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Monday, April 8, 2013

Diane in the Evening 4-8-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:






Who Sold Out Children’s Privacy?

In 2011, when the U.S. Department of Education revised the regulations governing FERPA to allow third parties to access children’s data without the consent of their parents, the Council of Chief School Officers weighed in. Here is. Comment by Sheila Kaplan, whose organization (educationnewyork.com) is devoted to student privacy issues:
“Here’s Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Comments on 2011 FERPA RULE CHANGE
CCSSO own the Common Core State Standards Copyright with the National Governor’s Association (NGA).


Why Is the US Department of Education Weakening FERPA?

In the past few years, the privacy protections built into federal law have been weakened by the U.S. Department of Education to allow third-parties to access confidential information about students.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center summarizes the chronology. It has filed a lawsuit and is fight the Department’s new policy, which will give the private sector access to confidential student data.
In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Education changed the regulations governing the release of student data to the private sector, without Congressional authorization to do so. At that time, “the ED issued final regulations implementing its proposed amendments, despite the agency’s admission that “numerous



Georgia: Missing Dropouts Discovered by Investigative Reporter

Myra Blackmon, who writes a column in the Athens (Georgia) Banner-Herald, has discovered an amazing and well-hidden secret: Most of our nation’s dropouts did not drop out of high school. She looked at Georgia’s high school graduation rate and did some fact-checking. The graduation rate is supposedly 67%, but many students who did not drop out are not counted as graduates.


Beyonce and Jay-Z: Their Trip to Cuba

I have been listening today to news reports that certain Florida politicians are very angry that Beyonce and Jay-Z went to visit Cuba. That’s ridiculous. I bet they had all the visas they needed.
Good for them.
As readers may recall, I visited Cuba in February. I had a great trip, visited artists and museums, and saw a poor and very beautiful country.
I came away convinced that the embargo keeps the Castro regime in power.
If we ended the embargo, the country would flourish. The regime would wither away in response to free trade in

Jeff Bryant on the United Opt Out Protest

Last weekend, United Opt Out sponsored a protest rally in front of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. The event was called Occupy the DOE.
Jeff Bryant of North Carolina reports on the protests here.
I spoke on Thursday afternoon of the first day. The crowd was small, which was not surprising, because it was a workday and it is expensive to travel a distance. And the event organizers had no money for travel. Everything was handmade and improvised. No funding from Gates or Walton or Broad or anyone else. No paid staff. All volunteers: teachers, parents, students, librarians, and others who were there to speak out against the DOE’s damaging policies and for a better vision for American education.
The slight media attention focused on one remark by one speaker but there were many speakers with inspiring 

School Board Shenanigans in Hillsborough County, Florida

Here is an article in the Tampa Tribune that is remarkably supportive of public education.
This writer, Steve Otto, understands that the Florida legislature is determined to dismantle public education in Florida.
At the same time, he notes that the school board in Hillsborough County (where Bill Gates dropped a hundred million or so to push teacher evaluation) is engaged in its own shenanigans. In this reported episode, a member of the board got up and publicly denounced a teacher who happened to be running for her seat. He was non-

Update on Louisiana Legislature

Mike Deshotels reports on what is happening in the Louisiana legislature.
Bear in mind that Governor Bobby Jindal proposed to “reform” taxes by eliminating the personal income tax and the corporate income tax, shifting the entire tax burden to the sales tax. This is a very unpopular proposal, which appears to have driven his poll numbers down into the mid-30s. It will also hurt the state’s public schools, as you will see in this post.
Jindal also plans to fund the voucher schools by taking money from the state’s Minimum Foundation budget for public schools, even though a state court has already declared it unconstitutional. Same for Jindal’s plan to pay 

Jersey Jazzman: Why X Months of Learning is a Phony Metriv

Jersey Jazzman is a music teachers who loves to dissect the latest claims with hard cold fact and reasoned analysis.
In this valuable post, he explains why pundits and policymakers shoud stop reporting test score increases as “X months” of growth.
Why?
Because it is nonsense.

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 4-8-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 3 hours ago
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] California Charter Founders Convicted of Embezzlement by dianerav The founders of Ivy Academia in the San Fernando Valley in California were convicted of embezzlement and a variety of other charges stemming from their use of $200,000 in school funds for personal expenses. From the LA Times: “”This message is going to resonate throughout the charter school community,” said prosecutor Sandi Roth. “You can’t spend the charter school funds for anything you want. It... more »