CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam:

PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam

Online Public Schools Are a Disaster, Admits Billionaire, Charter School-Promoter Walton Family Foundation - http://go.shr.lc/28sCTkU

If you are in Pennsylvania, you may have been seeing advertising for Commonwealth Charter Academy. CCA avoids calling itself a cyber-anything, but it is in fact one more cyber charter littering the Pennsylvania landscape. As with many schools pushing the tech solution to education issues, it leans heavily on "personalized learning" and markets itself as a family approach. That seems to be aimed at the idea of cyber-school as a source of family togetherness and not the time-honored practice of having parents complete their children's cyber-homework.

CCA may not be a familiar name because it is a new name. It previously marketed itself as Commonwealth Connections Academy. And while its press release about the name change says that the charter is "a fully independent public cyber charter school governed by a Pennsylvania-based board of directors," that's not quite right. Connections Academy is the cyber school chain owned by Pearson.

The superintendent CEO of CCA is Dr. Maurice Flurie. Flurie has a nice solid PA background, holding degrees from Duquesne, Lock Haven, Shippensburg and-- well, okay-- his original Bachelor's Degree was from the Tennessee Technological University, and it was in Health/Physical Education. He was an Asst to the Superintendent in Lower Dauphin before moving over to Connections. And he is still (since 2000) an adjunct professor at Wilkes University, a PA university that does big business in on-line classes. The "Dr." comes from his Ed. D in Educational Leadership.

Flurie has been among the cyber-school voices whining about Governor Tom Wolf's proposals to end CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam:

Pat Kelly & Thought Leadering

Thanks to reader Robert D. Skeels. This is just too fun not to pass along.

1 by Peter Greene / 5h hi

Thought Leader Duncan Has Another New Job

Arne Duncan continues to build that resume. He was already signed on with Emerson Collective, the philanthropic mish-mash of Steve Jobs widow; in that position, he is poised to work on the youth unemployment problems of Chicago.Now comes word that Duncan has joined the board of directors for Pluralsign.If you aren't a tech professional, you may not recognize Pluralsign's name, but they've been in

37 by Peter Greene / 20h 

Common Core Standards (Still) Don't Cut It

Every few years the ACT folks unleash a big ole survey to find out what's actually going on Out There in the world of school stuff. This year's survey drew at least 2,000 respondents each from elementary and secondary schools, as well as college and workplace respondents. The whole package is eighty-eight pages, and I've read it, and while you don't have to, you might still want to. There are seve

46 by Peter Greene / 1d hide  //  save

Chester Finn's Charter Market Worries

Chester Finn, honcho emeritus of the right-tilted Fordham Institute, was back on the Fordham blog this week to continue his charter school series with a look at what he thinks are three "market malfunctions in the charter sector." Man, I just love the word "sector"- it sounds so clean and neat, not like marketplace or business. Honey, I'm going to get a tub of popcorn in the sn

13 by Peter Greene / 1d 

The SAT-- Worse Than You Think

Folks have been questioning the accuracy, validity and usefulness of the SAT for decades, and the chorus of criticism only increased when College Board, the test manufacturing company responsible for the SAT, brought in Common Core architect David Coleman to take over. Coleman's fast and ugly rewrite of the venerable test was intended to bring it in line with the K-12 standards of Common Core. Col

100+ by Peter Greene / 1d