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Saturday, November 3, 2012

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The North Carolina Vision

The many thousands of people who read the letter from a teacher in North Carolina explaining why he quit may be surprised to learn that the state board of education adopted a mission statement in early October.
The state board asserted in its vision statement the importance of public education in the state.
It was written with the help of the Duke economist Helen F. Ladd and her husband Edward B. Fiske, who is a a former education editor at the New York Times.
I received it as a pdf file but don’t know how to link to a pdf file, so I am giving you the full statement, about 12


Shadowy Group in Arizona Fights 1% Sales Tax for Education

A shadowy group called Americans for Responsible Leadership is spending $750,000 to fight a proposal to raise the sales tax in Arizona by 1% to fund education.
The group claims it favors accountability and “transparency,” but refuses to disclose who is putting up the money to fight Proposition 204, which would make permanent a currently temporary sales tax.
Prop 204 would provide stable funding of education in the state, which is badly needed.
If you live in Arizona, please go to the polls to protect your schools.


Did NYC Close the Achievement Gap in a Decade of Mayoral Control?

Aaron Pallas of Teachers College asks the question and shows that the answer is no.
Despite a decade of relentless emphasis on testing, accountability and choice, the achievement gap has barely budged.
Pallas writes:
“My conclusion? There’s been no shrinkage in the test score gap between 2006 and 2012, a period in which 



The Very Expensive Mandates of Race to the Top

The states unlucky enough to “win” Race to the Top funding are arriving at a startling conclusion: Race to the Top mandates cost more than the money that was awarded to the state and the districts.
Ken Mitchell, a superintendent in Rockland County, New York, did the math.
Mitchell determined that school districts in his county are spending far more than they receive as they try to implement the mandates. When you consider that Governor Cuomo enacted rigid tax caps on every public school district in the state, it means that costs (for Race to the Top) are soaring at the same time that the


The Record of Privatization: Look the Other Way

G.F. Brandenburg is a retired teacher who keeps close watch on the D.C. Schools and national trends. He is the blogger who discredited Michelle Rhee’s claims about miraculous results when she taught for three years in the early 19902 in a Baltimore school run by a private firm called Educational Alternatives Inc. In a comment about “the KIPP challenge,” he points out that experiments in privatization have been tried and failed. In “the KIPP challenge,” I called on KIPP to take over an entire small district to show what they could do and erase all concerns about skimming and attrition.
This is from Brandenburg:
There was one experiment similar to what DR and AR propose: a baker’s dozen of Baltimore elementary schools 



NC Teacher: “I Quit”

NC Teacher: “I Quit”.


The GOP Destruction of Public Education in Michigan Continues

The people of Michigan have received the report of the “Oxford Foundation” on the future of education in that state.
The authors of the report have nothing to do with Oxford University or Britain.
They are not part of a foundation.
They are Republican operatives carrying out the wishes of Governor Rick Snyder to destroy public education in


Big $$$ to Convince Bridgeport Voters to Abandon Democracy

Connecticut blogger and political insider Jonathan Pelto broke the story:
Corporate reformers and privatizers have poured record amounts of campaign cash into Bridgeport, Connecticut, to persuade voters to turn control over their schools to the mayor.
One of the big givers was NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who gave $20,000 to help Mayor Finch gain control over the people’s schools.
Mayoral control in New York City did not narrow the city’s achievement gaps.
Mayoral control has not improved the schools in Cleveland, Chicago, or Detroit (Detroit tried it, abandoned, and