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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29

Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29:



Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal

July 1, 2014
head slap
On July 01, 2014, I attended the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) Special Board Meeting initiated by three members: Lottie Beebe, Carolyn Hill, and Jane Smith.
These three members wanted a primary focus of the meeting to include discussion of a plan for Louisiana’s school districts for the 2014-15 school year given Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s June 18, 2014, decision to– among other issues– suspend Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) purchase of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments. (To read the backstory, click  here, and here, and here, and here.)
It was clear from the adopted  BESE meeting agenda that BESE President Chas Roemer and sidekick State Superintendent John White were “exploring the option” to file suit against the governor:
Items for Consideration
1. Consideration of an update report regarding Executive Order 
No. BJ 2014-6, Executive Order No. BJ 2014-7, and related 
implementation
2. Consideration of the potential retention of special legal 
counsel regarding Executive Order No. BJ 2014-6, Executive 
Order No. BJ 2014-7, and related implementation
3. Consideration of an Executive Session to consult with counsel 
regarding Executive Order No. BJ 2014-6, Executive Order 
No. BJ 2014-7, related implementation, and potential retention 
of special legal counsel
While no item specifically mentioned the “Plan B” agenda item requested by Beebe, Hill, and Smith, Roemer allowed broad discussion for item one. Beebe openly Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29:
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Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:



Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core

Posted on July 1, 2014
0
Today was an interesting day at the Claiborne building in downtown Baton Rouge. Today was the much anticipated climax of significant back and forth politicking between Governor Jindal and his mail ordered State Superintendent of Education, John White. Today was the day Louisiana got a front row seat to the attempted abortion of the illegitimate Education Love Child known as Common Core and the testing consortium known as PARCC, conceived in back room deals and between these two star-crossed (and now double-crossing) education reformers.
Of course John White insisted on boring and dubious analysis of the situation that everyone who was there already knew all too well. Usually this is simply annoying and infuriating, but today was a little different since he didn’t have a trusty and redundant PowerPoint to stall over and guide him through the highlights. It appeared White was talking somewhat off the cuff. When you talk for hours on end you eventually make some mistakes. When you lie about everything to everyone, it is inevitable that you will contradict yourself and your previous statements.
Let’s discuss some of them.
John White confirmed that the test questions for next year will be different than this year and that test questions always change every year, regardless of who cast the testing contract and regardless of the test containing PARCC questions or not. This contradicts John White’s earlier testimony and assertions to the legislature related to disclosing previously administered tests to parents to review. White claimed this would cause a lot of unnecessary expense and force the department to create new questions. When White testified before the legislature this spring he claimed if test questions were released the tests would need to be reworked because those questions could never be used again. However today, before BESE, John White confessed these questions are changed every year. They are not used every year anyways so releasing these tests should not be a Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:
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Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education” | Seattle Education

Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education” | Seattle Education:



Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education”

standardized2I will be showing the movie STANDARDIZED: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education in my home on Thursday, July 10th at 7:00 PM.
There will be plenty of time for discussion after the movie.
Please RSVP to seattled@icloud.com.
Beverages will be provided. Potluck on the snacks.

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empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools

empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools:



    Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools

    By Elaine Weiss and Emma García | Originally Published at Economic Policy Institute. June 25, 2014
    Growing up black or Hispanic in the United States today means high odds of living in concentrated poverty: in neighborhoods in which at least 40 percent of the residents are poor. This connection between minority status and being surrounded by poor peers is true, as well, in the school setting. Not only do most U.S. kids begin school in classrooms that are heavily segregated—white kids in heavily white classrooms, minority kids in heavily black and Hispanic classrooms—black and Hispanic kindergartners are also disproportionately surrounded by poor peers.
    Nationwide, 25 percent of kindergartners are from low-income households. If schools reflected this makeup regardless of the racial composition of classrooms, students would be in classes in which about one in four of their peers were low-income. Yet most white students (three in five) are in classrooms in which just a little more than one in ten of their classmates are poor. Only 11 percent of Hispanic and only 7 percent of black students enter school into such low-poverty classrooms.
    By contrast, most Hispanic and black students are in classrooms in which at least two thirds of their peers are also minorities, and virtually half are poor: 56.5 percent of black students and 55.2 percent of Hispanic empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools:
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    An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform

    An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:



    An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage

    BY  · JULY 1, 2014
    UOObanner-1


    In the summer of 2013, United Opt Out spent all of June writing 50 state opt out/refusal guides to arm everyone with an essential tool, specific to their state, in order to halt corporate education reform via opt out. This summer we have taken it a step further. We have documented our activist journey in an effort to share a broader understanding of “opt out” – “opt out” is much more than simply refusing high stakes tests. As we reclaim the conversation on public education with An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution we share with you our UOO personal journey, detailed actions, and research to support you in 2014-2015. All proceeds from our book will be used to further our efforts at United Opt Out to educate, take action and allow all children to have the following – as stated in our demand:
    United Opt Out National serves as a focused point of unyielding resistance to corporate ed. reform. We demand an equitably funded, democratically based, anti-racist, desegregated public school system for all Americans that prepares students to exercise compassionate and critical decision making with civic virtue.
    We also ask that you sign up as a member of UOO to receive updates. We lost all of our contacts when our website was hacked this past March. So, in order to keep up with our work in 2014-2015 it is necessary to sign up as a member here.   We are now organized by regions and we will be sharing national as well as local information to keep folks up to date.
    Our book is currently available via pre-order using the flyer below or you can simply wait until we send information to our membersonce we receive notice that it is in print and ready to go.
    Many thanks to everyone who has supported our work.  Join the revolution in 2014-2015 - UOO, as always, pushes forward, with a focus on truth and action.
    - United Opt Out Team

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    Architects of a Brave New World NATIONAL COMMON CORE CURRICULUM WAS DEVELOPED AND FUNDED BY THE FOLLOWING: 1) NCEE (Natl Center for Education and the Economy) NCEE is funded by WALTON FOUNDATION, BROAD FOUNDATION, GATES FOUNDATION NCEE is funded by the New Schools Venture connected to America’s Choice. New Schools Venture supports business model charter schools like KIPP and EDISON NCEE is a prog
    by pegwpen / 42min 
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    Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch

    Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch:



    Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration?

    Posted: Updated: 
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    TEACHER
    We are living in an era when the very idea of public education is under attack, as are teachers' unions and the teaching profession. Let's be clear: these attacks and the power amassed behind them are unprecedented in American history. Sure, there have always been critics of public schools, of teachers, and of unions. But never before has there been a serious and sustained effort to defund public education, to turn public money over to unaccountable private hands, and to weaken and eliminate collective bargaining wherever it still exists. And this effort is not only well-coordinated but funded by billionaires who have grown wealthy in a free market and can't see any need for regulation or unions or public schools.
    In the past, Democratic administrations and Democratic members of Congress could be counted on to support public education and to fight privatization. In the past, Democrats supported unions, which they saw as a dependable and significant part of their base.
    This is no longer the case. Congress is about to pass legislation to expand funding of charter schools, despite the fact that they get no better results than public schools and despite the scandalous misuse of public funds by charter operators in many states.
    The Obama administration strongly supports privatization via charters; one condition of Race to the Top was that states had to increase the number of charters. The administration is no friend of teachers or of teacher unions. Secretary Duncan applauded the lamentable Vergara decision, as he has applauded privatization and evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. There are never too many tests for this administration. Although the president recentlytalked about the importance of unions, he has done nothing to support them when they are under attack. Former members of his administration are leading the war against teachers and their unions.
    Think Rahm Emanuel, who apparently wants to be known as the mayor who privatized Chicago and broke the teachers' union. Or think Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary who is now leading the public relations Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch:
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    Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson

    Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson:



    Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools?


    American constitutional democracy seeks a balance between the empowerment of individuals and the checks and balances necessary to protect the rights of the community. Bill Gates, like so many other billionaires, does not seem to respect the wisdom of poet Robert Frost. "Good fences make good neighbors."

    Post-World War II prosperity and freedom was based in no small part on "firewalls." Unbreachable barriers were supposed to separate the investment side of banks and their customers' savings accounts. The wall between the newsroom and the business operations of newspapers was sacrosanct. Labor earned many protections separating the Human Resources departments' agendas and workers' rights to their personal opinions and for asserting their democratic rights. Medical regulations protect personal privacy.
    And, medical ethics prevent health providers from experimenting on children without informed and explicit permission by parents. Corporate reformers have been unique in their propensity to roll the dice and gamble on policies that often cause severe damage to children. No other institution would be as dismissive as school reformers have been of the principle of First Do No Harm.
    It is not just in education where corporations seek to tear down those fences. Checks on the flow of information are also checks on their cash flow. Whether they are opposed by Paul Volker, Elizabeth Warren or teachers, elites are notoriously impatient with efforts to regulate the flow of their data, their capital, or their political power.
    When the Gates Foundation first became involved in education, it could be argued, they were not necessarily unneighborly. They should have taken the time to communicate with educators before jumping into their expensive small schools initiative. But, many of its first contributions were beneficial.
    The Billionaires Boys Club was notoriously impatient, however. They were not willing to earn a seat at the head of the table. Corporate reformers quickly concluded that it was necessary to break eggs, as they saw it, to make omelets. They called it "disruptive innovation." Destroy local school boards, university education departments, and the power of unions, and "transformational change" would presumably occur.
    So, before long, Gates and the other elites replaced win-win policies, that teachers would have welcomed, with metrics for reward and punishment. For their policy preferences to win, others had to lose.
    Gates and Arne Duncan were at the forefront of tearing down the walls that Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson:


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    Nite Cap 7-1-14 #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



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    by mike simpson / 18min 
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    In Colorado Parents Are Denied Access to Their Student’s Data | Truth in American Education
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    by mike simpson / 1h 
    NEA Representative Assembly to Vote to End ‘Toxic Testing’ | NEA Today
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    by mike simpson / 1h 
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    by mike simpson / 4h 
    Green Dot, based in L.A., plans to open schools in other states - Los Angeles Times
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    by mike simpson / 4h 
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    by mike simpson / 5h 
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    by mike simpson / 5h 
    7-1-14 Answer Sheet
    Answer Sheet: How to increase socioeconomic diversity in collegeLeaders in higher education have known for many years that low-income students are underrepresented at top institutions. How to change that? Catharine B. Hill, the president of Vassar College in New York, writes in this post about the only way that colleges and universities can expand socioeconomic diversity. By Catharine B. Hill As c
    by mike simpson / 6h 
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    7-1-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
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    by mike simpson / 7h 
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    by mike simpson / 7h 
    Mercedes Schneider and VAMs in Louisiana |
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    by mike simpson / 7h 
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    by mike simpson / 7h 
    Morning Wink 7-1-14 AM Posts #edchat #edreform
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    Competency Education: The Next Great Disruptor in Education | Connected Principals
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    Shanker Blog » Teachers And Education Reform, On A Need To Know Basis
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    NYC Educator: Troglodytes
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    Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: SCOTUS decision deserves a stronger response than Schuette got
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    YESTERDAY

    6-30-14 @ The Chalk Face
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    by mike simpson / 17h 
    Friction in alliance between Democrats, unions over teacher tenure | MSNBC
    Friction in alliance between Democrats, unions over teacher tenure | MSNBC: Friction in alliance between Democrats, unions over teacher tenureNational Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel and Nation Institute fellow Wayne Barrett look at the robust debate in the left over whether teacher tenure is in the best interests of students.
    by mike simpson / 18h 
    Common Core-Aligned Tests and the New Pearson GED: Failure By Design? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher
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    by mike simpson / 22h 
    Nite Cap 6-30-14 #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 CAP6-30-14 Seattle Schools Community ForumSeattle Schools Community Forum: Great Reading on Ed Reform by a Local LeaderThat leader is Trish Millines Dziko who started Technology Access Foundation and is truly a great thinker on how to push the needl
    by mike simpson / 23h 





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