Perdido Street School:
77% Of The Race To The Top Award Money In NYC Went To Pay For Consultants, Central Office Work, And Support Staff
Bill Gates, Just Like The Koch Brothers, Only With Better P.R.
Perdido Street School Week
77% Of The Race To The Top Award Money In NYC Went To Pay For Consultants, Central Office Work, And Support Staff
Remember when they told us we had to win Race to THE Top because that money was so desperately needed for the kids?Yeah, turns out that was NOT what they planned on spending the RttT cash on:Less than a quarter of the $107 million that the school system received in federal Race to The Top funds last year was sent directly to school principals. The decision on how to spend most of the money — $83 m
Bill Gates, Just Like The Koch Brothers, Only With Better P.R.
From Techrights: THE Gates Foundation continues to swindle the world.GMO (e.g. Monsanto) monopoly is still on the agenda based on reports from CNET (part of CBS) and other CBS sites that highlight more patents on bananas, with investments from Bill Gates. They are of course pretending it’s about feeding hungry Africans, which is a common PR strategy, but it is really about profit. A lot of Gates-b
Why Teacher Tenure Is NOT The Problem In Education
From Dale Hansen:By concluding that the due process protections afforded to educators under tenure denied students "equal opportunity to achieve a quality education," Judge Treu seems to ignore that correlation does not prove causation.If tenure unfairly protects teachers, there should be a considerably higher number of teachers fired per year at schools where tenure is not available. Th
YESTERDAY
The Hubris, Arrogance And Authoritarianism Of Common Core Proponents
Some of the comments on Jay Greene's Common Core Political Naivete and the Enemies List post get at this:"The main problem has not been intention, I think, but strategy. I have no doubt many Core supporters really think national standards are educationally important. The problem is, to get what they thought was good, they adopted a strategy that was — and is — highly destructive: Drive adopti
JUL 03
NYC Parents Union Files Suit Against City, State Officials Over Tenure/Seniority Rules
From the NY Times:An education advocacy group on Thursday threw down the first challenge to New York’s teacher tenure laws in the wake of a landmark court decision in California last month finding such laws there unconstitutional.A lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court on Staten Island argues that the tenure laws violate the State Constitution’s guarantee of a “sound basic education” by making it d
Common Core Proponents Get Nixonian In Their Retaliation Tactics
Jay Greene:The entire Common Core enterprise has been characterized by shocking political naivete and over-reach. Despite investing a fortune in political operatives and holding weekly conference calls “directed by Stefanie Sanford, who was in charge of policy and advocacy at the Gates Foundation,” the folks pushing Common Core did not anticipate that the Unions would betray them and oppose the i
But Isn't The College/Career Readiness Metric All About Test Prep, Chancellor?
Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY got an interview with Carmen Farina in which the NYCDOE chancellor gives more details on her plans to improve the school system.Farina says she plans to focus on the 2nd, 7th and 10th grades as benchmarks for how children are progressing academically, socially and emotionally - how she plans to evaluate social and emotional development is beyond me, though I suspect it
How Does Eva Moskowitz Not Make The Daily News' "50 Most Powerful Women In NYC" List?
The list is here.Why isn't Eva Moskowitz on it?Hillary Clinton, Kristen Gillibrand, and Chirlane McCray are on it. Carmen Farina is on it.Emma Wolfe, de Blasio's chief aide, is on it.Kathyrn Wilde is on it.I get those names.A bunch of women who run Fortune 500 companies are on the list.I get those.And then there are women listed that make you scratch your head. Reshma Saujani, perennial loser for
JUL 02
Zephyr Teachout Says She Has 25,000+ Ballot Signatures To Take On Cuomo In Dem Primary
From Buffalo News:ALBANY – A Fordham law professor seeking to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary says she has obtained 25,100 signatures as of today in her bid to get on the Sept. 9 ballot – nearly double the minimum amount needed.Zephyr Teachout said an army of volunteers and paid canvassers have been working the state the past month gathering signatures from Democrats at public
Great News - New Walcott Health Data Coming!
Earlier this week, former NYCDOE chancellor Dennis Walcott released the results of his latest physical in the Daily News - an event that I covered in a post called Dennis Walcott Needs To Just Go The ---- Away!Here's a bit of Walcott's piece:My annual physical checkup — I just got the results — yielded the following comparisons to last year’s findings: Weight down from 152 to 148 lbs.; HDL (“good
Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Worst President Since WWII
Heckuva job, Barry;A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama is the worst president since World War II.Key findings: 33% of American voters say Obama is the worst while another 28% pick George W. BushCongratulations, dude - you've beaten out George W., ht eman who brought us the Katrina response and the Iraq war mess, as worst president since WWII.That's a heckuva an accomplishment.
Michael Rebell On The Irony Of Campbell Brown
From State of Politics:Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.... Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which successfully maintained t
De Blasio Signs Bill Requiring Charter Schools To Report Data
From Daily Politics: Mayor de Blasio signed a bill Tuesday to require the city to publish reports detailing the demographics and academic records of all charter schools co-located with traditional public schools. Officials will have to spell out the number of kids who get free lunch, proportion of kids learning English and special education students, racial breakdown, and test scores at the school
JUL 01
Why Did The NY Times Edit Andrew Cuomo Statements Out Of The Libous Criminal Indictment Story?
Here's the way the NY Times story on the indictment of State Senator Tom Libous, the second ranking Republican in the State Senate and a close friend and ally of Governor Cuomo, read this afternoon at 1:50 PM:The indictment of Senator Libous effectively could deprive the governor of his most powerful and sympathetic ally within the Senate Republican majority. But it comes just weeks after Mr. Cuom
Bill Gates Whines "Unmotivated Studnets" Are The Problem With The Education System
Via Diane Ravitch's blog, here's an AP story on Bill Gates stroking himself at an event at Los Alamos:Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates says eradicating malaria, tuberculosis and polio is easier than fixing the United States' education system. But what he says he really wishes he could do is write a check to eliminate biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.Gates made the comment
Indicted Republican State Senator Is Close Cuomo Ally
This is in the Capital NY story on the indictment of the second ranking Republican in the State Senate, Tom Libous, on making false statements to the FBI:U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara subpoenaed records from JCOPE earlier this year, as he took over the mantle of a defunct anti-corruption commission that Governor Andrew Cuomo convened in 2012. Bharara criticized Cuomo, a Democrat, for shutting down h
Second Ranking Republic In NY State Senate Indicted On False Statement Charges
The cesspool that is Albany gets dirtier:Sen. Tom Libous, the number two ranking Republican in the state Senate, has been indicted on making a false statement to federal law enforcement, according to records unsealed on Tuesday. In a separate, six-count indictment, the Binghamton lawmaker’s son Matthew Libous was charged with filing false tax returns and obstruction as well as making false stateme
IBO Report - Teaching Experience Of Principals Plummets
The IBO report on NYCDOE schools was just released - you can see it here in PDF.I'm starting to pore through it now, but here's one stat that got my attention (though given the Bloomberg policies of hiring lots of people with little-to-no education experience whatsoever to work as "team leaders", it's not a surprised):In 2000-2001, principals in DOE schools averaged 14.0 years as a teach
RIP: Frank Cashen
From the Daily News:Frank Cashen, a one-time Baltimore sportswriter-turned-baseball man who presided over championship Oriole teams in the ’60s and ’70s and then, as general manager of the Mets, was the architect of their 1986 world championship team with a series of inspired trades for Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Ron Darling and Bobby Ojeda, among others, died Monday at Memorial Hospital in Eas
JUN 30
A Closer Look At The Polling On The Common Core
Neal McCluskey at Cato has done a great job of showing how much of the polling around the Common Core is problematic.If you haven't read his posts, they are here, here and here.Next time you see a poll purporting to show support for the Common Core, look to see what wording the pollsters used before they asked the questions around CCSS support.When pollsters read the boilerplate from the Gates Fou
Labor Wins One In The Supreme Court - For Now
From Politico:The Supreme Court Monday sided with home health care workers in Illinois who want out of a union but stopped short of a sweeping decision that could have decimated union finances and membership.In Harris v. Quinn, the justices declined to reverse a precedent, set in 1977, that held states could compel public-sector employees to pay union dues. Laws mandating such payments exist in 26
Chamber Of Commerce Common Core Ads Fail To Persuade Republican Base
Pro-Common Core business entities have been putting up money to try and sell the CCSS to the public for a while now, with many aiming to change the way people on the right feel about the standards.Libby Nelson at Vox reports the efforts to convince people on the right about the wonders of the Core aren't working:The big political narrative around the Common Core this summer is that the national ed
Why Is Governor Cuomo Still Paying Full Salary To The Executive Director Of The Defunct Moreland Commission?
Quid Pro Cuomo at it again: Three months after Gov. Cuomo said he was pulling the plug on his anti-corruption commission, the panel’s lightening rod executive director is still drawing a hefty paycheck. State payroll records show that Moreland Commission Executive Director Regina Calcaterra, who at $175,000 a year makes just $4,000 less than the governor, is still receiving about $6,700 every two
State Comptroller Criticizes NYSED For Lax Oversight Of Special Education Services
From Ken Lovett in the Daily News: A Queens-based provider of bilingual pre-school special education services was hit by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli in a new audit for improperly spending taxpayer money on fancy cars, a Manhattan apartment, and even a recent hire's funeral expenses. The audit, set to be released Monday, found that Bilinguals Inc. received reimbursements to help cover the cost
JUN 29
Seeds For Next Crash Sprout
From the NY Times:FRANKFURT — An organization representing the world’s main central banks warned Sunday that dangerous new asset bubbles were forming even before the global economy had finished recovering from the last round of financial excess.Investors, desperate to earn returns even as official interest rates are at or near record lows, have been driving up the prices of stocks and other assets
The Pro-Common Core Push Back Remains The Same
Carol Burris left this comment on a Valerie Strauss post at the Answer Sheet on how the CCSS testing is coming apart:Put a fork in the Common Core...it's done. And when the history is written, its demise will be attributed to Race to the Top and the way the Gates Foundation people influenced the Department of Education. And it's irresponsible implementation in NY will receive credit as well.A pro-
Direct Evidence Of Corporate Criminal Activity By News Corporation Surfaces
From The Independent:Detectives investigating possible corporate charges against Rupert Murdoch's media empire have obtained evidence to suggest that News International paid private detectives to unlawfully access the phone records of a leading IRA mole who lives under the protection of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Senior Scotland Yard officers are analysing an invoice originally seized from a
Time For Dennis Walcott To Just Go The Away
Dennis Walcott shares the results of his latest physical for all New Yorkers to rejoice in:Smart government policies to improve longevity and health outcomes for the public are critical. But it is ultimately our own individual responsibility to chart a healthier course for ourselves. You don’t need to run marathons. A modest change in diet and exercise habits can go a long way.My annual physical c
JUN 28
Education Reform's Dirty Secret: Reformers Target Black And Brown Teachers For Replacement
Glenn Sullivan, a recent graduate from New Orleans’ Lake Area New Tech Early College High School, writes the following in the Washington Post:In my school, as in many schools — especially in reform-oriented school districts — a lot of the good, black teachers have been replaced by younger white teachers. Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, nearly 75 percent of the city’s public school teachers were
Why Won't Campbell Brown Reveal The Donor List To Her Education Reform Advocacy Group?
From David Callahan at Inside Philanthropy:When queried by a reporter for Politico, Brown declined to name the donors to the advocacy group she's started, the Partnership for Educational Justice, except to say that they come from both political parties.Carl Korn, a spokesperson for New York State United Teachers, told Politico that PEJ was an "astroturf" group funded by right-wing “extre
7% Of FOX 5 NY On Air Personalities Have Been Accused Or Convicted Of Sex Crimes In Past Four Years
I posted earlier about former Fox 5 NY reporter Charles Leaf getting sentenced to 26 years in prison on child molestation charges.In the post, I wondered about the following:Why isn't Campbell Brown screaming about the Leaf case and wondering aloud how many other Fox News employees are pedophiles? Now Leaf is the only convicted pedophile that I know of at Rupert Murdoch's FOX News and and FOX affi
Fox 5 Reporter Sentenced To 26 Years In Prison For Child Molestation Charges
But Charles Leaf, the former Fox 5 reporter sentenced to 26 years in prison for child molestation and child porn, continues to deny the charges:The former television reporter convicted of molesting a 4-year-old girl defiantly maintained his innocence for nearly half an hour in a packed courtroom before a judge sentenced him to 26 years in prison on Friday.“I can’t stand before you and say I’m sorr