Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Schooling in the Ownership Society
We thought we were done with Vallas but... he's back
Chicago teacher and 'urban mom' responds to Duncan on Common Core
Rahm busts a move. Pushes elected school board off the ballot
From Walmart to the White House
The wild expansion of privately-managed charters
Helen Gym -- The New 'Pay for Play'
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk
Schooling in the Ownership Society
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Look out. Vallas is back in town. We tried to finish him off back in 2001 but...No sooner had I finished posting about how the Working Families Party and allies were running Paul Vallas out of Bridgeport, than I get the news that he has been selected as Gov. Quinn's running mate here in Illinois. Yes, the master of the disaster in from Philly to New Orleans and from Haiti to Chile, the buster of teacher unions, the school privatization guru himself, is back with a vengeance.Sun-Times political reporter Fran Spielman and David McKinney call it, "a stunning political move that puzzled many
Carolyn Alessio, a teacher at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, has a piece on the Common Core in today's Tribune. Allessio is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. She's also a writer of nonfiction and fiction.Notice, she refers to the Common Core as a "curriculum" and not just as state standards. I mention this because some, including Ed Sec. Arne Duncan, claim that CC is NOT about curriculum, as if the bevy of tests tied to the standards, not to mention how schools and teachers interpret t
Rahm and "Slow Eddie" BurkeSome Thanksgiving thoughts...I just learned that a group of domesticated turkeys is called a rafter.Thanks this morning, go out to the handful of stand-up aldermen (those very words have a strange sound leaving my vocal chords) who make up the Progressive Caucus. It must be hard to soar like eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys, meaning the rafter of lickspittles who make up the City Council.Rahm and his boys pulled another fast one in the Council the other day when he got Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the Transportation Committee, to introduce
NOV 27
Byrd-Bennett, the Great Disruptor, is at it again
“This is reflective of the [schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s] commitment to bring stability to our communities after consolidating underutilized schools.” -- CPS Liar-in-Chief Becky Carroll.Last week we heard this from CPS' number-two, Tim Cawley: “It is highly disruptive to relocate people from their existing school to another school.” He meant, of course, that it's disruptive only when kids fr
NOV 26
Making learning authentic
With attacks mounting on colleges of education, including from Sec. of Ed Arne Duncan, I'm happy to read the occasional story about good young teachers who learned their skills in good teacher training programs. Yesterday's piece in DNAinfo gives us a snapshot of 5th-grade teacher Heather Reed at Chicago's Pritzker Elementary, teaching the way it's supposed to be done. Ms. Reed comes out of DePaul
NOV 25
What Vallas did in North Chicago
“Vallas ushered in an era of massive expansion of standardized testing; the privatization of public schools through outsourcing and charter school expansion; and the devastating policy of school turnarounds, which resulted in the firing of scores of black and veteran teachers,” Lewis said after Vallas was picked by Quinn.Before he was booted out as supt. of Bridgeport, Paul Vallas, one of the grea
NOV 22
Racing to the top?
Arne Duncan, as usual is sticking to his misfiring guns but criticism is mounting over his $5 billion in Race To The Top grants showing no real measurable improvement in schools. No surprise there since the whole strategy was flawed from the get go. The money was used to drive massive school closures in minority communities, the unfettered expansion of privately managed charter schools, standardiz
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Sylvia Mathews BurwellAs Wal-Mart workers are engaging in protests and Black Friday job actions nationwide, to shine another spotlight on the company's anti-worker policies and unlivable wages, the Obama White House is building a new, cozy relationship with the company.Remember back in 2007, when candidate Barack Obama told union voters, "I won't shop at Wal-Mart" and when 8 days later, Michelle Obama resigned from the board of the anti-union company's supplier? My, how times have changed.Since April, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the former president of the Walmart Foundation, has been se
NEWS RELEASE NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY CENTERFor Immediate Release November 26, 2013 Contact: Jamie Horwitz, 202-549-4921, jhdcpr@starpower.netPrivate Education Management Organizations Running Public Schools Expand –44 Percent of Charter School Students in 2011-12 Attended Schools Operated by EMOs New report shows 908,000 students in 2011-2012 attended privately-managed schools in 35 states plus D.C. – a major increase from 733,000 enrolled a year earlier. Michigan (204 schools) Florida (177), Ohio (110) and Arizona (108) have the most privately-managed schools. An increasing number of for-p
Helen GymHelen Gym, a Philadelphia public school parent and founder of Parents United for Public Education asks: "Is the ‘right to know’ the new ‘pay for play’"? Gym says that throughout most of the decision-making process regarding the school closings, the public was kept in the dark.“Pay to play” is a widely reviled practice in government, but that’s effectively what the District’s legal argument would establish through its challenge of an open records case in state court.For more than 10 months, Parents United for Public Education and our lawyers at the Public Interest Law Center
NOV 18
An easy slide from Gates to Pearson
Kate JamesA week ago I gave the example of Bruce Reed, the assistant to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, being named president of the Broad Foundation, to illustrate the easy movement between government, corporate reform and power philanthropy. Another earlier example would be Joel Klein's transition from N.Y.C. schools chancellor to a power position within Ru