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Monday, May 11, 2015

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 5/11/15



Special Nite Cap 

CORPORATE ED REFORM







The Politics of Reform - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice
The Politics of Reform - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice: The Politics of ReformThe politics of education reform has taken us on a roller-coaster ride for so long that it really behooves us to pause a moment and think about what all the political labels mean.Look at what a purely conservative view would be.People sharing a true conservative political philosophy —to preserve what is established
Action Alert: @TeachForAmerica wants to Blow into Santa Ana Tomorrow | Cloaking Inequity
Action Alert: @TeachForAmerica wants to Blow into Santa Ana Tomorrow | Cloaking Inequity: Action Alert: @TeachForAmerica wants to Blow into Santa Ana TomorrowAre the Santa Ana winds going to blow in Teach For America tomorrow? Teach For America wants to gust into Santa Ana at a SAUSD Board meeting on 5.12.15. They want to teach special education, one of our most vulnerable exceptional populations.
High number of expulsions at Western New York Maritime Charter School draw questions - City & Region - The Buffalo News
High number of expulsions at Western New York Maritime Charter School draw questions - City & Region - The Buffalo News: High number of expulsions at Western New York Maritime Charter School draw questionsHigh attrition rate draws criticism in some quartersThe charter school located in a former warehouse on Genesee Street isn’t like other Buffalo charter schools.That’s obvious from the uniform
Public School Takeovers – When Local Control is Marked ‘White Only’ | gadflyonthewallblog
Public School Takeovers – When Local Control is Marked ‘White Only’ | gadflyonthewallblog: Public School Takeovers – When Local Control is Marked ‘White Only’Do you like Democracy?Then you’d better not be poor or have brown skin.Because in America today we only allow self-government to rich white folks.Sad but true.American public schools serving large populations of impoverished and minority chil
What's Up With That Big Grant to the Atlantic Monthly From the Walton Family Foundation? - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy
What's Up With That Big Grant to the Atlantic Monthly From the Walton Family Foundation? - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy: What's Up With That Big Grant to the Atlantic Monthly From the Walton Family Foundation?Paul M.J. Suchecki & David CallahanWe've been saying for a while that the tight new embrace between journalism and philanthropy is tricky, and for s
Thompson: Did Fordham Accidentally Offer Support for Socio-Economic Integration, Not School Closures?
This Week In Education: Thompson: Did Fordham Accidentally Offer Support for Socio-Economic Integration, Not School Closures?: This Week In Education: Thompson: Did Fordham Accidentally Offer Support for Socio-Economic Integration, Not School Closures?It would be easy to read the Forward to School Closures and Student Achievement, by Fordham’s Aaron Churchill and Mike Petrilli, and prejudge the pa
Why kids who aren’t poor are now getting free and reduced-price school lunches - The Washington Post
Why kids who aren’t poor are now getting free and reduced-price school lunches - The Washington Post: Why kids who aren’t poor are now getting free and reduced-price school lunches It used to be that students from families with low incomes qualified for lunches that were either free or available at a reduced price. That’s still true — but now, new federal rules allow kids who aren’t poor at many s
Common Core critics allege conflicts, seek ethics changes
Common Core critics allege conflicts, seek ethics changes: Common Core critics allege conflicts, seek ethics changesBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The bitter feud over the Common Core education standards has grown increasingly personal, with critics of the standards raising conflict-of-interest allegations against state education leaders and seeking new ethics restrictions for them.Unable so far to force
Review of Dramatic Action, Dramatic Improvement | National Education Policy Center
Review of Dramatic Action, Dramatic Improvement | National Education Policy Center: Review of Dramatic Action, Dramatic ImprovementDramatic Action, Dramatic Improvement: The Research on School TurnaroundTiffany D. Miller and Catherine BrownCenter for American ProgressMarch 31, 2015Tina TrujilloMay 11, 2015Press Release →Dramatic Action, Dramatic Improvement: The Research on School Turnaround advoc
“Freddie Gray was about education.” | educationalchemy
The Push to Close Langston Hughes Elementary School in Park Heights Baltimore Leaves Community Skeptical of the Motives | educationalchemy: The Push to Close Langston Hughes Elementary School in Park Heights Baltimore Leaves Community Skeptical of the Motives “Freddie Gray was about education.”“We teach our kids how to add, but they need to learn social skills…and life skills”“They want to close o
Louisiana RSD Charters Victim of a “Legislative Raid”? | deutsch29
Louisiana RSD Charters Victim of a “Legislative Raid”? | deutsch29: Louisiana RSD Charters Victim of a “Legislative Raid”?We have an interesting situation in Louisiana regarding the now-permanent Recovery School District (RSD):On May 6, 2015, the Louisiana House education committee passed a bill requiring schools that are no longer “failing” to return to the local districts from whence they came, 
Local Accountability: Community Input in Education Funding | Cloaking Inequity
Local Accountability: Community Input in Education Funding | Cloaking Inequity: Local Accountability: Community Input in Education FundingWill a community-based approach to accountability and school funding work? This piece will contain a lot of acronyms and include some of my insights on the implementation of Local Accountability.I’m a classroom teacher in Sacramento City Unified School District,
L.A. Unified needs to do its homework on college-prep standards - LA Times
L.A. Unified needs to do its homework on college-prep standards - LA Times:  L.A. Unified needs to do its homework on college-prep standardsIt’s much easier for members of the L.A. Unified school board sitting on the dais to pass stringent and unrealistic new standards than it is for teachers on the ground to carry them out. Case in point: the district’s requirement that all students take the full
What Exactly Are Charter Schools Accomplishing for the Educational System? - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly
What Exactly Are Charter Schools Accomplishing for the Educational System? - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: What Exactly Are Charter Schools Accomplishing for the Educational System?  Last week was National Charter School Week, and endorsing this celebration of charter schools was President Barack Obama, who issued a presidential proclamation. The president was unabashed in his praise of high performi
Teachers unions battle court ruling on tenure laws - SFGate
Teachers unions battle court ruling on tenure laws - SFGate: Teachers unions battle court ruling on tenure laws The fate of nearly a century of job-security protections for California teachers is in the hands of a state appellate court, which is preparing to review a judge’s bombshell ruling that found tenure and seniority laws protect incompetent instructors, serve no educational purpose and, in
How To Transform Education With Video Games
How To Transform Education With Video Games: How To Transform Education With Video GamesVideo games are essentially complex systems that very young children can learn to navigate very quickly.What if we could leverage the skill with which games teach players to play? Consider the ease with which you learn the physics in Angry Birds, how quickly you came to understand Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom. What
With A Brooklyn Accent: When Veteran Teachers are Called "Developing"- The Orwellian Language of School Reform
With A Brooklyn Accent: When Veteran Teachers are Called "Developing"- The Orwellian Language of School Reform: When Veteran Teachers are Called "Developing"- The Orwellian Language of School ReformAll around the country, the story is the same. Numbers crunching administrators and evaluators, some who have never taught or only taught a few years, go into the classrooms of teach
Report: Growth in state-run preschool programs moving at snail’s pace - The Washington Post
Report: Growth in state-run preschool programs moving at snail’s pace - The Washington Post: Report: Growth in state-run preschool programs moving at snail’s paceA new report on state-funded pre-kindergarten programs says that funding, enrollment and quality was up somewhat in 2014 but that the pace of progress was way too slow and that wide disparities exist in states across the country. Just how
Death of a Salesman - Russo Leaves Chicago
Time To Say Goodbye | District 299: The Inside Scoop on CPS: Death of a Salesman - Russo Leaves Chicago  As some of you may have already noticed, I'm shutting down District 299.I created the blog way back in the day (2005) when when I realized that Chicago educators didn't care much about national news and national educators didn't care much about Chicago.At the time, I was running a weekly email
It’s Not Nothing: Why I Support the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’ | gadflyonthewallblog
It’s Not Nothing: Why I Support the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’ | gadflyonthewallblog: It’s Not Nothing: Why I Support the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’No more federal intervention.No more reducing schools to a number.That’s the promise of the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA).Sure, it’s not perfect. But this Senate proposed rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) could do a lot of
Lauderhill plans tighter regulation of charter schools - Sun Sentinel
Lauderhill plans tighter regulation of charter schools - Sun Sentinel: Troubled charter schools getting new scrutiny from citiesNew charter schools will have to show they have the resources to last a full school year before Lauderhill officials will let them open for business, under proposed rules city commissioners will consider Monday.Officials say they've learned a lesson from financially unsta
Why the Common Core won’t do what supporters say it will — principal - The Washington Post
Why the Common Core won’t do what supporters say it will — principal - The Washington Post: Why the Common Core won’t do what supporters say it will — principalA school bus passes a sign encouraging parents to refuse that their children take state tests on Monday, April 13, 2015, in Rotterdam, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)This is the seventh in a continuing series of letters between two award-winning
The ESEA: A Pivotal Civil Rights Milestone - Education Week
The ESEA: A Pivotal Civil Rights Milestone - Education Week: The ESEA: A Pivotal Civil Rights MilestoneBy Sherrilyn IfillThis year, we are commemorating significant milestones in our civil rights history, including the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the 61st anniversary of theBrown v. Board of Educati

YESTERDAY

Just when you thought you had enough, the Seattle Public School district bought another standardized test, Amplify | Seattle Education
Just when you thought you had enough, the Seattle Public School district bought another standardized test, Amplify | Seattle Education: Just when you thought you had enough, the Seattle Public School district bought another standardized test, AmplifyCreated and funded by the Gates and Carnegie Foundations with $100 million, inBloom Inc. was designed to collect a maximum amount of confidential and
The CPS No-Bid Investigation Spreads to CPEF, Once Chaired By Bruce Rauner | Chicago magazine | Felsenthal Files April 2015
The CPS No-Bid Investigation Spreads to CPEF, Once Chaired By Bruce Rauner | Chicago magazine | Felsenthal Files April 2015: The CPS No-Bid Investigation Spreads to CPEF, Once Chaired By Bruce RaunerThe principal-training consultants who received the $20 million contract, the focus of a federal investigation, got seed funding from the Chicago Public Education Fund—whose board is a who’s-who of Chi
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 5/10/15
Special Nite Cap CORPORATE ED REFORMCURMUDGUCATION: Is the Right Splintering on Testing?CURMUDGUCATION: Is the Right Splintering on Testing?: Is the Right Splintering on Testing?Last week both Rick Hess (American Enterprise Institute) and Robert Pondiscio (Fordham) turned up in the pages of US News, each to post his own response to the opt out movement. Since both of these guys come from the Fordh