Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
Reports from Portland, Oregon:Portland is gearing up for a teacher strike. Susan Neilson, The Oregonian.Sam Wheeler of the Mail Tribune]Medford Oregon:Long said the school district has hired about 50 security guards through Action Security Inc. of Medford and San Diego-based Off Duty Officers Inc. of San Diego — costing the district about $35,000 per day."We have 24-hour security, because we
"All students are not equal; some are more profitable than others" --Parthenon Group
If you want to find some savvy teachers who are not afraid to speak out against their Broadie superintendent and corporate foundations that have bought Tennessee schools and the nation's schools at bargain basement prices, go to Knoxville. Here is special ed teacher, Robert Taylor, taking his five minutes at the Feb. 5 board meeting, and making it count. This is what free speech looks like--use
No child left unconnected?
No child left without basic resourcesPublished in the Washington Post, Feb. 7. 2014 Before we worry about no child left unconnected to the Internet [“Broadband in schools gets FCC push,” news, Feb. 3], how about no child left unfed, no child without adequate health care and no child without easy access to a good library? The rate of child poverty in the United States is 23 percent, the second-high
The poodle of corporate education reformers, Alex Russo, has a puff piece in Atlantic aimed to disparage the Opt Out movement. Doing his best to present the growing opposition to psychometric insanity as a momentary flare-up in the steady march toward measuring badly what no longer matters while resegregating America, Alex takes a page from the Jay Mathews playbook of lazy reporting and unsupporte
Portland Teachers Vote To Strike / Time To Get Rid Of Testing And Hire More Teachers
Portland teachers are leading the way, people.Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, teachers, parents and students are united.http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/06/us-usa-teachers-portland-idUSBREA1507V20140206Portland, Oregon, teachers vote to authorize strikeBY TERESA CARSON, Reuters
KIPP Has Low Friends in High Places
Another example of KIPP's effective use of billionaire corporate welfare artists to bulldoze a path into communities to set up their total compliance reform schools. From the Chicago Sun-Times, by Tim Novak:Last Modified: Feb 4, 2014 02:14AMSarah Howard thought Bruce Rauner was an angel who would rescue her financially troubled, academically struggling charter school in East Garfield Park.Instead
FEB 06
KIPP Uses Funds Shortage As Excuse to Shut Two Galveston Schools
Having collected hundreds of millions of federal grants, public education dollars, and tax-exempt philanthrocapitalist cash, KIPP Inc. is the richest corporate charter chain in the world.Yet when Galveston Schools finally decided it was unfair to give KIPP $1.5 million more per year than it does for the same number of its public schools, KIPP decided that the public teat is no longer fat enough to
Two Decades Is Enough to Show Value-Added Is a Scam
by Joey Garrison at The Tennessean:Tennessee’s largest teachers union has turned against the policy of including student learning gains in the evaluation of teachers, a flip that shows its growing discomfort with a major Race to the Top reform.When Tennessee applied for $501 million in federal Race to the Top funds in 2010, a critical part in landing the coveted grant was that competing stakeholde
FEB 05
The Story of How Corporate Welfare Child Prison Operators Got Rich in Pennsylvania
AMY GOODMANDEMOCRACY NOW! / VIDEO INTERVIEWFrom Nation of Change:Published: Wednesday 5 February 2014“Kids for Cash” is the shocking story of how thousands of children in Pennsylvania were jailed by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities.Today a special on "kids for cash," the shocking story of how thousands of children in Penn
Top 10 Reasons to Join Teach for America
Top 10 Reasons to Join Teach For AmericaPosted on February 3, 2014Did you miss the last application deadline for Teach for America? Fret not, young reader—you still have three more weeks before the next and final deadline to join the 2014 corps.By Jay Saper, TFA reject1. Teach for America saves taxpayers a fortune. Let’s face it: ending poverty in this country would cost a fortune. That’s why inst
De Blasio: Not Just Another Bullshitter
It has to feel like Spring in New York in the middle of a snowstorm: a progressive mayor elected to serve the people that Wall Street predators and casino capitalists forgot. From DNAInfo New York:". . . . De Blasio sparked a political showdown earlier this month by rejecting Cuomo's offer to provide $1.5 billion for universal pre-K across the state over the next five years. Instead of usin
BREAKING NEWS: Florida
Breaking NewsFlorida legislators follow renaming Common Core by replacing "turd" with "dandelion" in official state dictionary.More as details become available.
FEB 04
An Olympics Musical Break: We're Barefootin', with Bare Putin
(With apologies to Robert Parker)Everybody get on your feet, We can’t search you when you in your seatTake off your shoes, your coat, and your shirt, Let’s see you dance and no one gets hurt,We're barefootin', with bare Putin, We're barefootin', with bare Putin, Went to a party at a swinging yurt, Long Tall Sergei was quite a flirtThrew way his wig, and his high collar, too, He was doin’ a dance w
Greater access to … profits.
Sent to the New York Times, Feb. 4, 2014Why are Microsoft, Verizon, Sprint and Apple so eager to donate three quarters of a billion dollars to increase school access to the internet ("Obama Announces Pledges of $750 Million for Student Technology," Feb. 4)? Could it be related to the fact that the Common Core requires online testing, a move that will result in unprecedented profits for
Camelot Education's Todd Bock Accuses Schools Matter of "Slander"
In two emails today to me from Mr. Todd Bock, President and CEO of Camelot Education, he alleges that I have slandered his company with a blog post from May 2009 (please do have a moment to read it).To substantiate his claim, Mr. Bock enclosed a letter from Chief of School Operations for Philadelphia Schools dated May 29, 2009. The letter reports on an investigation based upon unspecified complai
International Education Journal
Please visit and read the outstanding new issue of International Education Journal: Comparative PerspectivesVol 12, No 2 (2013): The local vernaculars of high-stakes testingReaders of this blog will find the efforts to unmask high-stakes testing of value.
FEB 03
Haslam Takes from Some to Pay for Promise to Others
Governor Bill Haslam is desperate to appear as if he is doing something to improve educational opportunity in a state that has a long history of underfunding education and masking inequality with programs intended for political gain rather than substantive results. The Governor's most recent plan to for free tuition for students going to community college sounds great until you notice that the pr
Snow Days
Snow days are good for lesson plans.Lesson in Democracy 101.How can we save our schools if grassroots education activists can't endorse or support candidates running for public office?This in my in box from Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. The love fest is over. The high stakes have gotten too high.If SOS can not support Network for Public Education which has political clout and
FEB 02
Children should not be allowed to behave like children.
Published in The Oregonian, Feb. 4, 2104 http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2014/02/letters_kindergarten_readiness.html It's wonderful to know how seriously Oregon takes kindergarten entry testing. The kind of publicity from The Oregonian, proclaiming that "Kindergarten test results a 'sobering snapshot'" (Feb. 1) will ensure that preschools will take firm steps to make sure that childr
Critics of education: Nostaglia for a time that never was
Sent to the Los Angeles TimesNicholas Meyer ("Better history through storytelling" (Feb. 2), thinks that "no one learns history (of civics ...) anymore" and blames the"dismanteld" school system. The same complaint appeared in the New York Times, Sunday, April 4, 1943, in an article with the title "Ignorance of US History shown by college freshman." The arti
Knoxville Letting Bids to Install Cameras in Classrooms?
From Tennessee Bid NetworkInstall Camera Systems in Each Classroom and Externally Owner Type: Public Buyer: Telamon CorporationWebsite: http://www.telamon.org Website: http://www.telamon.org
TREE Sponsors Elaine Weiss to Talk about What NAEP Means
Elaine Weiss offers a primer on NAEP and recent gains in Tennessee. Make a cup of tea and enjoy.
Join the Battle to Stop Corporate Shutdown of Memphis Schools
Action News 5 - Memphis, TennesseeMEMPHIS, TN -(WMC-TV) – Parents and students from Westhaven Elementary have been fighting for their school for months. Saturday they took to the streets to get signatures to try to keep their school open.They are asking the community to get behind their efforts and it's not every day you see this kind of support inside a mall.TN House Representative Karen Camper s
FEB 01
New York City Channels $210 Million in Corporate Charter Giveaways to Pre-K
From the Gothamist:Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña made the announcement yesterday, noting that the diversion of funds "will help us create high-quality, full-day pre-Kindergarten seats citywide that will deliver strong instruction"; the DOE also hopes to reduce class sizes citywide.The move is a big one one for the de Blasio administration, as the mayor has been openly critical of char
Charters are not superior to public schools and public schools are not failing
Sent to the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 2014The WSJ's enthusiasm for the Sgt. Marcus Lutheran school, and for charters in general, is not supported by the data ("The 'Progressive' War on Kids," February 1-2).An article in the Milwaukee Courier (October 12, 2013) revealed that St. Marcus Lutheran students perform well below the Wisconsin state average on state tests, with between 18 and
Huffman "flummoxed" as VAM Canned for Teacher Licensure Renewal
Yesterday we witnessed the beginning of the end for value-added testing for high stakes purposes. If Commissioner Kevin Huffman is, indeed, flummoxed that the Tennessee Board of Education has canned attempts to value-added test results to determine teacher licensure renewal, and if he doesn't have to read the book, he should begin here and here to understand what's going on. Story in the Tenness
A better way to deal with summer loss in reading
Sent to the Seattle Times, Jan 31, 2014There is a much cheaper and much more effective way to deal with summer learning loss than adding 20 days of school to the school year ("How to solve summer learning loss and close the opportunity gap," January 30): Provide more access to interesting reading material. Research tells us that those living in poverty have the least access to books and