Teachers of Los Angeles has steadfastly refused to allow its members to be evaluated by the test scores of their students. Unlike the district leadership, UTLA understands that scholars have found that value-added assessment is inaccurate, invalid and unstable. By this method, excellent teachers may be labeled “ineffective,” and poor teachers who teach to the test may be labeled “effective.”
Despite intense pressure by the Los Angeles Unified School District leadership and the federal government, UTLA has insisted that its members should be evaluated by evidence-based methods, not by “value-added assessment” that has not been proven to work anywhere.
UTLA refused to sign off on the district’s request for $40 million in Race to the Top funding, which would have subjected its members to value-added assessment.
UTLA recognizes that accepting $40 million for RTTT would eventually cost the district hundreds of millions of 


Conservative Think Tank: Unions Are Powerful and Dangerous

Teachers these days are confused by the high volume of attacks on the profession. Members of teachers’ unions are beset by the frequent, virulent attacks on the very idea of collective bargaining.
In conservative states, governors and legislatures are doing whatever they can to weaken or eliminate collective bargaining. Two Hollywood movies in the past two years have cast the unions as the evil force that protects incompetent, lazy teachers and causes poor children to get low test scores. Without unions, it seems, our test 


Missouri Public Schools Under Siege

Citizens in Missouri have awakened to the rapid advance of the privatization movement. They have formed an organization called Missouri Public School Advocates to awaken the public and push back against the privatizers.
Missouri Public School Advocates
A Strong Voice for Missouri Public Schools
Calling All Public School Supporters!
The Public Schools are under siege throughout this country.
In Missouri, serious efforts by the State General Assembly to dismantle quality Public School programs date 


Dear Dr. King: A Heartfelt Letter to the State Commissioner of Education

Tony Sinanis, a father of a third grade student in New York and principal of a school, writes a moving and sincere letter to John King, the state commissioner of education.
With all due deference to the state commissioner, he asks a series of questions about the purpose and quantity of tests now raining down on schools across the state.
Teachers are teaching to the test; children are concluding that are “no good” because they are not good at the testing.
Is this in the best interest of children?
Read the letter. Here is a sample:
First of all, our children are feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and they are starting to doubt their own abilities