About That Bipartisan Consensus to Privatize Public Education
If ever evidence was needed about the bizarre mind meld between the Obama administration and the far-right of the Republican party, here it is.
Secretary Arne Duncan is giving the keynote to Jeb Bush’s Excellence in Education summit in Washington, D.C. on November 28. Another keynote will be delivered to the same gathering of the leaders of the privatization movement by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who headed the Obama transition team in 2008. This is sickening.
Jeb Bush’s organization supports vouchers, charters, online virtual charters, and for-profit organizations that run schools. It also supports evaluating teachers by student test scores and eliminating collective bargaining. Jeb
Secretary Arne Duncan is giving the keynote to Jeb Bush’s Excellence in Education summit in Washington, D.C. on November 28. Another keynote will be delivered to the same gathering of the leaders of the privatization movement by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who headed the Obama transition team in 2008. This is sickening.
Jeb Bush’s organization supports vouchers, charters, online virtual charters, and for-profit organizations that run schools. It also supports evaluating teachers by student test scores and eliminating collective bargaining. Jeb
Michigan Is On Its Way to Ending Public Education
Governor Rick Snyder must hate public education. Certainly his advisors do.
He has some group of rightwing operatives who have pretentiously named themselves the “Oxford Foundation,” although they are not a foundation and they have nothing to do with Oxford University or Oxford Healthcare or Oxford anything.
This GOP group issues reports on how to disestablish any public responsibility for public education.
The only thing public will be the money. The providers will
He has some group of rightwing operatives who have pretentiously named themselves the “Oxford Foundation,” although they are not a foundation and they have nothing to do with Oxford University or Oxford Healthcare or Oxford anything.
This GOP group issues reports on how to disestablish any public responsibility for public education.
The only thing public will be the money. The providers will
Why the Grassroots Will Win
People often ask me: How can parents and teachers hope to beat the big money that is buying elections in state and local races around the nation? What chance do we have when they can dump $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 into a race without breaking a sweat?
True, they have a lot of money. But they have no popular base. The only time they win votes is when they trick voters with false rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises. They call themselves “reformers,” when they are in fact privatizers.
They claim they know how to close the achievement gap but their standard-bearer, Michelle Rhee, left DC with the biggest achievement gap of all big cities in the nation.
They claim to be leading the “civil rights issue” of our day, but can you truly imagine a civil rights movement led
True, they have a lot of money. But they have no popular base. The only time they win votes is when they trick voters with false rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises. They call themselves “reformers,” when they are in fact privatizers.
They claim they know how to close the achievement gap but their standard-bearer, Michelle Rhee, left DC with the biggest achievement gap of all big cities in the nation.
They claim to be leading the “civil rights issue” of our day, but can you truly imagine a civil rights movement led
“Payment-by-Results” in 1862!
Robin Alexander, who headed the Cambridge Primary Review in England, has been reading the posts on this blog. He was especially interested in our faux reformers’ love affair with paying teachers and schools to get higher test scores. He thought we might want to learn about the UK experience with “payment-by-results”:
Payment by Results
- or ‘prizes for success in teaching the rudiments’
Reading Diane’s blog is instructive and depressing both for what it chronicles about the wanton political and commercial abuse of a national educational system in the name of standards and accountability and for its many resonances with what has been happening in the UK (especially England) during the past decade or so – and
Payment by Results
- or ‘prizes for success in teaching the rudiments’
Reading Diane’s blog is instructive and depressing both for what it chronicles about the wanton political and commercial abuse of a national educational system in the name of standards and accountability and for its many resonances with what has been happening in the UK (especially England) during the past decade or so – and
Teacher: What the Public Needs to Know about Teaching
In response to a letter from someone who said that teachers have cushy jobs and should stop whining, this teacher wrote as follows:
Many ignorant Americans think as you do about teachers and the teaching profession.
I taught in both sectors–private and public and worked longer, harder hours in teaching than most people in the US work unless they work two jobs.
After earning my BA, in the private sector I was paid a monthly salary, worked an average 12 hours a day sometimes six days a week but I did get days off and that two week paid vacation you mention was about all I got as a teacher–three weeks, two before the New Year and one in the Spring but I had to take work home to catch up. During the school year, even when half of the more than 200 students I taught in five/six classes turned in work, I’d spend hours correcting one half hour student assignment and new assignments were being
Many ignorant Americans think as you do about teachers and the teaching profession.
I taught in both sectors–private and public and worked longer, harder hours in teaching than most people in the US work unless they work two jobs.
After earning my BA, in the private sector I was paid a monthly salary, worked an average 12 hours a day sometimes six days a week but I did get days off and that two week paid vacation you mention was about all I got as a teacher–three weeks, two before the New Year and one in the Spring but I had to take work home to catch up. During the school year, even when half of the more than 200 students I taught in five/six classes turned in work, I’d spend hours correcting one half hour student assignment and new assignments were being
Diane in the Evening 11-17-12 Diane Ravitch's blog
Diane Ravitch's blog: EduShyster Finds the Biggest Turkey Idea of School Reform by dianerav EduShyster has done it again. Imagine a conference on the freshest, boldest education idea of ever. Who would you want to hear from? Of LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-17-12 Diane Ravitch's blog coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 1 hour ago Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] If Baseball Were Like Race to the Top by dianerav I recently posted a hilarious item that asked what would happen if basketball leagues were run in accordance with the rules of N... more »
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-17-12 Diane Ravitch's blog
Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] If Baseball Were Like Race to the Top by dianerav I recently posted a hilarious item that asked what would happen if basketball leagues were run in accordance with the rules of No Child Left Behind. John Thompson asks what would Major League Baseball look like if it were conducted in accordance with the requirements of Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grants. Why this sudden interest in sports analogies? My guess is that education policy has become so insane that he Does Segregation Improve T... more »
MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-16-12 Diane Ravitch's blog
Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] What Schools Should Do in Crisis Times by dianerav After the hurricane, Mayor Bloomberg was eager to reopen the city’s public schools as soon as possible for the 1.1 million children enrolled. He worried that they were “losing time” and had to get back to their studies, back to normal. The facts that many of the schools suffered damage, that many were turned into shelters, and that many children were in shock because of their experiences were irrelevant. It was back to the routine. In this brilliant post, ... more »
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