Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Bridging Differences
Are Prosser teachers 'gaming the system'? Or is this reporter gaming them?
"If anyone out there has been in Prosser for more than a second, they would see that you can't make a Prosser teacher do anything they don't believe in." -- Prosser teacher Maria MagdalenaAfter reading Ted Cox's piece (Prosser Staff 'Gamed' CPS Survey, Gave H.S. Leaders Inflated Marks: Sources) in DNAinfo yesterday, I had to use breathe-in, breathe-out techniques for anger management.For
MAY 22
'When you close a school you open a prison'
THE PIPELINE... Hundreds marched Monday night from Lawndale to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center to call for an end to what they call the “school to prison pipeline.” Activists began their march with a rally at Paderewski Elementary, a school that was among the more than 50 closed in 2013, down Ogden Avenue to the detention center.PadlocksMembers of nearly 30 different community
MAY 21
Chicago, a year after the closings
“School closings have done nothing to improve the education of CPS students, nor have they saved money, but the same policies that led to massive closures continue to be implemented.” -- CTU ReportTwo major reports came out of Chicago this week. The first, from the CTU, finds that despite promises, the closing of 50 schools last year made conditions worse for students in both the closed and receiv
MAY 20
Randi tours Chicago with Karen Lewis. Leaves blasting the mayor.
"It feels that the Chicago mayor wants to kick the public [school] system in the teeth at every opportunity."AFT's Randi Weingarten and NEA's Dennis Van Roekel have been trying to ride two horses at the same time, courting approval from Obama/Duncan while bucking their own rank-and-file in their support for Common Core. Feeling increasing pressure from below, they recently shifted their
MAY 19
WEEKEND QUOTABLES 60 years after Brown
Grandparent Ollie Clements at Gresham sit-inDonna Brazile "Sixty years later, 'separate and unequal' is still alive...privatizing our school systems results in increased segregation, not improved opportunities." -- CNNGary YoungeRacism is far more than old white men using the N-word -- The GuardianOllie Clements, a grandparent of a Gresham student“Not just books and textbooks and other m
IL Senate votes to kill Charter Commission. Bad news for Gülen charters?
Fethullah GülenThe IL Senate voted to abolish the State Charter School Commission which had the power to override school district decisions to reject charter applications. The bill to abolish was sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood and passed the Senate 34-22. It now goes back to the House for possible action next week.This watered-down version of the bill still leaves rejected charter
MAY 20
A handful of Common Core text/testing publishers buying up everything in sight
Captive audience marketing to kids on Channel 1 Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt just acquired Channel One and Curiosityville. HMH is one of the biggest text/testing publishers cashing in on the booming Common Core market, along with Pearson and McGraw-Hill. In 2007, Pearson acquired Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International.Channel One News, founded in 1989 by school privat
We Need a Strong Alliance for Schools
Meier: States are making it easier to hand over our schools to private interests or providing money to existing private schools.
MAY 20
Thoughts From a Sit-In
Klonsky: The struggle in the cities, while certainly connected to testing and curriculum (common core), has been focused on equity.
MAY 15
Don't Write Off Everyone in the Tea Party
Meier: It's too easy to ignore families who fundamentally disagree with us without seeing the damage it causes.