Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Inner-city schools, students being bypassed by college recruiters
Colleges and universities are systematically avoiding recruitment of black, Latino and poor students and telling their recruiters to bypass urban public schools. This according to a report in the L.A. Times, "College recruiters give low-income public campuses fewer visits."A Times survey of public and private high schools across Southern California found that campuses with a high proport
DEC 26
Big bucks to be made in K-12 ed
There's big money to be made in K-12 education, especially in the technology area. So says the New Schools Venture Fund which bankrolls much of what passes for school reform these days. According to the NSVF blog,"Venture investment in K12 education technology was up 6% in 2013 totaling $452 million." But not everyone's playing the game, says WSJ. The main party-pooper is newly-elected N
How about telling the Tale of 2 Cities in Chicago?
Lovely Warren (left) celebrates victoryThe two-cities movement is spreading beyond New York City, where it swept Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio into office. This same focus on inequality is also what led to the election last month of Lovely Warren as Mayor of Rochester.According to the New York Times:Warren won election as mayor of Rochester last month with a campaign lamenting what she called the “tw
DEC 26
Trib's "magic moment" of 2013. Mine too.
This from today's Chicago Tribune:Protesters of 'Persepolis'-gateMarch 15, Lane Tech College Prep High School, ChicagoMassive school closings, epic teacher layoffs. Chicago Public Schools officials had plenty to answer for in 2013. So much that their decision in the spring to yank Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel/memoir "Persepolis" out of schools and libraries because of a complaint (abo
Belmont's Blues
Roybal Learning CenterThere's a pretty good piece in yesterday's L.A. Times about the trials and tribulations of the once-giant Belmont High School. I wrote extensively about Belmont more than a decade ago, opposing the board's decision to replace the 5,000 (mostly Mexican) student school with another humongous school-- the Belmont Learning Complex (now named the Roybal Learning Center), built on
DEC 25
Christmas Quotables
Christmas in Washington Jonathan Merritt in The Atlantic: "If he were taking the red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York today, Jesus might be profiled for additional security screening." -- The Race of Jesus Unknown, Yet PowerfulNSA Whistle Blower Edward Snowden: "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a
Still cleaning up Rhee's Value-Added mess in D.C.
Seattle teachers protest Rhee-forms.They're still cleaning up the debris from Michelle Rhee's signature reform in D.C.. Her top-down imposed Value-Added IMPACT system of teacher evaluation has long caused havoc in the system here and elsewhere. Remember, it's also a central piece of Arne Duncan's Race To The Top.The teachers union should have never agreed to IMPACT and evals based on student test
DEC 24
View from Florida: Chicago charter scandals look familiar
Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott visits Florida charter schoolChicago's scandal-ridden charter schools look eerily familiar to educators down here in Florida where public schools have long been free give-aways to Govs. Bush and Scott's corporate and political cronies. It seems that almost anyone with blood or alcohol running through their veins can get a charter here in the Sunshine State --- students an
DEC 23
Weekend Quotables
Bill de BlasioN.Y. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio"He [Bloomberg] did not address inequality. He looked away from it. He governed during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and he never addressed it. We will decidedly write a new chapter.'' -- USA TodayDonald Gaynes, Local 597 member“I used to go down to the union hall and would be there from opening to closing,” said Donald G
Reporter pulls up a rock and finds a charter school rat's nest
Salim Ucan (second from left),Vice-president of Concept Schools speaks to at the Illinois Network of Charter School's conference in Chicago. | Michael R. Schmidt-For Sun-Times MediaAce Sun-Times investigative reporter Dan Mihalopoulos turns over the rock on Concept Charter Schools and shows exactly how the grand charter school hustle plays out here in Chicago. Under the rock we find everyone from