Schools Matter:
The Dirty Water on Mike Pence's Fascist CECI
Charter $chool CEOs of New York
Happy Early Birthday, Arne Duncan, on Your 52nd Birthday
Schools Matter All Week
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by Doug MartinMore information is coming into me, as we speak, concerning the CECI detailed below. I will be following up with more writings concerning Pence's group, so please sign the petition to tell Pence to stop his educational power grab. And call Mike Pence at 1 (317) 232-4567). For an insightful take on fascism to apply to contemporary America, see political science scholar Lawrence Britt's "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism" here. DM)When Glenda Ritz walked out on the recent state board of education fiasco in Indiana, the corporate Indy Star quickly branded the supt. of pub
The guy at the bottom--that's the Chancellor of 1,600 New York City Public Schools. Remember--it's all about the children. From the Daily News:
I know, I know, you just turned 49 on November 6, but since I missed your birthday (sorry), I thought I would get ahead of the game and wish you the best on the one birthday that all of America's teachers and parents will celebrate, just days before your departure from the U. S. Department of Education in 2016.And yes, I know, some other corporate shill will take your place at ED, but it won't be the same. No one can come close to your false innocence, your feigned interest, your formulaic and robotic responses, your gift for platitudes and redundant superlatives, your "Rosa Parks moment&
YESTERDAY
The Bill and Melinda Gates Fixers
Gates money continues to drive projects to put its peculiar definition on texts schools must teach and to diminish all subjects except Language Arts and math.by Susan OhanianWhat Good News! Bill and Melinda Gates Fixers are critical of evaluation rubrics. What Bad News! Bill and Melinda Gates Fixers are designing new teacher evaluation rubrics. They're working with grants from the Bill and Melin
Nashville Metro Puts Brakes on Charter Expansion--CorpEd Spews
A clip from the Tennessean:The Metro school board approved a plan Tuesday night effectively restricting the authorization of new charter schools next year to South Nashville or to schools tagged for three straight years of poor performance.The resolution approved by the board requires all new charter schools to be located either within areas where schools are above 120 percent of capacity or in an
NOV 14
Regarding Goldhaber on VAM at AEI
My fellow blogger, John Thompson, just posted a piece that looks at the new Mathematica study on teacher transfer incentives, and he begins with this paragraph, to which I would like to respond:Maybe I’m naïve, but I found it hopeful when economist Dan Goldhaber told the conservative American Enterprise Institute that value-added models work at the elementary level, at least in comparison with oth
The Potential Value of Teacher Transfer Data
Maybe I’m naïve, but I found it hopeful when economist Dan Goldhaber told the conservative American Enterprise Institute that value-added models work at the elementary level, at least in comparison with other ways of evaluating teachers. But, he cited evidence that value-added might not work quite so well at the high school level. He concluded that less emphasis would have been placed on the value
Opportunity to Let MA DESE How You Feel about Common Core Testing Plan
Instructions below for getting on the agenda.November 18, 2013, 5-7 p.m. - Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 75 Pleasant Street, Malden (Meeting Notice Posted: 11/13/13, 9:05 A.M.)November 19, 2013, 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. - Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 75 Pleasant Street, Malden (Meeting Notice Posted: 11/13/13, 9:05 A.M.)The Board of Elementary and Secondary Educa
NOV 13
Are STEM employment opportunities "tremendous"?
Sent to US News and World ReportIn "The Latest Tools for Teaching STEM: Video Games," (Nov. 11), Karen Cator of the Digital Promise company is quoted as saying that "We must engage many more Americans in developing their STEM expertise because the opportunity to find gainful employment is tremendous." Articles are now appearing regularly in the popular and professional press r
CTU Launches "Let Us Teach" Campaign
BY BECKY SCHLIKERMANStaff ReporterThe Chicago Teachers Union Thursday urged its members and parents to take a stand against standardized tests.CTU President Karen Lewis announced the “Let us Teach” campaign in Chicago as similar measures were rolled out in cities across the country.“Why must our public school children be subjected to this battery of pointless standardized testing throughout the ye
Obama Has Lost the Catholics on Common Core: ". . .a recipe for standardized workforce preparation"
Ge r a r d V. Br a d l e y , Pr of e s s or of L a wc/o University of Notre Dame, The Law School3156 Eck Hall of Law, PO Box 780Notre Dame, IN 46556October 16, 2013This letter was sent individually to each Catholic bishop in the United States. 132 Catholic professors signed the letter.Your Excellency:We are Catholic scholars who have taught for years in America’s colleges and universities. Most
Pearson's ReadyGen Common Core Texts Full of Errors
From the Daily News:It's a bungled effort to boost standards.Teachers across the city are reporting problems with the new reading and writing textbooks recommended by the Department of Education. Not only were books delivered more than a month into the school year in some cases, but the lessons from testing and publishing giant Pearson are poorly planned, too long and full of mistakes.“They a
NY Parents Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore
Well it's about time. NY parents are finally raging against the Common Core and the punitive high stakes testing that labels their children failures. Has this insanity finally reached a tipping point? Stay tuned.Watch the video coming out of this meeting last night and share it widely. "They also criticized the increased student testing and teacher evaluations associated with Common Core.&qu
NOV 12
DoDEA: What Can Happen without Corporate Education Reform, NCLB, RttT, etc.
When NCLBA exempted Department of Defense schools, some whined that it was unfair: after all. Rather than protesting the grandiose stupidity of the law to begin with, the National School Boards Association contended that DoDEA schools should be put into the same vice as the the rest of America's schools that receive federal funds. Misery truly loves company. So what do we see as a result at the
NOV 11
Common Core’s nonsensical, corporate questions confuse even Shinonome Nano!
Common Core’s nonsensical, corporate questions confuse even Shinonome Nano! #CCSS #LAUSD http://t.co/L1qOH2gQqi— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) November 12, 2013
St. Paul Teachers in Historic Battle
Sign the petition and support the St. Paul teachers.A message from Jesse Hagopian:I have been in close contact with the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers union president Mary Catherine Ricker who is leading one of the most important struggles for public education in the nation.Mary is very inspired by the Seattle MAP boycott and has asked for my support in their struggle against standardized testi
Part 3: Has Corporate Education "Reform" Earned Another 25 Years to Complete the Resegregation and Privatization Agendas?
Part 1 here and Part 2 here:The continued hydroplaning of NAEP scores nationally allows the world to see what the corporate education losers will not admit: the 3rd generation of test based accountability is not working. Rather than moving beyond corporate ed reform's status quo (oxymoron alert), however, Duncan and the shrinking elements of the corporate media that still print the CorpEd news re
NOV 10
Teachers and Parents Organize Against High Stakes Corporate Control in Knoxville
For those unfamiliar with the all-in corporate takeover of Tennessee public schools, here is a short list of readings to catch up:Schools Matter: Tennessee's Milken Plan for Teacher Evaluation ...www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/.../tennessees-milken-plan-for-teacher.htm...Nov 2, 2011 - Someone asking questions about Tennessee's off-the-Milken-shelfteacher evaluation plan? Teachers occupying their sch
Grinding Rogues Honest
This is not about our public school system. But, as I see it, this is what I want to find in our public school system.When I was in high school I got a speech once from the basketball coach intended to teach me a life lesson. I imagine I was goofing around rather than applying myself with absolute discipline and determination to the task at hand of jumping in place or over a bench or something o
NOV 08
Tea Party School Bus Hijack, Muncie, Indiana
by Doug Martin While Douglas Storm and I were exposing the corporate assault on our schools on WFHB radio on Eugene V. Debs’ birthday during the Zinn Read-In at Purdue, Tea Party front men were spreading misinformation in Muncie, Indiana, which stopped a property tax referendum vote from passing, leaving public school children after this year without bus transportation to schools. One Tea Party
Educational Innovation, Bill Gates and Rocketship, Inc. Style
That was then,this is now, designed by Gates Foundation & Rocketship Education, Inc. (is that a Sputnik that I hear beeping??):Up close and depersonalized:From WaPo: As the quality of software improves, Danner thinks “Rocketeers” could spend as much as 50 percent of the school day with computers.
Part 2: Has Corporate Education "Reform" Earned Another 25 Years to Complete the Resegregation and Privatization Agendas?
As noted in Part 1 of our consideration of the 2013 NAEP results, the twenty years of NAEP testing prior to 1990 are not presented this year by Duncan's Little Shop of Horrors. To do so would serve as a reminder of how the dramatic narrowing of the achievement gaps between white and minority children came to a halt, essentially, in 1988, the same year that the resegregation of American schools bec