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CORPORATE ED REFORM
Report from Indiana: Protesters Fill the Rotunda
By Phyllis Bush
On Tuesday, March 19, the rotunda at the Indiana state house was filled by more than 500 people opposed to the expansion of vouchers. This followed an intense morning of speaking to legislators.
NPE Boarb member Phyllis Bush shared this reflection on the day.
Today’s thoughts are from a mixture of exhilaration and exhaustion from yesterday’s visit to the State House in Indianapolis. We spoke with two senators for an hour and for 40 minutes with another. They said all of the “right things” about how they support public education, public schools, public school teachers, public school kids, and blah blah blah; however, after many years of teaching, my BS detector was going wildly off the charts. One
Chicago School Closings: District Plans To Shutter 54 Schools
Citing budget concerns and falling enrollment, Chicago Public Schools officials announced Thursday they plan to close 54 schools next year and shut down 61 school buildings -- the largest single wave of school closures in U.S. history.
For months, looming closures seemed inevitable. After a teachers union strike last fall concluded with anexpensive contract, observers were left without a doubt that the only way the cash-strapped district could afford it was to shut down schools and fire the teachers who worked there.
Since the September strike, Chicago hired a new CEO for its schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, a veteran of closures in cities like Detroit. The district held hearings with parents about the fates of their children. Rumors
Changes to teacher eval law tackles a city-labor dispute (again)
For the second year in a row, legislators are revising the state’s teacher evaluation law in part because of New York City’s difficulties in complying with it.
The legislature is expected to insert new language into the law to clarify that plans stay in effect even after they expire, according to officials briefed on the budget legislation, which has not been finalized. Concerns that a negotiated plan would default back to the current system was one reason talks between the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers broke down earlier this year.
The change would ensure that, moving forward, no districts could ever be without an evaluation system. To
Chicago closing 54 schools; union leader blasts 'outrageous' plan
Chicago officials finally announced what was widely rumored: They will close 54 under-enrolled schools this year in the country's third largest district to help close a $1 billion budget deficit. It is the largest mass district closing of schools ever in the United States, and it is fiercely opposed by many teachers, parents and education activists.
Fairfax County schools outperform U.S. average, many countries, on new test
A sampling of Fairfax County freshmen outperformed their peers across the country on a new test that measures how students compare around the world in math, reading and science. But the assessment also showed that the majority of the Fairfax students were unhappy with their teachers and found them unhelpful.
In Montana, an Indian reservation’s children feel the impact of sequester’s cuts
The public schools on the isolated, windswept Fort Peck Indian reservation here are at the frontier of the federal sequester, among the first to struggle with budget cuts sweeping west from Washington.
N.Y. school board battle brings out racist, anti-Semitic barbs
The school board is almost entirely made up of ultra-Orthodox Jews who send their children to private schools, while public school students are mostly Hispanic and black
Parent trigger bill stalls in Senate: The trigger wasn’t pulled but the bill was.
Earlier this session, folks in the Georgia Senate told me that the parent trigger bill was unlikely to win passage. I thought they were wrong when the bill flew through the House but today’s events suggest my sources were right.
House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, withdrew his parent-trigger charter school legislation amid doubts by his GOP Senate colleagues.
Seven states have enacted parent trigger laws; Georgia was among three state considering them. House Bill 123
District outlines plan to outsource more Head Start seats
One issue that has mostly flown under the radar in the frenzy over school closings: The District is planning to privatize nearly 2,000 additional Head Start seats, saying that without this move the number of children getting pre-K services -- already just a fraction of those eligible -- would shrink precipitously.
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Opponents worry about maintaining quality
Solving teacher retirement system’s shortfall would cost billions - by John Fensterwald
When Gov. Jerry Brown talks about paying down the state’s “wall of debt,” he doesn’t mention the state teachers’ retirement system. And yet the towering $73 billion unfunded shortfall in the state pension fund for teachers and administrators, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, makes Brown’s wall, at about $30 billion, look like a picket fence. On Wednesday, at joint...
How big is the policy book?
In a discussion about the 12th grade humanities class at The Center School, commenter parent wrote:
"They've got so many procedures and policies, it's impossible to follow them." I have heard Director Martin-Morris describe them as a long shelf stuffed with binders. That's not accurate.
I hear this sort of thing all the time. I also observe the reaction I get from people when my knowledge of School Board policies is displayed. They are generally surprised. That's not appropriate.
Here's the truth: You could probably read all of the policies in a single sitting in a single afternoon.
There aren't that many policies and most of them are pretty brief. You, too, could become a policy expert
Another Positive Review Of My New Book
Another nice review of my new book, Self-Driven Learning, was published today.
Here’s how Winifred Kehl concludes her review at the Getting Smart blog:
Reading it felt like a friendly tour through a toolbox of techniques teachers (and educators of all sorts) can apply and experiment with. Sprinkled liberally with references to teaching resources and research, there is a treasure trove of further reading I can follow up on, but more importantly, I am left with practical suggestions I can put to use today to encourage intrinsic motivation in students of all ages.
Notes from Diane – March 15, 2013
We Will Stand Up to the Billionaires
The organizers of the Network for Public Education are thrilled by the wonderful response from parents, teachers, students, and concerned citizens who have joined us as members and allies.
We received excellent press coverage, and the word of our existence is spreading across the nation.
We will help grassroots groups connect to other grassroots groups.
We will identify education bloggers across the nation.
We exist to amplify their message and to give them moral support.
In the coming months, we will provide information and research to help friends of public education support their
Last-minute open enrollment tactics
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 20, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 2B
Last Modified: Wednesday, Mar. 20, 2013 - 7:42 am
Sara Noguchi, area assistant superintendent at the Sacramento City Unified School District, joined The Bee for a live chat Tuesday and offered last-minute guidance on open enrollment.
The deadline is today at 5 p.m. for elementary school students. Applications are available on the district's website, www.scusd.edu. The district has seen a rise in applications this year after it
71 school actions in massive district shakeup
CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett will recommend the Board of Education close 61 school buildings (displacing 54 school staffs), co-locate 11 schools and turnaround six schools.
The closing schools are the ones whose administrators will be laid off and most of the teachers will be displaced. Some of the welcoming schools will be located in the closed school buildings.
The list is below. More to come.
Karen Lewis on Chicago School Closings
The mass closing of public schools in Chicago should be the lead story on every news channel tonight. It is not. The fact is that a dozen years of No Child Left Behind and three-plus years of Race to the Top has persuaded the American public that closing schools is “reform.”
It is not.
It is a dereliction of responsibility. It is an abdication of any oath of office that a public official in this country takes. It is a betrayal of any commitment to equality of educational opportunity. It is a capitulation to corpora
