LA Times Editorialists Delighted That Deasy’s Job Is Safe, Teachers Have Other Ideas
The power elites of Los Angeles won again. Read this editorial in the Los Angeles Times. even his strongest supporters are concerned about his ill-planned $1 billion commitment to buy iPads whose content is unfinished. But to really get the story at ground level, read the comments. 33.778095 -84.391791
Race to the Top=A Pig in a Poke
When states won millions in Race to the Top funding, they found themselves required to spend more than they received from the federal government. One careful study reported that school districts in New York had to spend almost $11 million, in exchange for $400,000 from the federal government. School districts are spending billions to offer and test the Common Core standards, which have until rece
Red Queen in LA: Who Attended LAUSD Circus?
This blogger writes about the well-orchestrated circus at the crucial LAUSD board meeting. This carrying daisies–a symbol of allegiance to the leader–were well represented and gained preference to speak. Who was missing? Teachers and administrators: they were at work. Parents: who cares what they think?
Our Kids, Under Constant Surveillance?
Parents and school districts are beginning to understand that student information will no longer be private. The Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation created something called the Shared Learning Collsborative, now called inBloom. They have a contract to Wireless Generation, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, to create the software to collect massive amounts of data. InBloom will
Links to The Daily Show!
Yesterday was my third appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (2003, 2010, 2013). I love being on his show because he is not only funny but a truly kind and decent person. He always comes in for a friendly chat before the interview, to make a personal connection. He is real. I gave him a pair of green laces for his sneakers (they came from a group called “Lace to the Top,” and I explained
Michelle Rhee and I Will Debate on Feb 6 at Lehigh University
Last March, Lehigh University invited Michelle Rhee and me to debate on its campus in Pennsylvania. We both accepted. After agreeing, Michelle said we should both have a second on our team, not a 1:1 debate. I agreed. Months went by, and she said she preferred to have a third on both teams, and I agreed. I think we have finally reached an agreement. I have my second and third lined up. I assume sh
Common Sense from Robert Shepherd
Ever since the Nation at Risk report, we’ve had a reform narrative in this country that begins with the premise that our schools are failing (despite the fact that when one corrects for the socioeconomic level of students taking the international tests on which this claim is based, our students consistently perform at the top or very near the top). Then, the Gates Foundation decided that the “prob
L.A. Teacher Asks: Will Deasy’s iPad Deal Bankrupt Los Angeles Schools?
Superintendent John Deasy made a deal to buy an iPad for every student in the district, at a cost of $1 billion. The money will mostly be drawn from a 25-year construction bond issue approved by the voters on the assumption that the money would be used to repair the city’s schools. The iPads will be obsolete in 2 or 3 years, but voters will be paying the cost for 25 years. The iPads are loaded w
Students at Elite HS in NYC Boycott Tests
Students at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, a school that accepts only students that have high scores on their entry examinations, boycotted the latest tests to protest their purpose. The students knew that the tests had no purpose other than to evaluate their teachers, and they thought the tests were not only a waste of students’ time but unfair to their teachers. Geoff Decker of Gotham
Child Psychotherapist: How Common Core Is Ruining Childhood
Katie Hurley, who is a psychotherapist who works with children and adolescents, writes at Huffington Post that Common Core is having a harmful effect on students. Her first discovery was seeing what happened to her own daughter: “My daughter has four tests this week. Week after week she has at least four tests, one of them a high-pressure timed math factor test. If she gets more than one answer
Why Should Teaching Be a Hazardous Profession?
Jake Miller is a teacher who wrote an article for the UK Guardian as a tribute to two teachers who were recently murdered by students. He was stunned by the tone of the comments that came from many who read his article. They were vicious and anti-teacher. He couldn’t understand it. Why so much anti-teacher sentiment? He wrote to ask for my advice. I urged him to keep writing. Help the public und
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-30-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: A Teacher in LAUSD on the Board’s Decision to Extend Deasy ContractI am a teacher at LAUSD, and I am extremely disappointed with the LAUSD Board of Education for extending the contract to this abusive, destructive, deceiving superintendent. He truly does not care for the public education of the community he is supposed to serve. Mo