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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-22-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

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A Dream Team for Obama’s Second Term?

The American Prospect invited a number of people to propose someone for President Obama’s cabinet in his second term. The basic idea was that this would be a “dream team,” so we could choose anyone we wanted. I was asked to recommend a new Secretary of Education.
Read here and devise your own “dream team” for President Obama.

How to Get a Docile Workforce

Some people have wondered what happened to the much ballyhooed film “Won’t Back Down.”
Recall that it was featured on NBC’s “Education Nation,” which is the showcase for the corporate reform movement; one of its stars was interviewed on “Ellen”; it had an elegant opening party at the New York Public Library; Michelle Rhee hosted showings at the two national political conventions.
Should have been a big hit, right? Wrong.
It opened in 2,5000 theaters

An Assessment Expert Explains What’s Wrong with Computer Adaptive Tests

Jem Muldoon has decided that it is time to speak and act. It is time to do what is right, not what is expedient. She wrote to tell me she has become an activist for education and will not follow orders that conflict with her knowledge and ethics. Hem is trying to find meaning and purpose at a time when public policy requires 

NYC’s Biggest Tutoring Company Under Investigation

Ah, those private companies sure know how to do it right, don’t they?
In New York City, the city’s biggest provider of tutoring services is under investigation for inflated bills and other 

When Did We Forget the Purpose of Education?

David Lentini writes, after reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s words on the purpose of education:
Thank you and your reader, Diane, for sharing these quotes. I’ve often complained that the most critical element in our debates and arguments over education policy–the very definition of “education”–has been ignored almost completely. Instead we seem to treat education as something that teachers “do”. And we seem to treat what teachers “do” as a matter of technique, not substance. So, for modern Americans the meaning of “education” has degenerated into a pointless argument over pedagogy.
I call these pedagogical arguments pointless precisely because we won’t discuss what we want an educated 

Don’t Forget what MLK Said and Did

There are a number of people who say they are promoting “the civil rights issue of our time” even as they advocate for schools that just happen to be segregated and that have no unions to represent their employees.
Jonathan Pelto reminds us what Martin Luther King Jr. said and did by providing the audio and video clips of his final days.
He died helping black sanitation workers in Memphis organize a union.
Please take the time to watch and listen.
And if you are a teacher, show it to your students and call it “informational text” so it relates to the Common Core.



Minneapolis: EduShyster on How to Buy a School Board Seat

In today’s post, EduShyster travels to Minneapolis to explain how one very young man, after a brief stint in Teach for America, managed to buy a school board seat.
Teach for America, as explained in earlier posts


Diane in the Evening 1-21-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 3 hours ago
Diane Ravitch's blog: Diane and Sharon Higgins, a parent activist in Oakland EduShyster: If Martin Luther King Were Alive Today…. by dianerav EduShyster tries to imagine how Martin Luther King, Jr., would react to today’s corporate reform movement in education. Would he agree with the corporate reformers that poverty is an excuse for bad teachers? Would he agree that segregation doesn’t matter? Would he agree that unions are *LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-21-13 Diane Ravitch's blog* coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 2 hours ago Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Lis... more »