NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
Caveat Emptor–Charter School Poster Kids and Private/Public Education | Huffington Post
By Michele Somerville Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, closed her schools in New York, on Tuesday October 8th so as to allow students parents and teachers to join a demonstration to defend public school privatization. 20,000 showed up. That’s quite a turnout. I did not take part in this demonstration, ...read moreThe post Caveat Emptor–Charter School Poster Kids a
Tom Corbett Pressured By Civil Rights Groups On Philadelphia School Funding | The Huffington Post
Joy Resmovits Ten high-profile civil rights leaders are pressuring Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) to intervene in the sorry state of school funding in Philadelphia. The national and local leaders — including the NAACP’s Ben Jealous and the Leadership Conference’s Wade Henderson — are asking Corbett to “take immediate action to address the budget crisis ...read moreThe post Tom Corbett Pressured
Chris Christie and the “Failure Factories” | Russ on Reading
Chris Christie is tremendously popular in New Jersey primarily because he casts himself as a truth teller and New Jersey tough guy in the Tony Soprano mode. In these days of wishy-washy politicians and an endless stream of political correctness coming over the airwaves, Christie’s in-your-face style resonates. He will likely skate to an easy ...read moreThe post Chris Christie and the “Failure Fac
How the NYC DOE Dumped Low-Performing Kids into Struggling Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The New York Annenberg Institute for School Reform compiled. Shocking report on the Bloomberg administration’s policy of dumping “over-the-counter” students into struggling schools or schools already set for closure. This as a terrible disservice to the students. For the already struggling schools, it was like throwing a concrete weight to a drowning man. Instead of ...read moreThe post How the NY
Charter School In Philadelphia Abruptly Closes Its Doors | CBS Philly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A charter school in Philadelphia announced Friday, via its website, that it is closing its doors effective immediately due to “safety concerns and financial instability.” Solomon Charter School, located in the 1200 block of Vine Street in Center City, posted a letter on its website Friday by acting CEO David Weathington. The ...read moreThe post Charter School In Philadelphia
School Lunch Could Hit Skids if Shutdown Persists | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein on October 11, 2013 4:38 PM So unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the White House and congressional Republicans have actually started talking to each other, about maybe, possibly ending the government shutdown, although there was no final deal yet as of Friday afternoon. The move can’t come ...read moreThe post School Lunch Could Hit Skids if Shutdown Persists |
Philadelphia Child Dies, No School Nurse Available | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Governor Tom Corbett’s budget cuts may have claimed their first victim. Daniel Denvir writes: “Sixth-grader Laporshia Massey died from asthma complications, according to her father, who says he rushed her to the emergency room soon after she got home from school on the afternoon of Sept. 25. He says Laporshia had begun to feel ill ...read moreThe post Philadelphia Child Dies, No School Nurse Avail
Charter School In Philadelphia Abruptly Closes Its Doors | CBS Philly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A charter school in Philadelphia announced Friday, via its website, that it is closing its doors effective immediately due to “safety concerns and financial instability.” Solomon Charter School, located in the 1200 block of Vine Street in Center City, posted a letter on its website Friday by acting CEO David Weathington. The ...read moreThe post Charter School In Philadelphia
Online Provider K12 Inc.’s Stock Sinks on Poor Numbers | – Education Week
[Update (5:30): In a conference call with investors and analysts today, K12 Inc.'s executive chairman, Nate Davis, said the company took "full responsibility" for not reaching its student-enrollment goals. The company projected operating losses in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 of between $8 million and $10 million. See more details from the call at the ...read moreThe post Online Prov
Letter to the editor: Education ‘reform’ is hurting our children | News-Sentinel.com
How is all this education reform – with its increased testing and decreased funding – affecting the classrooms in schools in Indiana? Experienced teachers who have seen the “before” and are now seeing the “after” of all these “reforms” are feeling increased pressure to ensure that their students score high on these tests. Here are ...read moreThe post Letter to the editor: Education ‘reform’ is hu
Gary Rubinstein Analyzes Rhee’s Teacher Town Hall Meeting | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Few of us attended one of Michelle Rhee’s “teacher town hall” meetings in Los Angeles, Birmingham, and Philadelphia. Fortunately, the meeting in Los Angeles was videotaped and released. Gary Rubinstein, ex-TFA and current math teacher at Stuyvesant High School, watched the videotape closely and analyzed the exchanges. He shows how carefully stage-managed the event was, ...read moreThe post Gary Ru
Steve Perry: “No Excuses” – Except for himself… | Wait What?
In response to yesterday’s Wait, What? post about his latest twitter diatribe and the fact that his claims about Capital Prep’s success don’t match up the actual facts, Dr. Steve Perry, the self-proclaimed “Most Trusted Educator” in America, returned to tweeter to complain that, “One [critic] spent his morning counting my tweets not realizing I ...read moreThe post Steve Perry: “No Excuses” – Exce
Great News from Toledo | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A new grassroots group has formed, created by suburban parents in Ohio who recognize that Governor Kasich’s “reform” agenda is destroying their community schools. Here is a report from a regular reader: via Great News from Toledo | Diane Ravitch’s blog.The post Great News from Toledo | Diane Ravitch’s blog appeared first on NPE News Briefs.
Kindergarten gets tough as kids are forced to bubble in multiple choice tests | NY Daily News
Goodbye Play-Doh, hello No. 2 pencils. Because of a tough new curriculum and teacher evaluations, 4- and 5-year-olds are learning how to fill in bubbles on standardized math tests to show how much they know about numbers, shapes and order. Teachers said kindergartners are bewildered. “Sharing is not caring anymore; developmentally, it’s not the right ...read moreThe post Kindergarten gets tough as
Tech support? State Education Department sends users to sex-chat line | The Journal News | lohud.com
The state Education Department’s EngageNY website was directing people with tech support problems to a telephone number for an engagement of a different kind Thursday. Instead of getting help to log on, people who call the number are greeted with a perky female voice announcing, “Welcome to America’s hottest talk line! Ladies, press 1 to ...read moreThe post Tech support? State Education Departmen
The Fight to Save Common Core: Count Me Out | deutsch29
I have written a number of posts on the so-called Common Core State Standards (CCSS), an unprecedented effort by those outside of the classroom to exercise control over the classroom by standardizing what is taught in classrooms across the nation. Since CCSS did not originate with those forced to accept it, there has been resistance. Legislators are ...read moreThe post The Fight to Save Common Co
Child Abuse in New York: Bubble Tests for Kindergarten | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The mighty machine that Leaves No Child Untested has now arrived in kindergarten, as tots in New York City encounter their first standardized tests. Children are now learning what matters most in school and getting ready for the Common Core tests, which will place them on a sure path to college- and career-readiness. No more ...read moreThe post Child Abuse in New York: Bubble Tests for Kindergart
OCT 10
Mercedes Schneider Explains: Who Paid for the Common Core Standards | Diane Ravitch in the Huffington Post
Mercedes Schneider has undertaken an immense task. She decided to spend her free time — when she is not teaching — trying to figure out how much the Gates Foundation paid various organizations to write, develop, implement, promote, and advocate for the Common Core standards. This is a herculean job because the foundation has been ...read moreThe post Mercedes Schneider Explains: Who Paid for the C
TFA is Losing Its Luster | Schools Matter
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 ...read moreThe post TFA is Losing
Social Darwinism Resurrected for the New Gilded Age | Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue
Over at the Bridging Differences blog, a fascinating dialogue is occurring, where Michael Petrilli has been laying out the philosophical arguments for a two tier educational system. I appreciate Mr. Petrilli, because while some reformers hide their intentions behind mushy rhetoric, he has laid out his argument plainly, where it can be debated. His latest ...read moreThe post Social Darwinism Resur
Tele-Town Hall with Diane Ravitch: Wednesday, Oct. 16th at 8:00 pm EDT | Reclaim Reform
Tele-Town Hall with Diane Ravitch: Wednesday, Oct. 16th at 8:00 pm EDT In September a group of about a hundred bloggers was invited to a tele-conference conversation with Diane Ravitch. Earlier, we had all been asked to write and blog our own book reviews of her new book, Reign of Error. Our reviews had yet ...read moreThe post Tele-Town Hall with Diane Ravitch: Wednesday, Oct. 16th at 8:00 pm EDT
U.S. House Democrats: Sequestration Has Squeezed Schools | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein on October 10, 2013 3:20 PM Remember sequestration, those 5 percent across-the-board cuts to federal programs that went into effect last March? These days, with the debt-ceiling debate and the shutdown sucking up all of the oxygen in Washington, it seems some in Congress may have pushed them to the backburner. To ...read moreThe post U.S. House Democrats: Sequestration Has Squeezed
Tales of Inequity in Chris Christie’s New Jersey, Part I I Jersey Jazzman
All high schools are equal in Chris Christie’s New Jersey – but, as David Sciarra explains in this great piece, some are more equal than others via Jersey Jazzman: Tales of Inequity in Chris Christie’s New Jersey, Part I.The post Tales of Inequity in Chris Christie’s New Jersey, Part I I Jersey Jazzman appeared first on NPE News Briefs.
Parents Want To Block CPS From Sharing Kids’ Records With National Database | CBS Chicago
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. 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 individualize ...read moreThe post Parents Wa
Seattle Teacher Jesse Hagopian Schools NBC’s Education Nation | The Real News
Jesse Hagopian, a leader of Garfield High’s historic test boycott, given rare opportunity to challenge corporate education reform policies at the Gate’s funded Education Nation, a testament to the growing national opposition to high stakes testing via Seattle Teacher Jesse Hagopian Schools NBC’s Education Nation.The post Seattle Teacher Jesse Hagopian Schools NBC’s Education Nation | The Real News
School district says ‘no’ to Walmart | The Answer Sheet
Posted by Valerie Strauss on October 10, 2013 at 3:09 pm Why did a small school district in suburban Chicago just tell Walmart that it would not provide major tax breaks for the company to build a 300,000-square-foot store? The school board of Summit Hill District 161 in Tinley Park, 25 miles southwest of Chicago, ...read moreThe post School district says ‘no’ to Walmart | The Answer Sheet appear
High-Tech Trouble in Fort Bend, Texas, and Guilford County, North Carolina | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Fort Bend Independent School District in Texas bought iPads for students in grades 2-8. After nineteen months, the district put a stop to the 1:1 program and commissioned a report on the initiative, which was “scathing,” according to an article by Ben Herold in Education Week. Guilford County, North Carolina, bought Amplify tablets for ...read moreThe post High-Tech Trouble in Fort Bend, Texas
Does “Poverty” Cause Low Achievement? | Economic Policy Institute
On her “Bridging Differences” blog, educator Deborah Meier began a discussion with Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, on whether urging disadvantaged women to defer childbearing until they had sufficient income (whether from work or marriage) to adequately support their offspring would result in better outcomes for those children. This, in turn, led ...read moreThe post Does “Povert
inBloom, Education Technology and the Murdoch-Klein Connection: A Son-of-Frankenstein B-movie Sequel? | Andrea Gabor
Last Sunday’s New York Times ran a fascinating story on the controversy surrounding inBloom, which promises to serve as a one-stop warehouse-in-the-cloud for student data, but which many educators and parents worry might compromise the privacy of kids in grades K-12. Like a number of major education-reform ventures, this one was launched by a group ...read moreThe post inBloom, Education Technolog
Petrilli: Schools Are Best Way to End Poverty | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Before I had my own blog, I shared a blog called “Bridging Differences” with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week. We had a great run of five years, and then I started this blog. Since then, Deborah has had exchanges with various conservative thinkers. Currently, she is trying to “bridge differences” with Michael Petrilli of ...read moreThe post Petrilli: Schools Are Best Way to End Poverty | D
Common Core in the Real World: Destroying Literacy through Standardization (Again) | the becoming radical
I have a brief comedy routine I use with my students, typically early in each course I teach—in part to introduce them to me, and in part to make a point about literacy.* The joke goes like this: “When I graduated high school,” I say, ” I had 7,000 comic books,” slight pause, “and no ...read moreThe post Common Core in the Real World: Destroying Literacy through Standardization (Again) | the becom
Capital Prep’s Steve Perry: A Connecticut taxpayer funded voice for the education reform industry | Wait What?
The school day began and Hartford Board of Education employee Steve Perry is busy using his personal twitter account to attack his opponents. His target on this day, Diane Ravitch, the nation’s leading public education advocate. Perry is the principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut. His six figure income comes from the ...read moreThe post Capital Prep’s Steve Perry
Education-Labor Collaboration Marks Important Beginning | janresseger
What makes the tide of public opinion turn against the conventional wisdom? It can happen. I remember the nation slowly turning against the war in Vietnam. The struggle involved rancor and violence. One reason opinion shifted on Vietnam is that the military draft ensured that most families were personally touched by the war. The media ...read moreThe post Education-Labor Collaboration Marks Im
The Two Faces of John Arnold | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A friend in a conservative think tank said it was time for me to write a post praising John Arnold for giving $10 million to keep Headstart alive during the federal government shutdown. Arnold was an Enron trader who left with $3 billion before the Enron scam collapsed, destroying the pensions of everyone who worked ...read moreThe post The Two Faces of John Arnold | Diane Ravitch’s blog appeared
Pasi Sahlberg’s Lessons for the U.S. | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Pasi Sahlberg–the great scholar and expert on Finnish education– has been named a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, starting in January 2014. This is great news for Harvard but even greater news for the U.S. because it means more people will have a chance to hear him and learn from him. ...read moreThe post Pasi Sahlberg’s Lessons for the U.S. | Diane Ravitch’s blog a
Why Should NJ Teachers Unions Play Along? | Jersey Jazzman
Chris Christie has spent the last four years blaming the teachers unions for everything from state budget woes to the “opportunity gap” to halitosis. Why, then, would anyone be surprised when these same unions finally decide they’ve had enough? The Newark Teachers Union on Thursday declined to sign off on a $30 million federal grant ...read moreThe post Why Should NJ Teachers Unions Play Along? |
K12 Inc. stock loses about 40% since yesterday | Blog For Arizona
by David Safier The markets are closed for the day. K12 Inc. ended yesterday at $28.59. It dropped to $17.60 at today’s close, a fall of almost 40%. The primary reason is that its earnings are lower than projected, because its enrollment is lower than expected. I don’t know if this is a typical stock ...read moreThe post K12 Inc. stock loses about 40% since yesterday | Blog For Arizona appeared fi
Test Related Stress in the Schools of New York State- Reed it and Weep | With A Brooklyn Accent
Test Related Stress in the Schools of New York State- Reed it and Weep Danielle Brooks I am a licensed clinical social worker in New York State and have been providing psychotherapy services since 1995. I work with parents, teachers, and students from all socioeconomic backgrounds representing more than 20 different school districts in Suffolk ...read moreThe post Test Related Stress in the School
Why the ‘GREAT Teachers and Principals Act’ is not great | The Answer Sheet
Legislation in Congress called the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act sounds good but is anything but great in its proposal for new educator preparation programs, according to this post by Kenneth Zeichner, the Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington, a former vice president and current fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and a ...read moreThe post