Open Letter to Governor Jerry Brown from UC, CSU and CCC Student Leaders | California Progress Report

Open Letter to Governor Jerry Brown from UC, CSU and CCC Student Leaders | California Progress Report:

Open Letter to Governor Jerry Brown from UC, CSU and CCC Student Leaders

by megan

March 15, 2012
Dear Governor Brown,
We are writing you with deep concern about the state's continuing disinvestment from public higher education, and your lack of direct communication with students.
When you were elected in 2010, many students hoped that your election would usher in a new era for public higher education in 

All Education Matters: Loop 21 - Battle Over Voter ID Bills

All Education Matters: Loop 21 - Battle Over Voter ID Bills:

Loop 21 - Battle Over Voter ID Bills

by Cryn Johannsen

Here's my latest over at Loop 21:

In state after state, Voter ID bills are being passed or proposed. More often than not, Republicans are the ones drafting this legislation and defending the bills, claiming they prevent voter fraud. In addition, Republican politicians have been pushing the idea that voting is a privilege and not a right.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

Charters serving at-risk students plead for another chance | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Charters serving at-risk students plead for another chance | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Charters serving at-risk students plead for another chance

by Dale Mezzacappa

Recent recommendations from District staff to close two charters pose a difficult dilemma for the School Reform Commission.
Should charters whose mission is to take in the students who are most at-risk – those in foster care, children who have suffered trauma, youth returning from juvenile placement – be shut down if their test scores don't match up to the standard applied at other schools?

Featured Title: 

Are low scores always grounds for non-renewal?

read more

For The Love of Self, Get Yourself Checked Out | The Jose Vilson

For The Love of Self, Get Yourself Checked Out | The Jose Vilson:

For The Love of Self, Get Yourself Checked Out

by Jose

For my thirtieth birthday, I got myself two ties, a blue cardigan, a metallic grey collared shirt, and an appointment for a general doctor.
The latter item didn’t come so easy, either. The last time I went to the doctor, it was because I had a serious heart scare that turned out to be nothing … but stress, and too much of it. The minute that doctor told me to calm down, the tightness I felt in my chest for the better part of eight months just stopped. Cold.
People wonder why teachers get the benefits they do, including the personal health days, affordable health care, and relatively early retirement. Before 30, I took many of these parts for granted. I accumulated over 30 days of unused vacation days, often stayed after school, and rarely used any of my medical benefits for prescriptions. I thought popping a vitamin and getting in the occasional exercise would do. I pumped over the counter drugs into 

¿Qué papel juega en su vida la frontera entre EE.UU. y México? | California Watch

¿Qué papel juega en su vida la frontera entre EE.UU. y México? | California Watch:

¿Qué papel juega en su vida la frontera entre EE.UU. y México?

by Ashley Alvarado

Ashley Alvarado

En la década desde el 11 de septiembre del 2001, la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México se ha vuelto un campo de batalla político y social. Los políticos, los medios y las personas que viven - y que mueren - a lo largo del tramo de 2 mil millas entre San Diego y Brownsville, Texas, manifiestan una presión y un enfoque persistentes en la región. Es un punto álgido entre la seguridad y la soberanía nacional, la inmigración ilegal y los derechos humanos, la aplicación de la ley y el ganarse la vida, el narcotráfico y la demanda que lo impulsa. Parte del debate se centra en la valla que intermitentemente contorna la demarcación de la frontera. Reporteros Andrew Becker y G.W. Schulz del Center for Investigative Reporting y California Watch están procurando narrativas alrededor la valla desde ambos lados de la frontera. Quieren saber de las personas que viven con esta barrera o que se hayan visto afectadas por ella, como por ejemplo los familiares de varias generaciones que la 

Pink slips arrive in 11,700 LAUSD mailboxes - LA Daily News

Pink slips arrive in 11,700 LAUSD mailboxes - LA Daily News:

Pink slips arrive in 11,700 LAUSD mailboxes

By Barbara Jones barbara.jones@dailynews.com 818-713-3710 twitter.com/LADNSchools Staff Writer

Posted:   03/15/2012 04:53:33 PM PDT

Updated:   03/15/2012 04:59:34 PM PDT

The last of more than 11,700 pink slips were waiting for Los Angeles Unified employees when they arrived home today, the state-mandated deadline for notifying district workers that they may be laid off in 2012-13.
Notices began arriving by certified mail late last week, even as district officials were reworking budget figures to reflect an unexpected infusion of $180.5 million from the state.
That windfall would help cover about $13 million in improvements and still reduce the projected budget deficit for the next school year from $557 million to $390 million.
The number of pink slips mailed out was based on the original projection. About 9,000 of the 11,713 notices 

Jersey Jazzman: Yet Another Reason Why We Need Tenure

Jersey Jazzman: Yet Another Reason Why We Need Tenure:

Yet Another Reason Why We Need Tenure

by Duke

Dear lord, what a mess:



I have no idea what happened. Maybe the teacher is completely in the wrong, but it's totally inappropriate for the president of a school board to confront a teacher in front of students.

Is there any doubt this teacher would become a target of this school board president if she did not have tenure? Again, maybe she should be removed from her job, but under no circumstances should that decision be made by the board.

I know many of you who do not work in schools think this stuff is rare. But the only thing unusual about this case is the intensity. Remember: teachers lead their local bargaining units, and negotiations can get nasty and personal. Maybe board members run for office because they have children in the schools; you can imagine what 

Teacher Layoff Notices - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education)

Teacher Layoff Notices - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Issues
Statement on Teacher Layoff Notices

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson issued the following statement regarding the issuance of thousands of preliminary layoff notices to California teachers:

"Teachers across the state have rightly come to dread March 15. Though the very future of our state depends on California’s teachers, today many will receive a layoff notice that suggests just the opposite—and will now spend months in limbo, worrying about their futures and the future of their students.

"Every pink slip being issued today is an unwelcome and undeserved blow to the morale of the teacher who receives it. They should also remind all of us of the urgency of finding the will and the resources to end the financial emergency facing our public schools."

The California Education Code Section 44955(b) requires school boards to issue preliminary pink slips by March 15, and then make the final decision on layoffs by May 15.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

NYC Public School Parents: The utter failure of Chancellors Klein and Walcott to protect our children from abuse

NYC Public School Parents: The utter failure of Chancellors Klein and Walcott to protect our children from abuse:

The utter failure of Chancellors Klein and Walcott to protect our children from abuse

by Leonie Haimson

I will be on WNBC news at 11 PM tonight, talking about the total failure of the DOE to protect our children from sexual abuse and harassment.  After a flood of reports  recently revealed there were  staff who  continued to work in our schools  years after charges of misconduct had been filed and substantiated against them, with no one outside Tweed alerted to these facts, Chancellor Walcott promised to review all such cases in his files.

Today, Walcott released another file of eight substantiated reports from the Special Investigator's office, showing sexual misconduct of school staff, in some cases going back many years, with multiple witnesses attesting to multiple incidents.  One individual had substantiated reports about his behavior from students going back to 2001, described in a sickening SCI letter to Chancellor Levy,  and again in 2009, with more incidents described in a letter to Klein, and then again, in 2012, with a letter to Walcott.  And yet for eleven years, nothing was done!  In all these cases, these individuals were allowed to stay on or to transfer to new schools, with the records kept secret.

According to GothamSchools:

Walcott told reporters today that he personally examined about 250 cases and concluded that in some of them, appropriate 

Joel Klein and Condoleezza Rice Assess Needs of Public Education From The "National Security" Perspective

Parent Advocates - ParentAdvocates.org:

Former NYC DOE Chief Executive Officer Joel Klein and Former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice Assess Needs of Public Education From The "National Security" Perspective
From the desk of Betsy Combier: It is fascinating how our government pays people to write about successes that the global community knows are actually failures. I wrote an article about "Education Policy Becomes A Matter of National Security" in 2004, before I found out that Joel Klein took Vincent Foster's office after Foster's death, and became the front man for NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's destruction of the New York City public school system. Now we know what Klein and Rice are going to say - that their actions were all taken in good faith as part of the US Government's public policy mandate, but they could not do all that they wanted to do because citizen activists, like me and thousands of others, hindered their progress. The solution? Keep protesters out of the way, take the "public" out of government and education. I dont support this, ahead of the release of the report. Who put these two there in the first place?
           

Former New York City Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, and Secretary of State under George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice

Here is my 2004 article:

Education Policy Becomes a Matter of National Security

Also read my article on Joel Klein violating Education Law 2590-h because the law mandates that the NYC Chancellor have a contract, and he never had one. He also was 

A Statement of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the... -- PHILADELPHIA, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

A Statement of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the... -- PHILADELPHIA, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --:

A Statement of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Regarding the Recent Events at the University of California at San Diego

 

 

 

PHILADELPHIA, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement of the board of directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East in support of Professor Shlomo Dubnov:

We are the members of the board of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), a grass-roots community of more than 50,000 academics on 4,000 campuses all over the world, who have united to promote honest fact based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues.  We have noted with concern the degradation of civil discourse on campus and the increasing harassment and intimidation of pro-Israel and Jewish students and faculty in Europe, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere.

In response to that concern, the SPME Legal Taskforce recently produced a Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and the Freedom of Speech. 

Recent events at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) are a case in point.  On February 29, 2012, after having tabled it in the two prior years, the Associated Students of UCSD (ASUCSD, the student government) defeated a resolution calling on the University system to divest from US companies, specifically General Electric and Northrop Grumman.  UCSD's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had proposed the resolution, alleging that those companies supply components of 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter Update - I Heart the Governor

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter Update - I Heart the Governor:

Charter Update - I Heart the Governor

by Melissa Westbrook

Here's the latest from The Olympian story today. 

From the Governor (who is vastly irritated with all sides the longer this takes)

Never mind its contents: Gov. Chris Gregoire teed off on a Senate Republican budget plan backed by a coalition including three Democrats today, mainly because of the secret process that produced it. The Democrat told reporters it came as a surprise to parties that she has tried to bring together this week for inclusive, “five-corner” budget talks. And she said, the plan includes a charter-schools proposal she will automatically veto.

The governor does have some leverage. She says she won’t sign bills that lawmakers want if they don’t get on the stick and produce a budget that can be supported by 50 House members, 25 Senate members and one signature – hers. 

She got me a little worried when I read this:

Asked if she would actually veto bills, Gregoire said: “I gave them a message today. My message is this: I’m not 

solidaridad: Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

solidaridad: Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed:

Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

Anyone over the age of 30 should recall phrases including "school choice" were the clarion call of segregationists and southern dixiecrats. [Still is.] — Robert D. Skeels

Professor Christopher Bonastia's Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed is perhaps the best work I've read on the modern segregation and eugenics movements that are cloaked in the rhetoric of school choice. Packed with historical precedents and an honest assessment of today's empirical data, the essay is a powerful antidote to the nonstop stream of privatization propaganda pumped out by the deep pocketed charter industry. The following excerpt provides an idea of why everyone must read the whole piece:

The driving assumption for the pro-charter side, of course, is that 

'

Harvard Business Review asked what could be done to improve education. So I Responded. | The Classroom Sooth

Harvard Business Review asked what could be done to improve education. So I Responded. | The Classroom Sooth:

Harvard Business Review asked what could be done to improve education. So I Responded.

by classroomsooth

Here’s my response to Sarah Green’s article.  We’ll see if it get’s approved, anyway.
“Here’s what I would do:

1) Kill Testing Culture- high-stakes tests inhibit creativity and curricular innovation, and are used as a blunt weapon for judging students, educators, and schools leading to the label “failure.”  This was the one and only thing mentioned by Finland’s lead teacher when he came to IL last month to speak on improving US schools.  To really hammer home how bad the testing and “data display” problem is, we need a national audit of time and money spent on testing and test prep.

We need rich curricula that includes languages and humanities, applied mathematics and sciences fine arts, civics and logic courses, vocational tech, and health.  We need to remember that the best education, is actually ancient!  Progressive (Deweyan) Education looked at the world of students and asked them, “Which problems do 

Big Education Ape: 3-15-12 PM Charter schools, results no better than other public schools EDition #SOSCHAT

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

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In Michigan charter schools, results no better than other public schools

mlive.com - Nearly 20 years into the experiment, public-school academies -- charter schools, as they are more popularly known -- would appear a rousing success. An enthusiastic Michigan Legislature, as part of...

Diane Ravitch

Education Petition: Gov. Dannel Malloy: Redesign SB 24 to improve education in CT

change.org - Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy has made education his top priority this legislative session, and we—as educators, parents, community members, students, and other educational allies—share his concern. ...

Diane Ravitch

‘Creative ... motivating’ and fired - The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com - He urged Wysocki to share her methods with colleagues at the D.C. public school. Other observations of her classroom that year yielded good ratings. Wysocki, 31, was let go because the reading and ...

Diane Ravitch

Whistleblower Police Officer Had Backup - Secret Recordings - NYTimes.com

nytimes.com - The decision to take him to the hospital was made solely by armed men who happened to be his superior officers in the Police Department with a vested interest in shutting him up. For more than a ye...

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NOLA.com : Gov. Jindal moving too fast on education bills, Sen. Landrieu says

mobile.nola.com - Gov. Bobby Jindal's fast-track push for his education overhaul bills is ill-advised and wrong, giving even supporters of the proposals too little time to review the details, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu...

Diane Ravitch

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Big Education Ape: Class Warfare: Fact checking pages 1 through 100

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - When the new book ‘Class Warfare’ came out, the story of the current ed reform movement featuring TFA and KIPP, I refused to buy it, since I didn’t want anyone to profit from passing fiction and fa...

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Big Education Ape: Students shocked as US high school assembly descends into homophobic rant

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One out of 365 – That Sounds About Right! « MomsRising Blog

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Time-lapse video of Dyeing the Chicago River Green plus 2012 viewing tips

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Detroit Police policies changed in First Amendment settlement with ACLU - Democratic Underground

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