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Friday, June 14, 2013

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-14-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

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Public Education Is Not Failing, But NCLB and RTTT Are

Ron Berler has written about his year in a so-called “failing school” in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The school has a dedicated staff trying its best to raise the achievement levels of students who enter school far behind. Yet it is a “failing school” because no matter how much progress the students make,the children are still not as “proficient” as those in nearby affluent New Canaan.
Berler has a new book out, called “Raising the Curve,” explaining the utter failure of No Child Left Behind.
He wrote this note to me:
“The Title 1 school I wrote about — Brookside Elementary, in Norwalk, Conn. — is 0-for-NCLB. This past school 

Steve Zimmer Proposes Safety Lock for Parent Trigger

Steve Zimmer proposed the following resolution to the Los Angeles Board of Education. His goal is to make sure that parents are fully informed and protected against stealth campaigns to trick parents into handing their school over to a charter operator or firing the staff.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
OPEN SESSION ITEMS
Board Resolutions For Initial Announcement
1. Mr. Zimmer – Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation (For Action June 18, 2013, 

The Shame of Providence

Providence and the state of Rhode Island allowed a school to use developmentally disabled students to do manual labor for little or no pay.
Both the city and state received a stern letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice.
“Both Providence and the state allowed the Harold H. Birch Vocational School to operate a “sheltered workshop” 

Steve Zimmer Proposes Safety Lock for Parent Trigger

Steve Zimmer proposed the following resolution to the Los Angeles Board of Education. His goal is to make sure that parents are fully informed and protected against stealth campaigns to trick parents into handing their school over to a charter operator or firing the staff.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
OPEN SESSION ITEMS
Board Resolutions For Initial Announcement
1. Mr. Zimmer – Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation (For Action June 18, 2013, 12 p.m.)
Whereas, The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District recognizes the essential role of 

A Word from the Cripples

The state of Pennsylvania, the School Reform Commission, Governor Corbett, and the Legislature have decided to strip bare the publuc schools of Philadelphia. They are doing to these students what they would never do to their own. They are vandals.
This morning, i received this poem written by a student, Siduri Beckmann. Why is Siduri less deserving of a full 

Happy Birthday, EduShyster! One Year in Pursuit of Excellence

In this post marking the one-year anniversary of her blog, EduShyster interviews herself.
She answers such pressing questions as:
Do you really consume wine by the box?
Will the education reform movement survive the coming Zombie apocalypse? (I promise you will love this one, especially the illustration.)
If you were an education reform group, which one would you be? (Love the photo.)

Hey, Kids! $100 If You Enroll in This Charter School

David Safier writes here about a charter school in Arizona that offers students $100 to sign up. Arizona was once known as the Wild West of charter schools, but now other states are catching up as charter operators join the Gold Rush.

Crazy Crawfish Tells All: How He Became an Anti-Reformer

In this blog post, Crazy Crawfish reveals his true identity.
He was working inside the Louisiana Department of Education when Bobby Jindal took control.
The story he tells is alarming and shocking.
It all started with Katrina. That event created a massive shock and provided an opening for Jindal: “Jindal 

The Gates Foundation’s Strangest Grant

The Gates Foundation gave $10 million to the Discovery Institute.
This is a conservative public policy institute that promotes “intelligent design” and is skeptical of evolutionary theory.
It was founded by Bruce Chapman, an official in the Reagan administration.
The purpose of the grant is for research, advocacy, and transportation.
Presumably this mean the Gates Foundation wanted the Discovery Institute to do research about and advocacy 

Diane in the Evening 6-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: New York’s Evaluation Nightmare by dianerav Arthur Goldstein, aka Néw York Educator, describes the vain and convoluted effort to create a teacher evaluation system in Néw York. A pinch of this, a heavy dose of testing, and the computer will tell us which teachers are great and which are the stinkers. *LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all* mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 2 hours ago Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for al... more »