The Dirt on Bob Behning’s Reelection Money
by Doug Martin In my book Hoosier School Heist, I detail the corporate/theocratic billionaires who are out to destroy Indiana public education, and the same people in my book are behind Bob Behning’s reelection campaign. In fact, the Amway/Besty Devos/Walmart/Overstock.com/hedge fund group Hoosiers for Economic Growth just gave Behning $45,000, two days ago. The front group slid him $25,000 at
"Withering test prep regimens" Continue in New York Despite New Law
With absolute fealty to Wall Street and the vulture philanthropists who pay for the Governor's allegiance to New York's 21st Century segregated cultural sterilization testing camps, Cuomo dares not touch the urban sprawl of charter school programs for the poor, which are based, of course, on round the clock test prep. After all, how else, without test scores, could these dehumanizing hellholes pr
If You Are Going to KIPP's Free Happy Hour Recruiting Sessions, Read This First
Excerpt of interview with former KIPP teacher:INT: Let me ask you this question: if I were a friend of yours interested in teaching at a KIPP school and I asked you what was it like there, what would you tell me? R: I would say honestly, I’ve had that question before. I would never ever – I told them I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy. That’s exactly what I say every time--I
Poetry Month's Last Day Fragment
Poetry Month’s Last Day FragmentOf days marked by verses sung across clocks and rulerssongs to celebrate all our gold variously graded, finely ground against boot marked hardwood desksfor eons of crumpled yellow tablets and shavings of graphite hissing anti-insouciant intensities codedand set loose on verbal metronomes calibrated to cross one another without ever touching, ticks and tocks bending
Teachers at International HS at Prospect Heights Refuse to Give NYC ELA Test
From Monty Neill: **Media Advisory** 26 Teachers and Staff of International High School at Prospect Heights refuse to give NYC ELA Performance Assessment Test WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 2014, 7:45-8:20am, WHERE: International High School at Prospect Heights, 883 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 WHAT: Teachers will hold a press conference to announce their refusal to administer the NYC ELA Perfor
The Gates Foundation's Teach Plus once again trying to undermine United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)
"Bill Gates's foundation pays educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies regarding seniority and test scores." "Two other Gates-financed groups, Educators for Excellence and Teach Plus, have helped amplify the voices of newer teachers as an alternative to the official views of the unions. Last summer, members of several such groups had a meeting at the foundation’s offices
4-29-14 Schools Matter
Schools Matter: Defending the Indefensible in the Late Days of the Testing OrgyThe testing madness is underway this week in Tennessee, where a week of TCAP counts 15-25 percent of a student's grade and 35-50 percent of a teacher's evaluation for the other 195 days of the school year. Is that reason enough for 3rd graders to be vomiting and having nosebleeds on their test booklets this week? But t