Friday, January 31, 2014

1-31-14 @ The Chalk Face Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” – @ THE CHALK FACE

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” – @ THE CHALK FACE:

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations”

What corporate reformers manage to devise continues to amaze me. I know. It shouldn’t. But it does. During my perusal of the latest Gates grants, I stumbled across a find that makes me tilt my head slightly to the right in contemplation of its creepy import: The US Department of Education is taking Gates money. […]1 by deutsch29 / 55min

1-30-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: Response to Obama’s Early Childhood Education PlanPresident Obama promised us something in his State of the Union address that I think is bad news for our kids. Here is the excerpt, with my reply underneath: Race to the Top, with the help of governors from both parties, has helped states raise expectations and performance. Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee […]14

by mike simpson / 5h

Funds Meant for Charters May Be Diverted to Pre-K - NYTimes.com

Funds Meant for Charters May Be Diverted to Pre-K - NYTimes.com:

Funds Meant for Charters May Be Diverted to Pre-K

New York City’s schools chancellor announced her intention on Friday to shift money away from charter schools to help pay for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s expansion of prekindergarten programs.

The chancellor, Carmen Fariña, in describing theEducation Department’s $12.8 billion capital plan, said she would seek to redirect $210 million that had been reserved for classroom space for charter schools and other nonprofit groups. The money, spread out over five years, would instead be used to create thousands of new prekindergarten seats, helping fulfill Mr. de Blasio’s signature campaign promise.

The decision was an opening salvo in what many expect to be a long battle between the de Blasio administration and charter schools. The mayor is an unabashed critic of the schools, which are publicly financed but privately run. He has argued that the city should focus its resources on traditional public schools.

Charter school advocates quickly denounced the administration’s decision.

“Once again, thousands of minority and low-income students and families have their educational future unfairly put in jeopardy,” Jeremiah Kittredge, executive director of Families for Excellent Schools, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

Ms. Fariña said the money for charter schools, combined with a $310 million

Mother Crusader: Guest Blog: Camden Activist Mo'Neke Ragsdale - A New World Order Of Discrimination

Mother Crusader: Guest Blog: Camden Activist Mo'Neke Ragsdale - A New World Order Of Discrimination:

Guest Blog: Camden Activist Mo'Neke Ragsdale - A New World Order Of Discrimination

Predatory education reform has reached a crescendo in New Jersey's largest cities. Newark public schools are being closed, sold and privatized.

“In late December, 2013, just days before the start of winter vacation, the Christie administration informed Newark families that it was closing many of our public schools and turning others over to private management.
“The school closings and privatization would: Eliminate local public school options for thousands of children, forcing some to take two to three buses to get to school; Destroy school communities that go back more than 80 years; Remove historic public buildings from community use.
“Yet we, the people of Newark, whose children attend those public schools, were not consulted in any way before the Christie administration made this decision.

Camden is not far behind.

And that is what is sad about this current plan. It had the potential to focus on things that the community could rally

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” | deutsch29

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” | deutsch29:

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations”

January 31, 2014

What corporate reformers manage to devise continues to amaze me.

I know. It shouldn’t. But it does.

During my perusal of the latest Gates grants, I stumbled across a find that makes me tilt my head slightly to the right in contemplation of its creepy import:

The US Department of Education is taking Gates money.

Yep.

The first grant, for $300,000, was paid in April 2012:

U.S. Department of Education

Date: April 2012

Purpose: to support a national labor-management collaboration conference

Amount: $300,000

But there’s more …

Gates paid the USDOE a nearly identical grant in December 2013:

U.S. Department of Education

Date: December 2013

Purpose: to support a conference on labor-management collaboration to help implementation of the Common Core State Standards [Emphasis added.]

Amount: $300,000

So, here we have two “labor management collaborations” financed by Gates– with the second focused on CCSS implementation– Bill’s favorite song of late.

Here is a May 2012 USDOE white paper on the first such “collaboration.” The introduction is really sweet, with everyone playing nice “on the same side of the table”:

This U.S. Department of Education white paper lays out a case for expanding the role of teachers and unions working with administrators and school boards as

Fight Over Effective Teachers Shifts to Courtroom - NYTimes.com

Fight Over Effective Teachers Shifts to Courtroom - NYTimes.com:

Fight Over Effective Teachers Shifts to Courtroom

By JENNIFER MEDINAJAN. 31, 2014

Some of the students who are suing the State of California over tenure for teachers walked to a news conference this week outside Superior Court in Los Angeles. Monica Almeida/The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — They have tried and failed to loosen tenure rules for teachers in contract talks and state legislatures. So now, a group of rising stars in the movement to overhaul education employment has gone to court.

In a small, wood-paneled courtroom here this week, nine public school students are challenging California’s ironclad tenure system, arguing that their right to a good education is violated by job protections that make it too difficult to fire bad instructors. But behind the students stand a Silicon Valley technology magnate who is financing the case and an all-star cast of lawyers that includes Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general of the United States, who recently won the Supreme Court case that effectively overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

“Children have the right to access good education and an effective teacher regardless of their circumstances,” said David F. Welch, the telecommunications entrepreneur who spent millions of his own dollars to create Students Matter, the organization behind the lawsuit. The group describes itself as a national nonprofit dedicated to sponsoring litigation of this type, and the outcome in California will provide the first

It’s Been Tough Breaking Down Walls My Students Have Built | Gatsby In L.A.

It’s Been Tough Breaking Down Walls My Students Have Built | Gatsby In L.A.:

It’s Been Tough Breaking Down Walls My Students Have Built

The mood has changed in Cynthia Castillo’s class since I first visited in October. The kids are quieter, more settled; the energy is calm. When I first arrive, a guest speaker is talking to the kids about a summer internship, and they listen attentively. There are no side conversations. When Cynthia transitions to their vocabulary assignment, they do it quickly and smoothly.

The class is significantly down from its initial enrollment of 45. Today, I count 29 students, though Cynthia tells me there are about 35 enrolled. Several kids were pulled out at the semester because they’d failed so many classes that they needed to be put on a track where they did much of their classwork in APEX, an online credit recovery program. Other students, having failed even more classes, were transitioned to continuation school. A few “checked out,” leaving school without transferring anywhere. Though none of these moves are positive, the students who remain in the class seem on the whole more focused. Unlike other days earlier in the year, no one wanders around the room during a lesson.

After a vocabulary lesson, they move into a project on geneology. All of them are creating a family tree called a genogram that traces not only lineage but medical history, education and even relationships; antagonistic relationships are marked with one kind of line,

Friday, January 31, 2014

1-31-14 @ The Chalk Face Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” – @ THE CHALK FACE

Funds Meant for Charters May Be Diverted to Pre-K - NYTimes.com

Funds Meant for Charters May Be Diverted to Pre-K

Mother Crusader: Guest Blog: Camden Activist Mo'Neke Ragsdale - A New World Order Of Discrimination

Guest Blog: Camden Activist Mo'Neke Ragsdale - A New World Order Of Discrimination

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations” | deutsch29

Gates Is Funding USDOE Conferences and “Innovations”

U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Department of Education

Fight Over Effective Teachers Shifts to Courtroom - NYTimes.com

Fight Over Effective Teachers Shifts to Courtroom

It’s Been Tough Breaking Down Walls My Students Have Built | Gatsby In L.A.

It’s Been Tough Breaking Down Walls My Students Have Built

Nite Cap 1-31-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best:

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

YESTERDAY