NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
Common Core Ratings: “Hunger Games” More Complex Than “Grapes of Wrath”? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
An article by Blaine Greteman in The New Republic reports that “lexile ratings” have been assigned to various novels by the Common Core standards. Greteman is an English professor at the University of Iowa. Lexile ratings score readings according to their difficulty level. This is too absurd to be true, yet The New Republic is ...read moreThe post Common Core Ratings: “Hunger Games” More Complex T
They’re packing 50 students into L.A. high school classes | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
Arne Duncan green-lighted it. Remember? “Class size has been a sacred cow and I think we need to take it on,” Duncan told his pals at the American Enterprise Institute over croissants back in 2009. Now fast forward. Here’s what’s become of the “sacred cow.” In Dennis Danziger’s English class at Venice High, they play ...read moreThe post They’re packing 50 students into L.A. high school classes |
Newark Students Organize Boycott, Demand Local Control of Schools | Teacher Under Construction
Last April, Newark Students Union led a 1,000 student walkout in protest of massive budget cuts their schools were facing. Newark Students Union is at it again. They have organized a mass boycott for this Monday, November 4th in order to demand local control of their schools. They are demanding this control because they believe ...read moreThe post Newark Students Organize Boycott, Demand Local Co
Common Core Geniuses and Our Children | NYC Educator
Today at Perdido Street School, we see one of the most absurd conceivable uses of Common Core Curriculum–rating classic books by grade level. Reality-Based Educator Quotes The Atlantic: Here’s a pop quiz: according to the measurements used in the new Common Core Standards, which of these books would be complex enough for a ninth grader? ...read moreThe post Common Core Geniuses and Our Children |
Segregated Knowledge: Curriculum Revision in Reform Contexts from Pre-Brown to Now | Cloaking Inequity
November 1, 2013 | Julian Vasquez Heilig Segregated Knowledge: Curriculum Revision in Reform Contexts from Pre-Brown to Now The landmark case Brown v. Board of Education set a new legal precedent in the United States that dismantled the “strange career” (Woodward, 2001 [1966]) of Jim Crow. The purpose of this law, from the standpoint of the ...read moreThe post Segregated Knowledge: Curriculum Rev
Can Super-Rich Buy Seattle School Board Race? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Sue Peters, an activist parent running for the local school board in Seattle, has been targeted for defeat by some of the wealthiest people in Seattle. She has raised $31,000. She has been a public school parent for 10 years. Her opponent has raised over $100,00. In addition, some of the wealthiest people in the ...read moreThe post Can Super-Rich Buy Seattle School Board Race? | Diane Ravitch’s b
After $50 million deal, District finances still precarious | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
by Dale Mezzacappa on Oct 31 2013 Wednesday was a rare sight in City Hall: Mayor Nutter and City Council President Darrell Clarke standing next to each other and agreeing on something. The something was a deal for the city and District to work together to get $50 million in promised revenue to the School District through ...read moreThe post After $50 million deal, District finances still precario
Yes, Some New Jersey Students Have To Go To Schools That Look Like This | Huffington Post
Posted: 10/31/2013 4:58 pm EDT | Updated: 10/31/2013 6:02 pm EDT FOLLOW: Chris Christie, Governor Chris Christie, Education: New Jersey, New Jersey Schools Disrepair, New Jersey Schools Emergent Repairs, School Development Authority, School Development Authority New Jersey, Trenton Central High School, Politics News Students at New Jersey’s most resource-starved public schools walk down hallways
Educators contending with dramatic growth of low-income students | Free Press & Jones Post
By Wes Wolfe / Staff Writer Published: Friday, October 18, 2013 at 23:12 PM. PHOTO GALLERIES Low-income students Young and poor isn’t the exception now — it’s the norm. More than half of all state public school students qualify for free or reduced lunch, an indicator of a low-income household. In Lenoir County, that’s 76.9 ...read moreThe post Educators contending with dramatic growth of low-incom
No Excuses | George Wood – The Forum for Education and Democracy
by George Wood, Superintendent of the Federal Hocking Local Schools in Stewart, Ohio; Executive Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy; Board Chair of The Coalition of Essential Schools The National Center for Educational Statistics says low-income children now make up 48% of the children attending public school. In my district, which sits in ...read moreThe post No Excuses | George Wo
Students at Elite High School Boycott Teacher Evaluation Tests | Alternet
November 1, 2013 | For some high-achievers at Stuyvesant High School, flunking their latest test is no big deal. A group of students at the elite high school in lower Manhattan pledged to opt out of the English tests that were administered today, saying they’re opposed to the exam’s purpose. The tests are low-stakes for ...read moreThe post Students at Elite High School Boycott Teacher Evaluation
Mark Naison Explains How He Became an Activist | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Mark Naison, a co-founder of the Badass Teachers Association, explains how he became an education activist. He was trained as a historian, and he became increasingly interested in recovering the history of African-Americans in the Bronx. He worked in many schools and saw the power of community history, how it awakened students’ interest in study ...read moreThe post Mark Naison Explains How He Bec
Southold Superintendent demands right to opt out of data sharing, citing state’s contract with inBloom | NYC Public School Parents: NYC Public School Parents
As more and more districts give back their Race to the Top funds to protect student privacy, so they don’t have to sign up for data dashboards that will be populated with personal data from the inBloom cloud, they also realize that this does not spare their student data from being uploaded by NYSED anyway. ...read moreThe post Southold Superintendent demands right to opt out of data sharing, citin
Have North Carolina’s teachers reached the boiling point? | NC Policy Watch
Posted on 10/31/2013 by Lindsay Wagner Educators prepare for a walk-in; others seek greener pastures On Monday, November 4, many teachers and support staff across North Carolina plan to take part in a “walk-in” to encourage a richer dialogue between community members and educators about what is happening in the state’s public schools. Trish Lowe, ...read moreThe post Have North Carolina’s teachers
Who’s Really Behind Campbell Brown’s Sneaky Education Outfit? | Mother Jones
Early one morning in July, former CNN anchor Campbell Brown appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, pen in hand, notes fanned out in front of her. Viewers might have mistaken her as a fill-in host, but Brown had swung by 30 Rock in her new role as a self-styled education reformer, a crusader against sexual deviants ...read moreThe post Who’s Really Behind Campbell Brown’s Sneaky Education Outfit? | Mothe
Traditional schools and charters not comparable | ABQJournal Online
As a fourth-grade teacher with Albuquerque Public Schools, I read with great interest the editorial in Sunday’s Journal. The part that caught my attention was the information about Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science. According to the editorial, their teacher evaluation system is responsible for the proficiency rates in reading and math to rise to ...read moreThe post Traditional schools and
NYC Parents star at Senator Flanagan’s hearings on Common Core, testing and privacy | NYC Public School Parents
Thursday, October 31, 2013 NYC Parents star at Senator Flanagan’s hearings on Common Core, testing and privacy Wednesday’s NY Senate hearings on the Common Core, testing and privacy were long but revealing. After our press conference, the morning started off with Merryl Tisch, head of the Regents, saying that the tests had caused much upset ...read moreThe post NYC Parents star at Senator Flanaga
OCT 31
Race to the Top=A Pig in a Poke | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post Race to the
Our Kids, Under Constant Surveillance? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post
Southold Superintendent demands right to opt out of data sharing, citing state’s contract with inBloom | NYC Public School Parents
As more and more districts give back their Race to the Top funds to protect student privacy, so they don’t have to sign up for data dashboards that will be populated with personal data from the inBloom cloud, they also realize that this does not spare their student data from being uploaded by NYSED anyway. ...read moreThe post Southold Superintendent demands right to opt out of data sharing, citin
A ridiculous Common Core test for first graders | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS October 31 at 4:00 pm (freepik.com) Why are some kids crying when they do homework these days? Here’s why, from award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York. Burris has for more than a year chronicled on this blog the many problems with the test-driven reform in New York (here, and here and here and here, ...read moreThe post A ridiculous Common Cor
Craig Barrett might be the most powerful man in Arizona education, but should he be? | Tucson Weekly
by David Safier Meet Craig Barrett. He’s the closest Arizona comes to having its own member of the Billionaire Boys’ Club, that group of high-tech wizards, hedge fund gurus and other ridiculously wealthy people who think, because they’ve figured out how to make billions and know 50 ways to tell their underlings to “Produce or ...read moreThe post Craig Barrett might be the most powerful man in Ari
Racing to the Bottom through School Choice and Privatization | janresseger
Posted on October 31, 2013 by janresseger Here is a third and final reflection stimulated by my trip last weekend to Fort Wayne, Indiana. (The first two pieces are here and here.) At an afternoon forum last Sunday on public education—during panel discussions and in informal conversations—I heard people trying to parse out the impact ...read moreThe post Racing to the Bottom through School Choice
An Open Letter to Dr. Hite on Parent Priorities for $45 Million Restored to Philadelphia Schools | Parents United for Public Education
Dear Superintendent Hite: This year, our schools opened with a lack of resources any educator would have deemed unimaginable and intolerable. You acknowledged the severity of the situation in a recent interview, describing our schools as “functional types of schools” lacking in the “resources that we typically expect in schools.” This is the reason why ...read moreThe post An Open Letter to Dr. Hi
The Network For Public Education Endorses Four Candidates for Atlanta School Board
The Network for Public Education has endorsed Cynthia Briscoe Brown, Ed Johnson, Mary Palmer, and Nisha Simama for Atlanta School Board. Candidate for the District 8 At Large seat, Cynthia Briscoe Brown has played an active role in the Atlanta school community for decades. As an attorney, Briscoe Brown has helped several APS schools to ...read moreThe post The Network For Public Education Endorses
Links to The Daily Show! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post Links to The Daily Show! | Diane Ravitch’s blog appeared first on NPE News Briefs.
Denver school board election accusations spotlight tangled web of relationships | The Colorado Independent
Contracts, fiscal agents, bond attorneys — the language of the allegations and of the answers to the allegations fails to satisfy Shelby Kinney-Lang October 29, 2013 Denver Board of Education candidates scoff at the raft of conflict-of-interest allegations that have marked the race, but the allegations may yet gain traction given the vast sums and ...read moreThe post Denver school board election
L.A. Teacher Asks: Will Deasy’s iPad Deal Bankrupt Los Angeles Schools? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post L.A. Teacher Asks: Will Deasy’s iPad Deal Bankrupt Los Angeles Schools? | Diane R
#optout in Wisconsin | @ THE CHALK FACE
OCTOBER 30, 2013 BY TIMOTHY D. SLEKAR 3 COMMENTS It’s official. We are now Wisconsin opt outers! Dear Principal: Michelle and I are requesting that Lacey not participate in state standardized testing during the current school year. Furthermore, we ask that no record of this testing be part of Lacey’s permanent file, as we do ...read moreThe post #optout in Wisconsin | @ THE CHALK FACE appeared fi
Malloy/Democrats make mockery of Connecticut’s once prominent role in campaign finance reform | Wait What?
Thanks to the changes in Connecticut’s campaign finance system that were initiated and signed into law by Governor Malloy, corporate education reformers Jonathan Sackler and Mary Corson each wrote $10,000 checks to Connecticut’s Democratic Party this year. It is hardly the first time that Sackler and his wife, Mary Corson, have ponied up for Governor Malloy. ...read moreThe post Malloy/Democrats m
Public Threat, Private Gain: How Scare Tactics Steer Education Policy to Benefit Corporate Interests | Alternet
For more than 100 years, K-12 education policy has been driven by fears of foreign domination. Now that ideology is taking over higher ed, and lining corporate coffers in the process. Photo Credit: Suzanne Tucker via Shutterstock.com October 31, 2013 | All innovative, creative systems are…divergent. —Gregory Bateson In the fall of 2006, a special ...read moreThe post Public Threat, Private Gain:
Grade school test scores plunge, but not at all schools | chicagotribune.com
By Diane Rado and Alex Richards, Chicago Tribune reporters 12:39 a.m. CDT, October 31, 2013 The push to toughen state exams for Illinois grade school students triggered widespread drops in 2013 scores, with hundreds of schools in some of the state’s poorest communities seeing performances plunge, test results show. But some schools in affluent suburbs ...read moreThe post Grade school test scores
Michelle Rhee and I Will Debate on Feb 6 at Lehigh University | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post Michelle Rhee and I Will Debate on Feb 6 at Lehigh University | Diane Ravitch’s b
Mom: My autistic son ‘is lost in a sea of standards’ at school | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS October 31 at 7:00 am Earlier this year I wrote about a boy in Florida who was forced to take a standardized test even though he was born with a brain stem but not a complete brain and doesn’t have the cognitive ability to understand the difference between an apple and an ...read moreThe post Mom: My autistic son ‘is lost in a sea of standards’ at school | The Answer Sheet appea
Students at Elite HS in NYC Boycott Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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 ...read moreThe post Students at Elite HS in NYC Boycott Tests | Diane Ravitc
Performance of Students With Disabilities Hard to Gauge in School Accountability | On Special Education – Education Week
By Christina Samuels on October 29, 2013 6:29 PM Getting a clear picture of how students with disabilities have performed under the accountability measures once mandated by No Child Left Behind is difficult because of differences among states in measuring progress, says a report from the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, a ...read moreThe post Performance of Student
A new ‘no excuses’ school reform mantra | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS October 31 at 4:00 am The “no-excuses” school reform movement is famous for giving short shrift to how students are affected by living in poverty and expecting teachers to be able to overcome the consequences. Here’s a different “no excuses” philosophy, by George Wood, superintendent of the Federal Hocking Local Schools in Stewart, Ohio; executive director ...read moreThe post A