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Sunday, May 11, 2014

Recruiting students for meals program pays off for East Side Union | EdSource Today

Recruiting students for meals program pays off for East Side Union | EdSource Today:



With millions of dollars in extra state funding at stake, the staff of the East Side Union High School District spent months recruiting low-income students to sign up for the federal school meals program with the zeal of an Army recruiter.
Overfelt High sophomore Marilyn Lopez and senior Ernesto Monarres eat brunch during the morning break. They're among the 87 percent of students at the school who signed up for the free and reduced meals program. Credit: John Fensterwald
Overfelt High sophomore Marilyn Lopez and senior Ernesto Monarreseat brunch during the morning break. They’re among the 87 percent of students at the school who signed up for the free and reduced meals program. Credit: John Fensterwald
The campaign paid off. Enrollment in the meals program increased. And because program enrollment is what districts use to identify low-income students, East Side Union will receive more money based on a new funding formula that targets those students.
The new Local Control Funding Formula adds 20 percent to the yearly base for every English learner, foster youth and low-income student in a district. At East Side Union, increasing its free and reduced lunch eligibility from 43 percent of the 22,700 students in the district to 51 percent will translate to about $800,000 more in funding next year. This will increase to an estimated $2.7 million when the transition to full funding under the formula is reached, potentially in six years, said Marcus Battle, associate superintendent for business services. Including English learners nudged the district’s proportion of targeted students to 55 percent, at which point districts get additional dollars.
While perseverance worked, what clinched the deal was not an appeal to help the district. It was the pitch to families’ self-interest. Low-income students enrolled in the meals program qualify for reduced fees for Advanced Placement exams – the price drops from $85 to $5 – and waived fees for the college SAT and ACT exams and for applying to state universities, said Julie KasbergerRecruiting students for meals program pays off for East Side Union | EdSource Today:

Emeritus Professor Jack Hassard Reviews My Book | deutsch29

Emeritus Professor Jack Hassard Reviews My Book | deutsch29:



Emeritus Professor Jack Hassard Reviews My Book

May 11, 2014
I first read of Georgia State University Emeritus Professor Jack Hassard in connection to his work on the Gates funding of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
In my search of Gates’ CCSS spending, I examined spending specific to the keyword “Common Core” with one addition (Fordham Institute). The total Gates CCSS spending from my search was $173.5 million.
Hassard broadened his search beyond the term, “Common Core.” His total is $2.3 billion.
I admire Hassard’s work. Thus, it was my pleasure to learn that he was reading my book,  A Chronicle of Echoesand in an email, he wrote that it was “fabulous.”

book_cover
In my chapter on the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), I mention NCTQ’s attempt to clean up its website following the time of my writing a series of NCTQ blog posts December 2012 to February 2013. I note that even though NCTQ sanitized its website, I published the former content and associated links, anyway.
Hassard wrote to remind me of the website snapshot tool, the “Way Back Machine.”
He was also gracious enough to write this review of my book on Amazon.com.
I bolded my favorite statements.
By Jack Hassard on May 8, 2014
 Dr Mercedes Schneider’s book arrived the other day and I was thrilled to see the names and chapters devoted to many of those who I have written about on my blog. But you won’t find the kind of writing in Mercedes’s book about these individuals and organization anywhere else. In my own view, Mercedes Schneider is at the vanguard of voices who are uncovering the harm that the people featured in her book are inflicting on public education. In amazing detail and wonderfully written you’ll be taken on journeys into the minds of corporate and education thieves, many of whom have become wealthy on the backs of American school students and teachers.
And here in this book we have at our fingertips answers to important questions about how such a limited number of individual’s faces crop-up in various media outlets as the experts on public schools. If you want to find how to get wealthy and have a really big office, read about Joel Klein in chapter 1. Find out how Teach for America is transforming teacher education into a temp business by reading the Wendy Kopp story in chapter 3. You’ll find important episodes about characters including Eva Moskovitz, Michelle Rhee, Erik Hanushek, Arne Duncan, David Coleman, Chester Finn, and others. You’ll also find out about organizations that fund each other in the name of reform, but in the end seek to dismantle public education. Welcome to TFA, the New Teacher Project, the National Council on Teacher Quality (not), the Aspen Institute, the Gates Foundation, and cousins Walton and Broad.
And the best is yet to come as she saves the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation’s bill mill for the last chapter.
The content of the book is thoroughly researched and authenticated. If you read her blog, you’ll certainly enjoy this book.
This is a must read book. [Emphasis added.]

Charters, Public Schools and a Chasm Between - NYTimes.com

Charters, Public Schools and a Chasm Between - NYTimes.com:



Charters, Public Schools and a Chasm Between




When Neil J. McNeill Jr., principal of the Middle School for Art and Philosophy in Brooklyn, learned that fewer than 4 percent of his students had passed state exams in math last year, he was frustrated.
It so happened that he shared a building with one of the top-performing schools in the Brownsville neighborhood, Kings Collegiate Charter School, where 37 percent of the students had passed, well above the New York City middle-school average of 27 percent.
Mr. McNeill had long been curious about the charter school’s strategies: It, too, served large numbers of low-income black students, many from the same neighborhoods. But the two schools operated in their own bubbles, with separate public-address systems and different textbooks. And as a matter of practice, they did not talk about academics.
“We are kind of two ships in the night,” Mr. McNeill, 39, said recently.
A primary rationale for the creation of charter schools, which are publicly financed and privately run, was to develop test kitchens for practices that could be exported into the traditional schools. President Obama, in recently proclaiming “National Charter Schools Week,” said they “can provide effective approaches for the broader public education system.”

Photo

Neil J. McNeill Jr., principal of the Middle School for Art and Philosophy in Brownsville, Brooklyn.CreditChristopher Gregory for The New York Times

But two decades since the schools began to appear, educators from both systems concede that very little of what has worked for charter schools has found its way into regular classrooms. Testy political battles over space andCharters, Public Schools and a Chasm Between - NYTimes.com: 


A Lesson in Farming, Classroom to Cafeteria
In Hagerstown, Ind., high school students will be making their own burgers from scratch — raising cattle to supply cheaper food for their cafeteria.

A Valuable Research Tool: The “Way Back Machine” | deutsch29

A Valuable Research Tool: The “Way Back Machine” | deutsch29:



A Valuable Research Tool: The “Way Back Machine”

May 11, 2014

In exposing corporate reformers at their game, I have found that information sometimes “conveniently” disappears from websites once such information is publicized in a less-than-complimentary blog post.
There is a way to view web pages that have been removed or otherwise altered:
The “Way Back Machine”:
The “Way Back Machine” is a search engine of “snapshots” taken of web pages over time.
All one must do is enter the non-responsive or altered url into the search engine; the result will include the number of snapshots taken in a given period. For example, I just entered my blog address into the search engine, and the result was “Saved 24 times 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: The great $660 billion public pension rip-off

Schooling in the Ownership Society: The great $660 billion public pension rip-off:



The great $660 billion public pension rip-off


Edward Siedle is president of Benchmark Financial Services and is a former investigator with the Security and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management. He writes in Sunday's New York Times:
Nearly a quarter of all state and local public pension assets have disappeared -- $660 billion in state workers’ retirement savings taken off the radar and swept into high-cost hedge, private equity, venture and real estate funds with little or no public oversight.
Kickbacks, bribery, self-dealing, fraud, tax evasion and outright theft have been protected as confidential “trade secrets” or “proprietary business information” exempt from disclosure to the public under Schooling in the Ownership Society: The great $660 billion public pension rip-off:






5-10-14 Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Schooling in the Ownership Society All Week
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:Schooling in the Ownership SocietyMike Klonsky's SmallTalk Schooling in the Ownership SocietyBridging DifferencesHow many polls do you need?Hey Preckwinkle, Fioretti, Bozo the Clown...somebody. What the hell are you waiting for?Only one in five Chicago voters credit Mayor Rahm Emanuel with doing a better job of running the city than Richard M. Daley did, and only 29 p

Nite Cap 5-11-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2



James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."


A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP




4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-11-14
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What Kind of Education Do Mothers Want for Their Children? | Reclaim Reform
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Federal Funding a Gravy Train for Charter Schools | Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence (TREE)
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Who Betrayed The Legacy Of Brown V. Board?
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5-11-14 Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week: Ras Baraka & Newark's Last Grasp at Democracy
Jersey Jazzman: Ras Baraka & Newark's Last Grasp at Democracy: Ras Baraka & Newark's Last Grasp at DemocracyIf you believe that America is a democracy, you must also believe, a priori, that Newark, NJ, is not part of America.For the last couple of weeks, it has become painfully, disturbingly clear that Newark -- like many other communities populated by working-poor and working-class people
Charter schools paying millions in taxpayer money to middlemen while students suffer - NY Daily News
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Students, Teachers March To Demand Changes To L.A. Public Schools | Neon Tommy
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Saturday’s Book Presentation |
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Everything is Untested Until You Test It | Paul Bruno
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The Philanthropy Paradox | Network Schools - Wayne Gersen
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Morning Wink 5-11-14 AM Posts #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2
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5-11-14 Schools Matter
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5-11-14 LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH Diane Ravitch's blog #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2
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NYC Educator: Me--Free and Fair Contract Discussion, UFT Leadership--Crickets
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YESTERDAY

inBloom, BloomBoard, and the Undeniable, Corporate Reform “Need” for Student Data | deutsch29
inBloom, BloomBoard, and the Undeniable, Corporate Reform “Need” for Student Data | deutsch29: inBloom, BloomBoard, and the Undeniable, Corporate Reform “Need” for Student DataMay 10, 2014On April 21, 2014, the Gates-funded data warehouse inBloom publicized that it was shutting down.The New York Times called it a “setback for the nearly $8 billion prekindergarten through 12th-grade education techn
@ProfessorJVH with @MHarrisPerry on @MSNBC @MHPshow in NYC 5/17 #brownvboard60 | Cloaking Inequity
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Nite Cap 5-10-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2
James Baldwin said it best: "For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAPStudents Worldwide Join Week of Action to Reclaim Education | PopularResistance.OrgStudents Worldwide Join Week of Action to Reclaim Education | PopularResistance.Org: Students Worldwide Join Week of Action to Reclaim EducationRESIST! STUDENT ACT