A Report Card on Education Reform - NYTimes.com

A Report Card on Education Reform - NYTimes.com:

A Report Card on Education Reform

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Danny Moloshok/Reuters (left); Charles V. Tines/Associated PressMitch Daniels, president of Purdue University, left, and John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable.

I sat down last week in Washington with Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, and Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and current Purdue University president, after they had met with several dozen chief executives of big companies to talk about education. Their meeting was at the office of the Business Roundtable, the corporate lobbying group, and joining us for the conversation was John Engler, the former Michigan governor who runs the Business Roundtable.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images, for The New York TimeEducation Secretary Arne Duncan

Mr. Duncan is a Democrat, of course, andMr. Daniels and Mr. Engler are Republicans. But they all sympathize with many of the efforts of the so-called education reform movement. I asked them whether the country’s education system was really in crisis and what mistakes school reforme

Pew Trusts: Untrustworthy Public Pension Destroyers | Reclaim Reform

Pew Trusts: Untrustworthy Public Pension Destroyers | Reclaim Reform:

Pew Trusts: Untrustworthy Public Pension Destroyers

Posted on September 25, 2013by Ken Previti

When a name most people associate with trust and credibility joins with a billionaire ex-Enron trader and hedge fund manager to destroy public pensions for their own benefit, the overall sense of corruption and betrayal becomes both palpable and intense. Billionaire John Arnold uses the sterling reputation of Pew Trusts as his tool of choice for his despicable plot to pillage pensions and destroy the lives of those who rely on them to live simply.

Illinois, Kentucky, Florida and many other states are the targets.

 “’We want to bring to your attention . . . the deceptive work that the Pew Center on the States is engaged in across the country in order to promote their cash balance overhaul policy,’ a group of 10 Kentucky state senators and representatives cautioned in an open letter to legislators in other states.”

“Critics of that alliance charge that Pew and Arnold share a mission for giving an academic veneer to a partisan belief that the nation’s massive public employee pension funds should be invested directly in costly ‘cash balance’ plans rather than be professionally managed as traditional defined benefit plans by the public agencies that currently administer them.”

 “Pew may be mostly known for its financial support of PBS programs, which has given the foundation the kind of publicity that reflects the self-described ‘non-partisan and non-ideological’ nature of Pew’s work… Yet Pew has 

UC imposes pension terms on employees; union protests - latimes.com

UC imposes pension terms on employees; union protests - latimes.com:

UC imposes pension terms on employees; union protests

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Union local President Kathryn Lybarger helped lead a two-day strike of UC medical center workers in May. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / May 21, 2013)

By Larry Gordon

September 25, 2013, 5:23 p.m.

The already tense labor relations between the UC system and the union that represents about 8,300 custodians, gardeners and food service workers has taken a turn for the worse.

After deadlocked negotiations, UC this week imposed terms that will require those workers to contribute 6.5% of their pay to retirement plans, up from the current 5%, while the university’s contribution jumps to 12% from 10%.

UC says such changes are necessary to keep the pension system healthy and that most other UC employees already have agreed to the changes. In addition, newly hired workers will receive fewer benefits after retirement.

Officials of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299 say that such an imposed hike amounts to a 1.5% pay cut for workers whose pay averages $35,000 a year. They say they would consider a contribution rate above 5% but only if it is part of a larger pension reform that caps the pensions of the most highly paid UC executives. The union also wants UC to boost the levels of staffing, which the labor leaders contend has dropped dangerously low in some campus functions.

Union local President Kathryn Lybarger said Wednesday that her union retains the right to strike in the future but now hopes to persuade incoming UC President Janet Napolitano, who takes office Tuesday, to take different labor positions than outgoing President Mark G. Yudof.

"It will be her responsibility to come in and turn things around for the better,” Lybarger said.

9-25-13 Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman:

Are Americans Allowed To Debate Education Anymore?

Time to once again play Spot The Pattern™! Before we begin, here's a clue about our theme: All emphases mine unless noted. Let's start with Montclair, NJ (click through to watch the video): When Montclair's teachers union president could not finish her prepared statement Monday night, the public did so for her.  Copies of Montclair Education Association President Gayl Shepard's remarks were

24 by Duke / 39min 

 

9-23-13 Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman: The Continuing Problem Of the Wealthy, Reformy "Liberal"Let's get back to America's Worst Congressman™, Jared Polis of Colorado: Don't bother trying to find this tweet: it's long gone. Funny how these things happen... But intemperate behavior seems to be Polis's m.o.; here's Diane Ravitch herself: In a series of Twitter posts last night, Congressman Jared Polis of Colorad

by mike simpson / 10h

Six decades after Brown ruling, US schools still segregated | Al Jazeera America

Six decades after Brown ruling, US schools still segregated | Al Jazeera America:

Six decades after Brown ruling, US schools still segregated

by Dexter Mullins

  

@DexterMullins

  

September 25, 2013  9:00AM ET

Separated along socioeconomic and racial lines, schools are less diverse than at any other time in the last four decades

Topics:

 

Race & Ethnicity

 

Charter Schools

 

Segregation

Students at a magnet school in Chicago wait for the start of classes last year.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

African-American and Latino students are less likely to attend racially and ethnically diverse schools today than at any other time in the last four decades. This, almost 60 years after the landmark Supreme Court ruling that desegregated schools, represents a major setback for one of the core goals of the civil rights movement.

According to a September 2012 study by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, more than 74 percent of African-American students and 80 percent of Latinos attended schools in 2009-10 where at least half the population consisted of only one minority.

"Our school district is extremely segregated," said Caitlin McNulty, an English-as-a-second-language teacher at Valley West Elementary School in Houston. "Part of that is just we have a huge minority population in our district, period, so I'd say the majority of our schools are at least 80 percent minority."

In her school district, African-Americans and Latinos made up more than 90 percent of the student population last year. Only seven of the 705 students at her school were white -- less than one percent.

"That's not out of the ordinary" in her district, McNulty said. "It's just not representative of the 

A Principal's Reflections: The Art of Storytelling

A Principal's Reflections: The Art of Storytelling:

The Art of Storytelling

I decided to hold back (for now) on a rant that has been brewing for the past two days and instead have decided to take a more constructive approach on my blog.  A great debate that has emerged over social media channels has been how we honor and acknowledge our educators and others in the profession. During many insightful and constructive conversations with Chris Wejr we went back on forth on the merits and challenges inherent in this complex process. Even though Chris and I respectfully disagree on awards in general we had an enlightening conversation over the course of 3 days in public and private on the importance of sharing stories. The consensus is that regardless of the process more stories need to be told. 

Image credit: http://prtini.com/storytelling/

Storytelling is an art, but it does not have to be a painful, arduous, or time consuming task.  I think many of us in the connected world have been telling our stories since we signed on to a social media tool.  The challenge for all of us is to take it beyond our own professional experiences and begin to share more stories of those educators doing incredible work who deserve to be honored for positively impacting the life of a child.  It is through the work of educators that we can see excellence in practice each and every day in our students.  In the end we'll emerge as a more reflective and grateful profession as we unlock greatness that is present throughout schools across the globe.

My challenge to all of you is to become the storyteller-in-chief for your school, 

Defend De Blasio Now tomhayden.com - The Peace Exchange Bulletin

tomhayden.com - The Peace Exchange Bulletin - Defend De Blasio Now:

DEFEND DE BLASIO NOW

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2013 AT 5:25PM | EMAIL ARTICLE | SHARE ARTICLE | PRINT ARTICLE

Bill de Blasio at a news conference in 1988 to announce a $150,000 shipment of supplies to Nicaragua and to deride the United States’ financing of the contra rebellion. (Photo: Marquette University Archives)A full-page of revelations in the New York Times that Bill De Blasio was an active organizer in the Central American solidarity movement and before that, an outspoken opponent of nuclear power in high school, should hugely excite the progressive base in New York politics after a long period of Republican rule. De Blasio didn't leave his radical youth behind either; in the present day, he is a leading critic of stop-and-frisk and the massive economic inequalities dramatized by Occupy Wall Street.

Instead of turning moderate New Yorkers against him, the new revelations may actually help De Blasio's mayoral campaign, for example by winning votes in Latino precincts and awakening a Left which often derides electoral politics. (That is, if De Blasio doesn't suddenly renounce his past in an attempt to assuage the center. He shows little sign of doing so at the moment.) 

A background in solidarity with the Sandinistas doesn't make for a conventional political resume. In fact there are few veterans of radical movements in mainstream politics. Unlike Europe and 

Diane Ravitch: 3 dubious uses of tech in schools - Salon.com

Diane Ravitch: 3 dubious uses of tech in schools - Salon.com:

Diane Ravitch: 3 dubious uses of tech in schools

New devices can both inspire creativity and dehumanize learning

BY DIANE RAVITCH

 
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TOPICS: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, EDUCATION, SCHOOLS, PUBLIC POLICY, INTERNET, LIFE NEWS, NEWS

Diane Ravitch

This article was originally published by Scientific American.

Technology is transforming American education, for good and for ill. The good comes from the ingenious ways that teachers encourage their students to engage in science projects, learn about history by seeing the events for themselves and explore their own ideas on the Internet. There are literally thousands of Internet-savvy teachers who regularly exchange ideas about enlivening classrooms to heighten student engagement in learning.

The ill comes in many insidious forms.

One of the malign manifestations of the new technology is for-profit online charter schools, sometimes called virtual academies. These K–12 schools recruit heavily and spend many millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising. They typically collect state tuition for each student, which is removed from the local public schools’ budget. They claim to offer customized, personalized education, but that’s just rhetoric. They have high dropout rates, low test scores and low graduation rates. Some have annual attrition rates of 50 percent. But so long as the virtual schools keep luring new students, they are very profitable for their owners and investors.

Another dubious use of technology is to grade essays. Major testing companies such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill are using software to score written test answers. Machines can grade faster than teachers, but they cannot evaluate factual statements or the imaginative use of language. A student may write that the World War II began in 1839, and the machine won’t object. Students will learn to write according to the formula that the machine likes, at the expense of accuracy, creativity and imagination. Worse, the teacher will abandon the important job of reading what his or her students write and will be less informed about how they think. That is a loss for the quality of education. Frankly, it is a problem with online assessment in general, as the job of testing is shifted from the teacher to a distant corporation; the last round of state testing saw computer