Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
The Head Start Enron Trader Initiative: The Arnold Foundation in Indiana, Louisiana, NYC, Texas, and Beyond
By Doug MartinThe national news has painted Enron’s retired trader and hedge fund manager John Arnold as a Jesus figure since he and his wife announced they were going to cover the government costs of funding Head Start during the government shutdown (better known as the good cop/bad cop ploy by both parties to throw senior citizens, kids, and the poor and middle class under the bus), but the Laur
YESTERDAY
School Nurses Need to Be Back on the Job
"The school only has a nurse on staff two days a week. Like many schools around the country, the city’s dire funding situation has hit school nurses especially hard."At Alternet:This story is getting some attention it deserves. School nurses need to be back on the job.Sixth Grader’s Father Says She Wouldn’t Have Died If A School Nurse Had Been On DutyBudget cuts have left Philadelphia's
The Common Core and Snake Oil
by Susan Ohanian I don't look at Edutopia very often because nearly every glance provokes great annoyance. Now, not surprisingly, Brain-based Learning, that catch-all wonder-phrase, seemingly a direct descendant of ads for Charlie Bigelow's snake oil, Kickapoo Indian Sagwa: the Great Indian Medicine (WILL CURE Constipation, Liver Complaint, Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Loss of Appetite, Scrolnia, Rhe
No Money for School Nurses Just Tests
Ill children in schools need nursing care, not more tests, or the common core curriculum. They need common sense and common healthcare. This is how far removed education policy written by Walmart has gotten us. I suppose they forgot the "humane" standard.A West Philadelphia sixth grader was sent home and she died. The school district spokesman, talking policy, said "nurses do not a
NYC Labels Neediest HS Students "OTC" and Dumps Them into Schools Targeted for Closure
We have known for a long time that Bloomberg's team of thin-lipped Brits running the NYCity Schools have been using various unethical manipulations to increase graduation rates and test score performance. The McKinsey drones have been very effective in making sure the schools they want to look good do so, while delivering on the plan to shutter targeted schools for the benefit of high rol
OCT 10
InBloom Wants Your Child's Data
CHICAGO (CBS) – The head of a Chicago parents group was warning parents the Chicago Public Schools system plans to upload personal student information into a national database run by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch.Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), said the InBloom database upload is an invasion of privacy, masquerading as a program to
TFA is Losing Its Luster
There is still good, quality, genuine education going on around the country despite the anti-teacher, anti-intellectual and misogynistic meme of accountability and performance, test scores, and measuring every student every year, over and over and over again, on standardized fill in the bubble sheets.TFA, just like so much of corporate education reform, fails to acknowledge the "appropriate r
Evidence Presented in the Case Against Growth Models for High Stakes Purposes
Posted earlier today at Substance News:Evidence Presented in the Case Against Growth Models for High Stakes PurposesDenise Wilburn and Jim HornThe following article quotes liberally from The Mismeasure of Education, and it represents an overview of the research-based critiques of value-added modeling, or growth models. We offer it here to Chicago educators [and educators everywhere] with the h
Calling Wendy Kopp!
With the government shutdown, a great opportunity exists for those entrepreneurs who see education as fertile ground for their innovative innovations.Wendy Kopp, here is an idea for you—free of charge:Govern for AmericaCall on bright young college grads with no expertise or experience in government to commit to 2-year (House) or 6-year (Senate) stints in the U.S. Congress![You're welcomed..]
OCT 09
Tens of Thousands March in Support of Brazilian Teachers
Well-supported: People pack the Cinelandia square during the march in Rio de JaneiroBrazil faces a challenging security situation as it gears up to host the World Cup in eight months’ time.In June thousands of demonstrators, angered by the billions spent in preparations for the event, clashed with riot police near the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte.'We don't need the World Cup,' said Leonardo
Invest in libraries, not more tests
Sent to the Houston Chronicle, October 9Lisa Falkenberg ("Cutting libraries shows warped priorities," October 9) is right: Spending money on increased testing while cutting libraries and librarians is like investing in precise scales to weigh the animal, but neglecting to feed it. Decades of research show that the most important factor in developing literacy is self-selected reading, or
Corporate Christian Missionaries of Memphis and Many Shining Charters on the Hill
Education historian, Carl Kaestle, developed the thesis that the American ideology developed in the 19th Century from an overlapping and mutually supportive combination of three elements: protestantism, capitalism, and republicanism. They are so closely linked, Kaestle argued, that a challenge to one often brings defensive reactions from the believers of the others, so that a skeptic of reading t
Confessions of a "Bad Teacher" Confronting Treachery During an Age of "Reform"
I read Rafe Esquith’s Real Talk for Real Teachers and James Owens’ Confessions of a Bad Teacher during the same week. Esquith described many types of educational malpractice being imposed in the name of “best practices” that I have seen. In fact, he recounts disgusting incidents that are worse than anything I have witnessed. On the other hand, Esquith describes the joys of teaching. He makes it cl
OCT 08
smoother boondoggle?
JUST A SMOOTHER BOONDOGGLE?Sent to Education Week, October 8, 2013Three scholars have recommended testing students only every few years, and using "higher-quality assessments that encourage more productive teaching" rather than current multiple-choice tests. ("Fewer, Better Tests Can Boost Student Achievement," October 9).They note that these tests can be used without spending
ASD and RSD Built on Empirical House of Cards and Mountains of Tax-Sheltered Cash
The NEPC has a completed a review of the "documentation" used by corporatists in New Orleans and Tennessee to justify the takeover and colonization of NOLA and Memphis schools. To say the evidence is slim for such anti-democratic privatization schemes is an understatement. Here is the link to the NEPC site, and below is a clip that focuses on Tennessee's Powerpoint "research"
OCT 06
Sister Corita Kent and authentic education reform
"Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail. There's only make." — Sister Corita Kent My dear friend Cheryl Ortega, UTLA's Director of Bilingual Education, sent me the following link this morning: How a Screenprinting Nun Changed the Course of Modern Art. Along with it she wrote: "I was privileged to have studied with Corita at Immaculate Heart College." Reading and ref
Mitch Daniels Back Home Again With the Racist and Poor-Bashing Filthy Rich
By Doug Martin Before heading out with our Tea Party governor Mike Pence to appear on a panel entitled "Disrupting Higher Ed" at NBC's corporate school commercial Education Nation, Mitch Daniels, former Hoosier governor and current president of Purdue University, will be in Minneapolis tomorrow hanging out and keynoting a big gala event at the Center of the American Experiment on slashin
Colorado Parents See Wizard Behind the Curtain
"It's time to unite our community""Teachers can be silenced, but you can't fire a parent""Teacher morale will improve overnight when we get our four candidates elected""Parents, teachers students rallying together to win schools back"Listen to this radio broadcast from Douglas County, CO @thechalkface radio to get a nuanced look into the brilliant way ALEC a
Overcoming Rhetoric
I've somewhat wondered where the "society" publication is for American Eugenicists. They must have a club or association of some kind. It seems all professionals do--birds of a feather and such.This country in particular has striven to plan its future on a very grand scale. What better way than through forced education (for the good of the citizen) to manage a population--to funnel pe
OCT 05
The Cy Young argument for increased testing
NEA president Dennis Von Roekel has made this argument: "Under the No Child Left Behind law, states have released test results that supposedly tell us how many students are proficient in math and reading. The problem is, each state sets its own benchmark for proficiency, and different students are held to different standards. Imagine if the batting average of one baseball player was based o
Do educators support the common core?
Last month (September) the National Education Association announced " that a "Majority of Educators "strongly" support the Common Core State Standards" (headline of an article that appeared in NEA Today). I have been unable to find the details of the questions and the results on the internet, but the NEA's own report of the results are not consistent with their headline
Teachers Sabotaged by Unaccountable Text Book Companies
Each day, the stories get more and more Kafkaesque.Perhaps while the teachers are waiting for their corporatized, standardized, soulless curriculum and text books to arrive, they can have the students and staff read Diane Ravitch's Reign of Error. From NYT: Tardy Deliveries Keep New Books Out of Teachers Hands“They want to evaluate us on how well the kids do on the test,” Mr. Mulgrew said, “but th
The Great Phonics Debate Again! This time in Australia
Phonics debate in The Australianhttp://tinyurl.com/prp2ucvContents: Our letter, then two responses, then our responseThe (limited) impact of heavy phonics instructionPublished in The Australian, Oct 1, 2013 as "Foster Love of Reading"In "Bad teaching kills reading skills," (Sept. 30) Jennifer Buckingham claims that failing to include "explicit, systematic and structured&qu
OCT 04
Will Value-Added Testing Do as Little for the Nation as It Has for Tennessee?
If you go the Washington Post education page, hang a right down the hallway to the back bedroom and look under the bed in the box labeled "Stuff Jeff Bezos Won't Like," you will find this article, which is based largely on findings from TMoE. Update 10:56 AM: The title above, "Will Value-Added Testing Do as Little for the Nation as It Has for Tennessee?" has been changed. Why