Saturday, November 26, 2016

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 11/26/16



Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 11/26/16

Featured Post

What's the worst that could happen under New Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos? Some Scenarios - The Hechinger Report





DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? – Missouri Education Watchdog
by mike simpson / 20min
DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? – Missouri Education Watchdog : DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? President Elect Trump’s choice for US Secretary of Ed, Betsy DeVos, is pro- choice . So parents would like to know: Would Ms. DeVos support ensuring parents the CHOICE of whether to have their children datamined? Apparently, Ms. DeVos supports allowing big technology companies to datamine children, 50,000
Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION: Spotting Fakes and the Death of Reading + Opposing DeVos
by mike simpson / 7h
CURMUDGUCATION : Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION Spotting Fakes and the Death of Reading by Peter Greene / 22min I've looked once before at the Stanford study which found that students-- middle school, high school and college-- can't tell the difference between real news and advertisements, fake news, or just general detritus on line . The researchers themselves called the results shocking; that may
Yes, Betsy DeVos Can Privatize Large Numbers of Public Schools, with the Help of Red States | Diane Ravitch's blog
by mike simpson / 7h
Yes, Betsy DeVos Can Privatize Large Numbers of Public Schools, with the Help of Red States | Diane Ravitch's blog : Yes, Betsy DeVos Can Privatize Large Numbers of Public Schools, with the Help of Red States Kevin Carey of the New America Foundation wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times , attempting to assuage fears that Betsy DeVos would privatize American schools. If she tries to promot
Meet Our New Public Education Personnel: Just Like the Old Ones (Only More So) | educationdc
by mike simpson / 8h
Meet Our New Public Education Personnel: Just Like the Old Ones (Only More So) | educationdc : Meet Our New Public Education Personnel: Just Like the Old Ones (Only More So) Like shifting tides creating debris pools, the changing political winds of this election year have revealed common underpinnings of our public education system. Let us start with Antwan Wilson, who has been offered the positi
What's the worst that could happen under New Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos? Some Scenarios - The Hechinger Report
by mike simpson / 8h
What's the worst that could happen under New Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos? Some Scenarios - The Hechinger Report : What’s the worst that could happen under New Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos? Some Scenarios w York—Thanksgiving is, of course, about giving thanks, while being mindful of an America that has not always treated people fairly. This year, there is a lot to take stock of, as President-elect Donald
Privatization and School Buses? Thoughts, Please, Betsy DeVos?
by mike simpson / 9h
Privatization and School Buses? Thoughts, Please, Betsy DeVos? : Privatization and School Buses? Thoughts, Please, Betsy DeVos? The private company that owned the bus involved in Monday’s wreck in Chattanooga that killed five [six] elementary school students has had 142 crashes with injuries and three fatalities in the past 24 months, according to federal records. Here I’m thinking of the picture
What To Know About Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary Pick | PopularResistance.Org
by mike simpson / 9h
What To Know About Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary Pick | PopularResistance.Org : What To Know About Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary Pick President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped Michigan philanthropist Betsy DeVos to be his education secretary. “I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos tweeted Wednesday
Secretary of Privatization | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.
by mike simpson / 9h
Secretary of Privatization | Daniel Katz, Ph.D. : Secretary of Privatization For almost 16 years, across two administrations of different parties, America’s teachers have watched federal education officials embrace destructive policies. President George W. Bush ushered in the era of test and punishment based accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act. President Barack Obama entered office
Pearson Awarded Vendor Status For Delaware Social Studies State Assessment – Exceptional Delaware
by mike simpson / 9h
Pearson Awarded Vendor Status For Delaware Social Studies State Assessment – Exceptional Delaware : Pearson Awarded Vendor Status For Delaware Social Studies State Assessment Pearson has officially entered the world of Delaware standardized tests. On November 10th, NCS Pearson officially signed a contract with the Delaware Department of Education for a five-year contract worth $6 million to creat
CURMUDGUCATION: Opposing DeVos
by mike simpson / 9h
CURMUDGUCATION: Opposing DeVos : Opposing DeVos The edubloggochatosphere have pretty much itself up over the designation of Betsy DeVos to the position of Secretary of Education. Oppositions runs across the spectrum, from progressives who are upset by a super-privatizer taking over responsibility for public education to conservatives who thought they were promised an outsidey, drained-swamp, Comm
Jersey Jazzman: What Can We Learn About Betsy DeVos From Her Husband's Charter School?
by mike simpson / 10h
Jersey Jazzman: What Can We Learn About Betsy DeVos From Her Husband's Charter School? : What Can We Learn About Betsy DeVos From Her Husband's Charter School? And so it begins: It is hard to find anyone more passionate about the idea of steering public dollars away from traditional public schools than Betsy DeVos, Donald J. Trump ’s pick as the cabinet secretary overseeing the nation’s education
Marie Corfield: Defend Public Ed: Take Action NOW!
by mike simpson / 10h
Marie Corfield: Defend Public Ed: Take Action NOW! : Defend Public Ed: Take Action NOW! In President Elect Trump's continuous effort to "drain the swamp", he has nominated Betsy DeVos as our next Secretary of Education. Who is she? Well, if we're talking "swamp-draining", let's just say that DeVos is about as swampy a swamp monster as you can get. Not only does she have zero public education expe
The DeVostater: Public School Advocates Unite! - Badass Teachers Association
by mike simpson / 10h
Badass Teachers Association : The DeVostater: Public School Advocates Unite! By Dr. Michael Flanagan Like most public school teachers, I was disheartened at the nomination of billionaire education reformer Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. Her vendetta against public education is renowned, and rightly so. She has put together quite the anti-public education resume: philanthropist funder of
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 11/25/16
by mike simpson / 10h
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 11/25/16 Featured Post Mother Crusader: Betsy DeVos: Conflict of Interest Concerns Arise on Future Secretary's Twitter Account How Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could gut 

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DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? – Missouri Education Watchdog

DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? – Missouri Education Watchdog:

DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? 
philanthropy-rdtable-betsy
President Elect Trump’s choice for US Secretary of Ed, Betsy DeVos, is pro- choice.  So parents would like to know:

Would Ms. DeVos support ensuring parents the CHOICE  of whether to have their children datamined?

Apparently, Ms. DeVos supports allowing big technology companies to datamine children, 50,000 data points per hour, without parents knowing about it or ever seeing how the data are shared, used and profiled.

DeVos is Chair of The Philanthropy Round Table, a group that focuses on Venture Capital Philanthropy (and making “serious money“) and also promotes computer-based datamining  and as an added bonus, this group Chaired by Devos is alsoexcited about Common Core. You can read excerpts from their Blended Learning Guidebook here:
The Common Core—and basing annual tests on the objectives spelled out within it—is an exciting idea. But annual tests are just too slow, infrequent, impersonal, and inexact to be adequate in the digital era. Even individual quizzes or papers—the way many teachers assess what each of their students know and don’t—are needlessly slow and laborious and often fail to produce useable results.
…This is where new-style digital learning may be a game-changer. If computerized curricula that include constant student testing become widespread in classrooms, with daily reports showing how every student in a class is doing on various fronts, then accountability becomes much easier to enforce. Teachers, principals, and parents will know right away if students are learning and understanding. Good blended-learning softwareputs all final results in the context of where the student started out, so separating good instruction from bad instruction isn’t just a crude matter of who aces te end-of-year test.
Smart games collect mind-boggling volumes of data; DreamBox, the popular math DreamBox, Datamining & DeVos? – Missouri Education Watchdog:
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Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION: Spotting Fakes and the Death of Reading + Opposing DeVos

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION









Spotting Fakes and the Death of Reading
by Peter Greene / 22min
I've looked once before at the Stanford study which found that students-- middle school, high school and college-- can't tell the difference between real news and advertisements, fake news, or just general detritus on line . The researchers themselves called the results shocking; that may be only because they haven't previously spent enough time around middle school, high school and college studen

YESTERDAY

Opposing DeVos
by Peter Greene / 18h
The edubloggochatosphere have pretty much blown itself up over the designation of Betsy DeVos to the position of Secretary of Education. Oppositions runs across the spectrum, from progressives who are upset by a super-privatizer taking over responsibility for public education to conservatives who thought they were promised an outsidey, drained-swamp, Common Core smasher and instead are looking at
Trump: The Ultimate Privatization
by Peter Greene / 18h
People are still trying to unpack what kind of Presidency we have coming up. It suddenly seems so obvious to me that I can't believe I didn't get it before. I've already made my case that Trump is a kind of naked neo-liberal , as witness by his preference for privatization. Let's get Betsy DeVos in the Ed Department because her whole adult life has been about turning public education into a privat
FL: Another Charter Fiasco
by Peter Greene / 1d
Folks will be looking at Michigan (particularly Detroit) for the immediate future, as it's the state where Education Secretary-in-Waiting Betsy DeVos has purchased the power to implement many of her beloved education reforms, in particular, the unfettered proliferation of charter schools accompanied by little or no oversight. But it's not the only place where DeVos has helped spread the charter lo

NOV 24

Thanksgiving: Playing for Change
by Peter Greene / 2d
Happy Thanksgiving! I said a lot of what I have to say about the holiday last year. Short version: as a national holiday, it is problematic, but as a day to take stock and pause to be personally thankful, it's essential. I am one fortunate son of a bitch, and what I have been given (especially because I don't really deserve any of it) means I have an obligation to give and to share. This year, we
DeVos, the Acton Institute. and Child Labor
by Peter Greene / 2d
Now that Betsy DeVos is set to be our next Secretary of Education, we have a few weeks to unpack some of her intriguing associations. We already know the basics-- DeVos is a rich patron of the GOP establishment, DeVos wants vouchers very badly, and DeVos wants tax dollars to flow freely to white Christian schools. If you want to now what DeVos policies look like in practice, simply look at Detroit

NOV 23

Betsy DeVos-- Secretary of Education
by Peter Greene / 2d
According to the Washington Post, according to an associate of DeVos, Betsy DeVos will be Victor Von Trump's choice as Secretary of Education . It's important to remember that we've known we were never going to get a half-decent Secretary of Education, and that it was always only a question of what form the shafting of American public education would take. I'm going to hold your hand right over th
Pearson Hurt By Common Core
by Peter Greene / 3d
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reports that Pearson bet big on Common Core and came up snake eyes or triple lemons or whatever gambling metaphor for losing your prefer. The Journal article (it's behind a paywall but if you squint real hard, you can read it through the "don't you want to subscribe" haze) says that two factors led to losses for the edu-biz giant-- one self-inflicted, and one market

NOV 22

Trump's Naked Normal
by Peter Greene / 3d
People keep reposting the latest Trumpian shenanigans and saying, "This is not normal." On the one hand, I get what they're saying. On the other hand, as I've watched this administration unfold like a pile of maggots bursting out of a rotting deer carcass, it's dawning on me that Trump is actually normal. Fully normal. Nakedly normal. As Jon Stewart pointed out, we don't really live in a new Ameri
Dear Dan Rather
by Peter Greene / 3d
Dear Dan: I just noticed your post on Facebook in which you said Some disasters hit us with a sudden and unexpected fury like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. But some boil beneath the surface wreaking destruction without enough of us paying attention. If you want to see the hair on the back of my neck stand up in anger ask me about one such disaster - our support for public education. Please excuse me

NOV 21

MI: State Tells Students To Get Lost (If you can read this, don't thank Gov. Snyder)
by Peter Greene / 4d
Last September, seven Detroit school children filed suit against the state of Michigan for depriving those children of an actual education. The state's defense is... well, not encouraging. Let's dispense with the obvious first. While I don't have a lot of background on the case, I'm going to guess that the seven school children didn't save their lunch money and then put in a call to California law

NOV 20

Real Teacher Accountability
by Peter Greene / 5d
Reformsters repeatedly circle back around to the question of teacher accountability. If we give up evaluation system and test-based data and methods for turning professional development into a beautiful array of mini-competency-badges, they worry, how will we ever hold teachers accountable for doing a good job? How will taxpayers know they're getting their money's worth? I know one good model for
Deasy To Start Newest New Conversation
by Peter Greene / 6d
Oh, those new conversations. Reformsters have been calling for them for years. back in the fall of 2014, new conversations were all the rage. There were plenty of reasons to be doubtful -- the old conversation had been mostly about how teachers had screwed everything up and should just sit down and shut up and listen to their betters. That, and the desire for a new conversation seemed to be linked
ICYMI: Yikes, There's Snow Edition (11/20)
by Peter Greene / 6d
As always, share the originals for anything here that you like. And in the meantime, let it snow. TFA Wants My Money: Why I Said No Perhaps Kevin Huffman shouldn't have sent his fund-raising letter to one of the TFA alumni 
CURMUDGUCATION:
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