NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education
ACLU: Dept of Ed Admits NECAP Does Not Measure College Readiness | GoLocalProv
The ACLU of Rhode Island claims that the RI Department of Education has acknowledged that the NECAP test – the high stakes test that it requires students to pass in order to get a high school diploma – is not a useful indicator of a student’s college readiness. The Department has done so after years ...read moreThe post ACLU: Dept of Ed Admits NECAP Does Not Measure College Readiness | GoLocalProv
Good News! NY State Ed will postpone uploading student names to inBloom until at least April! | NYC Public School Parents
Here are some news clips on the state’s decision to delay transferring any more data to inBloom until at least April, including student names and family contact info: LoHud News, EdWeek, and Capital NY. In case there’s any confusion about this, our efforts to permanently block the transfer of personally identifiable student data without parental ...read moreThe post Good News! NY State Ed will
Eric Cantor threatens new NYC mayor over school reform | The Answer Sheet
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a conservative Virginia Republican, has long supported local control of education — except, apparently, in New York City, when the newly elected Democratic mayor there promises to do something Cantor doesn’t like. In an address this week at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, Cantor threatened ...read moreThe post Eric Cantor threa
Evidence? Who Needs Evidence When You Have PR? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This was reported this morning by politico.com education: “ROCKETSHIP SPUTTERS: Rocketship Education has been one of the hottest charter networks for some time, hailed for a blended learning model that puts its K-5 students to work on computers for part of the day. But it’s recently hit a rough patch. This fall, the network failed ...read moreThe post Evidence? Who Needs Evidence When You Have PR?
‘Market approach’ to high schools has serious drawbacks | catalyst-chicago.org
By: Daniel Hertz / January 10, 2014 Daniel Hertz The question of whether Chicago’s market for high school choice works by weeding out low-performing schools is two-fold: It works somewhat for traditional public schools, but definitely not for charters. The idea for this article stems from reports by WBEZ and Catalyst Chicago about the rapidly ...read moreThe post ‘Market approach’ to high schools
The truth about charter schools: Padded cells, corruption, lousy instruction and worse results | Salon.com
Imagine your 5-year-old boy went to a school where he was occasionally thrown in a padded cell and detained alone for stretches as long as 20 minutes. Or you sent your kid to an elementary school where the children are made to sit on a bare floor in the classroom for days before they can ...read moreThe post The truth about charter schools: Padded cells, corruption, lousy instruction and worse res
NC: Third-Graders Will Take 36 New Tests to Prepare for Fourth Grade | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Last year, Louisiana led the nation in passing absurd laws about education. This year, that dubious distinction goes to North Carolina. Hardly a day goes by without more evidence of misinformed, specious, nonsensical meddling by the Legislature. The latest: the Legislature insists that all third graders learn to read, so they mandated 36 new mini-tests ...read moreThe post NC: Third-Graders Will T
Emulating downward: Iowa’s misplaced idolization of Florida’s retention policies | Dangerously Irrelevant
The Iowa Department of Education (DE) was quoted recently as saying, “We really aren’t looking at [3rd grade retention] as being punitive.” The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t matter how we as adults perceive retention. What matters is how the retained 8-year-olds perceive retention. And four decades of research is very clear that ...read moreThe post Emulating downward: Iowa’s misplaced id
Buying Indy Mayor Ballard: School Privatizing Update | Schools Matter
by Doug Martin Back in the summer of 2012, when the mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard, was closing The Project School because it was the only charter school in the city not playing the game set up by the Indiana Corporate School Complex, I wrote about the various school privatizers funneling money into Ballard’s campaign, ...read moreThe post Buying Indy Mayor Ballard: School Privatizing Update
Broken Windows Schooling | EduShyster
Suspending huge numbers of minority students is bad—unless it’s done in the name *college prep* Suspending huge numbers of minority students is bad, bad, bad, as we learned this week from Obama administration officials. Which brings us to today’s high-stakes question: when is it fine, fine, fine for schools to have sky-high suspension rates? Answer: ...read moreThe post Broken Windows Schooling |
State won’t upload student data until at least April | Capital New York
ALBANY—The state education department is delaying its controversial plan to upload student information into an online database until at least April, citing technical difficulties. The decision to hold off sending the data comes while the department is facing a lawsuit from parents worried about a potential breach and legislative proposals from prominent lawmakers pushing for ...read moreThe post S
Union president calls for no-confidence vote on ed chief | Capital New York
ALBANY—The state’s largest teachers’ union will soon consider a vote of “no confidence” for state Education Commissioner John King, the union’s president said Thursday on YNN’s “Capital Tonight.” Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, will ask the group’s board for a no-confidence vote against King, who has led the department during the ...read moreThe post Union president
Chicago’s UNO Charter Scandal Tarnishes Luster of Arne Duncan’s Hands Off Strategy | janresseger
A dozen years ago, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Education Rod Paige, the former superintendent of the Houston Public Schools, brought us all the test-and-punish “Texas miracle” in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act. We all know what happened to that so-called miracle. Now several years into Arne Duncan’s tenure ...read moreThe post Chicago’s UNO Charter Scandal Tarnishes Luster
Chicago doesn’t need more school choice – Opinion – Crain’s Chicago Business
By: Wendy Katten January 10, 2014 Chicago closed a record number of neighborhood schools this year with the message that the district faced a billion-dollar deficit and had 511,000 seats for only 403,000 students. Over and over we heard Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Mayor Rahm Emanuel say we must redirect scarce resources ...read moreThe post Chicago doesn’t need more school
The resegregation of American schools; some Little Rock examples | Arkansas Blog
The state Board of Education meets Friday and the agenda includes a couple of issues that bear on nothing less than further erosion of Brown v. Board of Education and the end of the public education system as we once knew it. I’ve written a column for the Times this week on the board’s review ...read moreThe post The resegregation of American schools; some Little Rock examples | Arkansas Blog appe
Mississippi, with strong Common Core and no unions, is losing Race To The Top | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
As long as we’re racing to the top, let’s take a look at how the race is going. The theory coming out of the D.O.E., the Gates Foundation and the think tanks is that implementing Common Core Standards is key to winning the race and that the main problem is “status-quo” teacher unions protecting bad ...read moreThe post Mississippi, with strong Common Core and no unions, is losing Race To The Top |
15 Months in Virtual Charter Hell: A Teacher’s Tale | Alternet
One major phenomenon that has blossomed as part the corporatization of education in the two most recent presidential administrations is that of virtual charter schools – schools with no mortar and brick buildings, or building of any kind. The teachers and students communicate in virtual space. In some cases these schools receive as much public ...read moreThe post 15 Months in Virtual Charter H
Teachers in Lee, MA, Return Merit Pay | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The teachers in Lee, Massachusetts, received merit pay for higher scores, funded by the Gates Foundation. In a letter to the Berkshire Eagle, they explained why they rejected the money. http://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/ci_24675094/letter-no-merit-pay-lee-p-teachers Letter: No merit pay for Lee A.P. teachers To the editor of THE EAGLE: While we appreciate the article “Investing in students’ futur
Baker Mitchell’s charter schools under investigation by the U.S. Dept. of Education | The Progressive Pulse
POSTED BY : LINDSAY WAGNER Yesterday, the State Board of Education approved 26 new charter schools to open this fall – including South Brunswick Charter School, the fourth charter school to open under the management of Baker A. Mitchell, Jr. Mitchell has collected in the neighborhood of $16 million in taxpayer funds over the past ...read moreThe post Baker Mitchell’s charter schools under investig
JAN 09
Common Core and the EduTech Abyss | RealClearPolitics
The Common Core gold rush is on. Apple, Pearson, Google, Microsoft and Amplify are all cashing in on the federal standards/testing/textbook racket. But the EduTech boondoggle is no boon for students. It’s more squandered tax dollars down the public school drain. Even more worrisome: The stampede is widening a dangerous path toward invasive data mining. ...read moreThe post Common Core and the EduT
One of the “Forty-Four” Misclassified DC Teachers Speaks Up and Out | VAMboozled
Two weeks ago I wrote a post about what’s going in DC’s public schools with their value-added-based teacher evaluation system, and more specifically about the 44 DC public school teachers who received “incorrect” VAM scores for the last academic year (2012-2013). While this occurred for more than just these 44 teachers because VAM formulas are ...read moreThe post One of the “Forty-Four” Misclassi
Cuomo Supports Failed Ideas of Corporate Reformers | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York put himself squarely in the camp of corporate reform with a proposal for merit pay based on value-added metrics. He proposes to pay a bonus of $20,000 to teachers who are rated “highly effective” on the state’s controversial and unproven value-added evaluation program. The fact that merit pay failed ...read moreThe post Cuomo Supports Failed Ideas of Corporate Ref
When, How and With Whom to Battle the Common Core? | Teacher in a Strange Land
There are several reasons why I think it’s a mistake–and dangerous–to join forces with people who are looking to take down the Common Core as a liberal plot to infiltrate the minds of children. The primary one is that–as my mama used to say–you’re known by the company you keep. via When, How and With ...read moreThe post When, How and With Whom to Battle the Common Core? | Teacher in a Strange Lan
Paul Horton: Has Common Core Lost the Plot? – Living in Dialogue
Guest post by Paul Horton. David Coleman, the current Chairman of the College Board and principle author of the Common Core Standards, proved his mettle as a curriculum writer when he declared, “Forgive me for saying it so bluntly, the only problem with …that [creative] writing is that as you grow up in this world ...read moreThe post Paul Horton: Has Common Core Lost the Plot? – Living in Dialogu
What Exactly Do Obama’s Zones Have to Do With Education, Anyway? | Politics K-12 – Education Week
San Antonio, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Southeastern Kentucky, and the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma were all tapped today by President Barack Obama to be the first areas designated as “Promise Zones”, which is part of a great big Obama administration interagency collaboration aimed at bolstering economic development in high poverty communities. The U.S. Department of Education, the Department ...re
Championing Fact-Challenged Facts | School Finance 101
The New Teacher Project and Students First have recently posted/cross-posted one of the more impressively fact-challenged manifestos I’ve encountered. The core argument in this recent post is that the facts on education reform speak for themselves and that the facts, as they describe them, simply need a champion – someone to make the public aware ...read moreThe post Championing Fact-Challenged Fa
NC Approves 26 New Charters, $$$$$ Boon for Founders | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports that the State Board of Education in North Carolina approved 26 new charter schools today, with little discussion. The most controversial decision was this one: Among those approved today is South Brunswick Charter School, a fourth charter school to be run by Baker A. Mitchell, Jr. Over the ...read moreThe post NC Approves 26 New Charters, $$$$$ Boon for F
Debate Rages: Response to TFA’s Supposition that New Brief is a “Retreat from Evidence” | Cloaking Inequity
The debate rages. Yesterday, the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) released Teach For America: A Return to the Evidence. It is the sequel to the 2010 Teach For America: A Review of the Evidence. TFA has responded. Raegen Miller, TFA’s VP of Research Partnerships, has asked us to keep the dialogue going, so I will respond to his comments (See their ...read moreThe post Debate Rages: Response
inBloom and Data Mining: A Common Core Cousin | deutsch29
This week I posted this piece about a January 9, 2014, webinar promoting data mining– a webinar with Gates money all over it. (Here is a briefer follow-up to the post.) The initial post had a record number of comments, some of which were made by an inBloom representative. The comments prompted me to further investigate some of the ...read moreThe post inBloom and Data Mining: A Common Core Cousin
A Brilliant Idea for Raising and Improving Standards: Open Source Them | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A comment arrived on the blog with a link to a great idea for standards: Open source them. Right now, the Common Core standards are mired in controversy, and the controversy seems likely to grow worse as more states begin to test the standards and most parents discover that their children have failed. The criticisms ...read moreThe post A Brilliant Idea for Raising and Improving Standards: Open So
Florida’s Predictable Pro-Charter School Propaganda Begins Anew | Scathing Purple Musings
You can be sure that the state’s charter school cheerleaders at redifinED will be trumpeting this Brookings Institute Report that gives Florida a “C” for “limited choice options.” Why it was just last week that Patrick Gibbons was reporting that the state’s charter high schools were outperforming public schools. Gibbons bristled when a commenter dared ...read moreThe post Florida’s Predictable Pro
Cuomo wants to pay best teachers more | New York Post
Gov. Cuomo made a dramatic proposal in his State of the State speech Wednesday to offer bonuses of up to $20,000 for teachers who receive top marks on their evaluations. Siding with education reformers, Cuomo suggested that teachers rated “highly effective” collect the merit pay from a new Teacher Excellence Fund that would be established ...read moreThe post Cuomo wants to pay best teachers more
Gary Rubinstein: An Open Letter to the New Leaders of TFA | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Gary Rubinstein was one of the original members of Teach for America. He has been involved in TFA from the outset. However, he became a critical friend of TFA when he attended the corporate-funded 20th anniversary celebration, bringing together the leaders of the “reform movement” who were attacking the nation’s public schools and their teachers, ...read moreThe post Gary Rubinstein: An Open Lette
Juan Rangel and UNO | Chicago magazine
One man turned a small activist group into the nation’s biggest Hispanic charter school operator. And then the trouble started. BY CASSIE WALKER BURKE Five weeks before he abruptly resigned from the top job at the United Neighborhood Organization, Juan Rangel met me for an interview. He picked the day (Halloween) and the spot (UNO’s ...read moreThe post Juan Rangel and UNO | Chicago magazine appea
Gates threatens to pull $40 in Pittsburgh funds unless union caves on VAM | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
But I see that in Pittsburgh, Bill Gates is threatening to renege on $40 million he promised the district if the teachers union and PPS don’t “work in harmony” to develop a VAM plan in which teachers are evaluated and paid on the basis of their student’s test scores. Collaboration in this case obviously means ...read moreThe post Gates threatens to pull $40 in Pittsburgh funds unless union caves o
How Embarrassing for the Friedman Foundation | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Friedman Foundation, named for free-market economist Milton Friedman and his wife Rose, is the nation’s most fervent advocate of vouchers. It commissioned a national poll to ascertain the depth of support for vouchers, and much to its surprise (and, no doubt, embarrassment), the public prefers smaller class sizes far more than vouchers. Furthermore, the ...read moreThe post How Embarrassing fo
Let’s Teach Students to Think Critically, Not Test Mindlessly | Eric Cooper – Huffington Post
Superintendent Josh Starr’s take on some of the education policies of the Obama administration is like a breath of fresh air. Starr, who leads public schools in Montgomery County, Md., maintains that a relentless focus on high-stakes testing is, at best, misguided and, at worst, may limit the ability of future generations to solve society’s ...read moreThe post Let’s Teach Students to Think Critic
Concentrated Poverty is 2013 Now 50 percent Higher that in 2000 | janresseger
In her recent book, Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch decries the lack of political leadership during the past quarter century to address what she calls “the toxic mix”: racial segregation, poverty, and inequality: “In the absence of active leadership by federal officials and the judiciary, the public is apathetic about racial and ethnic segregation, as ...read moreThe post Concentrated Poverty is 201
JAN 08
Rocketship Charter Chain Withdraws Proposal in Morgan Hill, California | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Earlier today, the Rocketship charter chain, known for saving money by putting kids in front of computers and using Teach for America, has withdrawn its proposal to open two charter schools in Morgan Hill, a town of 40,000. Credit goes to local activists, who organized to support their local public schools. Meanwhile, Rocketship has targeted ...read moreThe post Rocketship Charter Chain Withdraws
Standards Won’t Change Inequity: A Reader | the becoming radical
The new Common Core and related tests are likely to continue a three-decade pattern of traditional schooling either integrating the new standards and tests into the existing structure of schools or using the new standards and tests to justify existing practices. And thus, I offer a reader below, highlighting a demonstrable set of interrelated problems ...read moreThe post Standards Won’t Change In
Does Class Size Matter? | Russ on Reading
On Monday, I had the pleasure of observing some excellent reading instruction in 4th grade classes in a small town school district in New Jersey. To give you an idea of size, I was able to observe every fourth grade regular education teacher (6) in the district over the period of one school day. Many ...read moreThe post Does Class Size Matter? | Russ on Reading appeared first on NPE News Briefs.
Rocketship Charter Chain: Preparing the Telemarketers of the Future? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This article suggests that Rocketship charter schools is preparing a new generation that has mastered the art of learning online and interacting with computers. Students spend two hours daily at the computer, supervised by aides, not teachers. This saves money. via Rocketship Charter Chain: Preparing the Telemarketers of the Future? | Diane Ravitch’s blog.The post Rocketship Charter Chain: Prepari
InBloom Sputters Amid Concerns About Privacy of Student Data | Education Week
By Ben Kamisar The education nonprofit inBloom burst onto the scene last February, touting a program to synthesize student data to help target the needs of individual children and revolutionize personalized learning. Backed by $100 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the company formed ...read moreThe post InBloom Sputters Amid C
New Education Standards Widen Achievement Gap For English Learners? | NPR
New national education standards, known as Common Core, aim to set baseline knowledge for English and math. But some people say the standards will increase achievement gaps between English learners and native English speakers. Host Michel Martin learns more from journalist Pat Wingert. via New Education Standards Widen Achievement Gap For English Learners? : NPR.The post New Education Standards Wi
How Much Extra Help Are SIG Schools Getting from States and Districts? | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein Congress and the Obama administration have poured more than $3 billion into the School Improvement Grant program—and it’s unclear whether that has made a big difference in terms of actual student achievement, according to early (and flawed) data released by the U.S. Department of Education. That means the outcome of the program ...read moreThe post How Much Extra Help Are SIG Schoo
Attending to the Virtual School Hell in Louisiana | Crazy Crawfish’s Blog
Danielle Dreilinger, a reporter at Nola.com, has recently written a story about virtual charters in Louisiana that brings home a national story appearing Education Week. Oregon educator Darcy Bedortha spent 15 months in “virtual-charter hell” teaching for K12, an online education company with a foothold in Louisiana. The company runs the 1,795-student Louisiana Virtual Charter ...read moreThe post
Common Core Close Reading Comes to California | Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue
While some have suggested that Californians may be able to reshape Common Core on their own terms, it has already arrived in force in the state’s largest district, Los Angeles Unified. A teacher from Los Angeles shares her perspective. Guest post by Coleen Bondy I went to an LAUSD training on the Common Core State ...read moreThe post Common Core Close Reading Comes to California | Anthony Cody –
Top 5 Reasons State Senators Should Oppose SB 1085 | Yinzercation
New year, old bill. Today’s post comes to us from our colleague, Susan Spicka, a public education advocate from the middle part of the state who has been tracking the progress of SB1085. As you may recall, that is the Senate bill that proposes to “reform” charter schools, but will actually cause more harm than ...read moreThe post Top 5 Reasons State Senators Should Oppose SB 1085 | Yinzercation a
Cantor Hits Critics of Expanding School Choice | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the House Majority Leader, used a high-profile speech on education to draw attention to what he sees as a concerted effort to tamp down school choice in education overhaul hotspots, including Louisiana, New York City, and Washington, D.C. His remarks came in a speech at the Brookings Institution, ...read moreThe post Cantor Hits Critics of Expanding School
More transparency on suspensions and expulsions, but racial disparity lingers | catalyst-chicago.org
By: Sarah Karp / January 08, 2014 Tags: discipline With the Obama administration taking a stand Wednesday against zero-tolerance discipline that forces students out of school, CPS is readying itself for a major release of detailed school-level statistics on expulsion and suspension. The upcoming data release is the result of a huge battle activists won ...read moreThe post More transparency on sus
Silver: ‘The case has been made for a Common Core delay’ | Capital New York
ALBANY—Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday he expects the state Board of Regents to form a plan for improving and possibly delaying implementation of the rigorous Common Core curriculum standards. Silver said he would wait to see what “remedial actions” the Regents come up with before attempting to intervene with legislation. “I think the case ...read moreThe post Silver: ‘The case has be
Are Progressive Critics of Common Core “Getting Played” By Enemies of Public Education? | Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue
Today, Politico offers an analysis of conservative’s organized opposition to the Common Core which points out that the end game for many of these Koch-funded groups is total annihilation of public education, through the expansion of vouchers for private and parochial schools, and home schooling. The response on the part of some has been to ...read moreThe post Are Progressive Critics of Common Cor
Principal stopped school’s shaming free lunch kids with hand stamps, says it got her fired | The Raw Story
A former principal at a charter elementary school in Colorado said that she was fired last year after she tried to force school officials to stop marking the hands of children who could not afford to buy lunch for full price in the cafeteria. In an email sent to parents last November, Peak to Peak ...read moreThe post Principal stopped school’s shaming free lunch kids with hand stamps, says it got
Joanne Barkan: How Rich Folks Will Overcome (Public Education) | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Joanne Barkan has written a series of brilliant articles about the corporate reform movement and its wealthy supporters for “Dissent” magazine. She wrote this article for this blog. In it, she reflects on the venture capitalists’ belief that they are leaders of a new civil rights movement. Joanne Barkan writes: They Shall Overcome Rooted ...read moreThe post Joanne Barkan: How Rich Folks Will Ov
Experts Defend Children’s Right to Adequate and Equitable School Funding in Kansas | janresseger
David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center and Wade Henderson, the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have co-authored a chilling opinion piece in this morning’s NY Times. In What’s the Matter with Kansas’ Schools?, Sciarra and Henderson describe Gannon v. State of Kansas, the school ...read moreThe post Experts Defend Children
There’s No Doubt About It: Test Score Driven Education Ignores Students | Alternet
By Jeff Bryant As 2013 closed out, the education world was roiled by yet another controversy over the calculation and interpretation of statistical data used to govern teachers and school services. This controversy, coming to us from the nation’s capital, involved, according to the report in The Washington Post, “Faulty calculations of the ‘value’ that ...read moreThe post There’s No Doubt About I
Richard Rothstein: Time for the Truth About Racial Segregation | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In this article, Richard Rothstein is critical of high school textbooks–and of our media in general–for failing to identify the true causes of de facto segregation. Either they barely mention the role of government in segregating neighborhoods by race or they imply that it happened naturally (de facto), without any government intervention. He writes: via ...read moreThe post Richard Rothstein: Tim
No Child Left Behind Turns 12 Today. Now What? | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein on January 8, 2014 9:01 AM Flashback, twelve years ago: President George W. Bush travels all the way to Hamilton, Ohio to put his signature on a law that was supposed to forever change the nation’s schools by giving the federal government far more say over accountability, particularly for poor and minority ...read moreThe post No Child Left Behind Turns 12 Today. Now What? | Politi
Malloy calls his “educational reform” initiative “part of this grand experiment.” | Wait What?
Heck, you can’t even sell or buy genetically modified salmon without it going through a compressive independent assessment process. But for reasons that are extremely hard to comprehend public officials seem perfectly satisfied to upend our public education system and force local schools districts to adopt a one-size fits all corporate education reform industry agenda ...read moreThe post Malloy c
Should principals stop visiting classrooms? | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS January 8 at 4:00 am (By Charles Rex Arbogast/ AP) Principals are above all supposed to be “instructional leaders” but exactly what that means — or how to be effective in that role — isn’t entirely clear. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham looks at the research on what makes for an effective instructional ...read moreThe post Should principals stop visiting classrooms? | Th
JAN 07
North Carolina’s assault on teachers has to stop | Slate
By Deborah R. Gerhardt My son Ben’s language arts teacher emailed one morning this winter to tell me she is leaving Ben’s school. I feel sick, but I don’t blame her. Three of Ben’s middle school teachers have left in the past year. North Carolina’s intentional assault on public education is working. It is pushing ...read moreThe post North Carolina’s assault on teachers has to stop | Slate appeare
The Republican Bill to Stop Common Core in Florida | Scathing Purple Musings
The Orlando Sentinel‘s Leslie Postal reports that opponents of Common Core are beginning an advertising campaign in southwest Florida: Opponents of Common Core in Florida today launched radio ads they hope will spread their message that the new academic standards will harm education. The group Stop Common Core Florida says its ads started airing today ...read moreThe post The Republican Bill to S
Tone, pt. 4: Dystopian Fiction, Passion, and the Education Reform Debate | the becoming radical
Two early scenes in Shaun of the Dead require viewers to understand zombie narrative tropes in order to achieve the film’s satirical intent—distinguishing Shaun of the Dead from the zombie horror films it skewers: Shaun makes nearly identical trips from his apartment to a local convenience store, the first involving a normal day and the ...read moreThe post Tone, pt. 4: Dystopian Fiction, Passion,
Should California Embrace Common Core? My Response to Bill Honig | deutsch29
January 7, 2014 On January 7, 2014, California Instructional Quality Chair Bill Honig published a letter on Diane Ravitch’s blog in which he carefully details his reasons for supporting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in California. (Copy of letter ) In his letter, Honig encourages California districts wary of CCSS to reconsider their positions. He ...read moreThe post Should California Emb
Teach For America: A Return to the Evidence (The Sequel) | Cloaking Inequity
The sequel to the 2010 Teach For America: A Review of the Evidence was released by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) today. The new policy report is entitled Teach For America: A Return to the Evidence. I have included the citation, official NEPC press release, and the Executive Summary in this post. Citation: Vasquez Heilig, J. & ...read moreThe post Teach For America: A Return to t
Putting students at risk for testing? | Daily Kos
The weather in the Washington DC Metro area is dangerous this morning – temperatures at best in the single digits, with the wind having wind chills below zero. If you check the list of school closings, in Virginia the vast majority of the school systems are closed, with several (notably Arlington and Alexandria) only on ...read moreThe post Putting students at risk for testing? | Daily Kos appeare
Bill Honig: Why California Likes the Common Core Standards | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Many people who post on this blog–including me–have expressed grave doubts about the Common Core standards–about how they were created, funded, evaluated, and promoted, as well as their connection to high-stakes testing and evaluation of teachers by test scores. Others, including me, worry about the Common Core testing and the fact that the two federally-funded ...read moreThe post Bill Honig: Why
Stop Reckless Charter Expansion in This Small Town in California | Diane Ravitch’s blog
On January 15, there will be a crucial vote to allow the expansion of charter schools in Morgan Hill, California. As the post below points out, Morgan Hill is a small town of 40,000 with only 8 elementary schools. Rocketship wants to open 2 new charters in this small community, which will effectively destroy public ...read moreThe post Stop Reckless Charter Expansion in This Small Town in Californ
Evidence Refutes TFA Expansion | @ THE CHALK FACE
BY PLTHOMASEDD Teach for America: A Return to the Evidence, by Julian Vasquez Heilig and Su Jin Jez, may be too optimistic in its subtitle (not sure we’ve ever lingered at all with the evidence in order to return to it), but that aside, this report offers yet another clear message that TFA is far more agenda- ...read moreThe post Evidence Refutes TFA Expansion | @ THE CHALK FACE appeared first on
NY Principal Raises Alarm about Infringement of Children’s Rights by inBloom | janresseger
by janresseger If you are my age and clearly remember 1971, you’ll likely have watched the fascinating video posted on the NY Times website this morning—the story of the burglars who stole—and shared with the press—data from an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. These were the documents that showed how the FBI was spying on ...read moreThe post NY Principal Raises Alarm about Infringement of Chil
Vallas resigns as Bridgeport School Superintendent… Again! | Wait What?
It is all pretty simple. The contract between Paul Vallas and the Bridgeport Board of Education states that if the Bridgeport Board of Education fires Vallas, they must pay him a full year’s salary of $234,000 plus benefits. If on the other hand Vallas decides to leave his position all he need to is provide ...read moreThe post Vallas resigns as Bridgeport School Superintendent… Again! | Wait Wh
Whites are no longer the majority in Illinois schools | chicagotribune.com
By Diane Rado, Tribune reporter New enrollment numbers show that lllinois’ public school system for the first time does not have a white majority, with Latino, black, Asian and other racial groups combined eclipsing white students across the state’s classrooms. Whites fell to 49.76 percent of the student body this school year, the new data ...read moreThe post Whites are no longer the majority in
Will Fight Against Common Core Encourage Charters, Vouchers? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
As readers of the blog know, critics of the Common Core span the political and ideological spectrum. So do supporters. Many who consider themselves liberals oppose the imposition of grade-by-grade standards that are inflexible and take away teachers’ ability to tailor instruction to the needs of their students. Early childhood advocates are critical of CC’s ...read moreThe post Will Fight Against
Why San Diego Is the Best Urban District in the Nation | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Something magical is happening in San Diego. It is a good school district. Teachers and administrators and the school board are working towards common goals. San Diego, in my view, is the best urban district in the nation. I say this not based on test scores but on the climate for teaching and learning that ...read moreThe post Why San Diego Is the Best Urban District in the Nation | Diane Ravitch
Why Teachers’ Voices Matter in the Education Reform Debate | Alternet
I have been a teacher for 31 years. From my early 20s into my early 40s, I was a public high school English teacher. Around 2002, I moved to higher education, where I am primarily a teacher educator but also have a role as a teacher/director of writing in my university’s first-year seminar program. Throughout ...read moreThe post Why Teachers’ Voices Matter in the Education Reform Debate | Alterne
For right, Common Core fight prelude to bigger agenda | POLITICO.com
By: Stephanie Simon January 7, 2014 05:05 AM EST National advocacy groups powered by the Koch brothers and other conservative megadonors have found a new cause ripe with political promise: the fight to bring down the Common Core academic standards. The groups are stoking populist anger over the standards — then working to channel that ...read moreThe post For right, Common Core fight prelude to bi