CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Scott Wagner Financed by DeVos Ed Reformsters #VoteTuesday

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Scott Wagner Financed by DeVos Ed Reformsters

PA: Scott Wagner Financed by DeVos Ed Reformsters

At PennLive.com they did some quick record checks and found these fun facts about the money behind this year's governor's race in PA. You'll never guess who's bankrolling Scott Wagner. (Incidentally, you don't have to guess-- you can play along at home by digging the finance reports out at the PA campaign finance records website).

This frickin' guy.

One interesting factoid is the numbers-- Governor Tom Wolf has almost 27,000 separate contributors to his race. GOP's Scott Wagner has 5,900 contributors.

Wolf's contributors ran from $1 to $500,000. Wagner's run from (weirdly) $2 up to $1,000,000. Wolf totaled up $29.8 million, while Wagner collected a mere $14.4 million. Wagner has kicked in $5 million of his own money and borrowed another $6 million.

But here's one more thing to take note of. Wagner's biggest donor not named Wagner is Students First PAC, which kicked in $1,000,000.

The name "Student First" might ring a bell; that group was founded almost a decade ago by Michele Rhee (former chancellor of DC schools and builder of the foundation of years of scandals in that district).  That group has long been busy in PA, trying to do away with all employment protectionsfor teachers, pushing the Common Core, and trying yet again to Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Scott Wagner Financed by DeVos Ed Reformsters

NYC: No Charter Waiting Lists! Charters Hire Firm to Market Their Brands | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC: No Charter Waiting Lists! Charters Hire Firm to Market Their Brands | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC: No Charter Waiting Lists! Charters Hire Firm to Market Their Brands

Susan Edelman of the New York Post reports that the NYC DOE is under investigation by federal and state officials for giving personal information about students to a marketing firm hired by charter schools.

https://nypost.com/2018/11/04/department-of-education-probed-for-pitching-charters-to-public-school-kids/

Wait! What about the long waiting lists?!

She writes:

“The city Department of Education reduces its enrollment by giving student names and addresses to a private vendor that produces mass mailings to help charter schools woo families.

“The longtime marketing practice has now come under investigation by state and federal officials after a Manhattan mom complained it violates student privacy rights.

“Each year my family receives a large number of pamphlets and flyers from charter schools, promoting and marketing their schools and urging me to apply, ” Johanna Garcia wrote to state and US officials.

“While Garcia has three kids in public schools, flyers have targeted her daughter who qualified for a gifted and talented program, she wrote, but not two other children with special needs.

“The DOE says it gives only student names, grade levels and addresses to Vanguard Direct, a bulk-mailing company, and forbids the company to share the data with anyone else.

“Charter schools — which are privately run but get taxpayer funds based Continue reading: NYC: No Charter Waiting Lists! Charters Hire Firm to Market Their Brands | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arizona: #RedforEd Is So Popular that Even Its Opponents are Hitching Their Wagon to It | Diane Ravitch's blog #VoteTuesday

Arizona: #RedforEd Is So Popular that Even Its Opponents are Hitching Their Wagon to It | Diane Ravitch's blog
Arizona: #RedforEd Is So Popular that Even Its Opponents are Hitching Their Wagon to It

This story in the New York Times by veteran education writer Dana Goldstein describes the peculiar situation in Arizona, where everyone claims to support public education even if they don’t.

Even Governor Doug Ducey, the nemesis of public schools, is boasting about his thin education record.

PHOENIX — Campaign signs are clustered on street corners and highway ramps across this low-slung, sun-baked city, proclaiming “#YesforEd” and “Protect Public Education.” In TV commercials, the Republican governor promises to “put more money in the classroom, not bureaucracy.” “Our schools are falling apart,” his Democratic challenger counters.

Six months after tens of thousands of red-clad teachers swarmed the Arizona Capitol in a weeklong walkout, demanding higher pay and more funding for schools, education is a dominant issue in the state’s elections next month.

The teachers’ protest movement, which calls itself #RedforEd, has transformed the political battleground. The movement remains so popular in Arizona that candidates and causes across the ideological spectrum are competing to identify with it — including conservatives who, in years past, might have been more likely to criticize teachers or unions than associate with activist educators.

That has left some Democrats — teachers’ traditional allies — scrambling Continue reading: Arizona: #RedforEd Is So Popular that Even Its Opponents are Hitching Their Wagon to It | Diane Ravitch's blog

Are Charter Schools An “Innovation”? | Dissident Voice

Are Charter Schools An “Innovation”? | Dissident Voice

Are Charter Schools An “Innovation”?

Charter school supporters and promoters never tire of repeating the banality that “charter schools are an innovation.”

“Innovation” has become one of many hackneyed buzzwords in the neoliberal lexicon. Everyone is under intense pressure to blindly embrace “innovation” at full velocity, no matter how irresponsible.

Other closely-related and worn-out neoliberal catchwords include: “data-driven,” “results-oriented,” “performance-based,” “competition,” “choice,” “efficiency,” and “accountability.” Ludicrous phrases like “systems leader” are also appearing on the neoliberal scene.

Not surprisingly, the neoliberal world has become a comi-tragedy, a joke, a cynical dystopia saturated with dysfunction and irrationalism of all sorts; everything is upside down and incoherent, causing many to experience mental, emotional, and physical problems.

Neoliberalism offers only a bleak scenario for society, something no amount of voting in an outmoded and discredited political system can change. The only thing the two-party system of the rich has achieved effectively over the years is preventing progress that favors the people. Progress will again be a casualty in the November 2018 elections.

While they are constantly cast as an “innovation,” charter schools are nothing more than pay-the-rich schemes that are multiplying with each passing year. They are “innovative” only in the sense that they reject evidence more than others and have invented new forms of fraud, corruption, and racketeering that go beyond what any other sector has seen. Not a day goes by without an arrest or scandal in one or more of the nation’s 7,000 charter schools, which Continue reading: Are Charter Schools An “Innovation”? | Dissident Voice

Articles about “Reading Wars” Meant to Divide Teachers and Parents!

Articles about “Reading Wars” Meant to Divide Teachers and Parents!

Articles about “Reading Wars” Meant to Divide Teachers and Parents!

A wave of recent articles about reading trick parents and educators into thinking teachers are not teaching reading and are not being trained to teach reading correctly. The opinion pieces are written by journalist Emily Hanford.

Warning! Corporate reform fingerprints are all over these articles. Could it be about transforming classrooms to technology, where students look at screens instead of getting help from teachers?

Here is a quote from one.

Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.

These accusations, teachers “don’t know” and teachers “actively resist it” anger parents who are critical of how their students learned or are learning to read in school.

The three Hanford articles have anti-teacher titles, and a title to run down their COEs (Colleges of Education) all meant to undermine teachers and how they teach reading.

• “Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?”
• “Teachers Criticize Their Colleges of Education for Not Preparing Them to Teach Reading”
• “Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read?”

Each one of these articles has set off a firestorm of comments on social media. Teachers Continue reading: Articles about “Reading Wars” Meant to Divide Teachers and Parents!

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Campaign Home Stretch Edition (11/4)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Campaign Home Stretch Edition (11/4)
ICYMI: The Campaign Home Stretch Edition (11/4)

I could have called this the Moved My Son And His Family Into Their New Place Edition, which is the long way around to saying that I wasn't quite up to my usual level of collecting this week. And I'm not going to tell you to vote; I'm going to tell you to vote Democrat, even if your local Democrat sucks, because the GOP controlled government needs some sand in its gears. So vote Democrat.

Stop Pretending and Make School Relevant

I may or may not entirely agree with some of what Michael Soskil says here (I have my own ideas about the R word), but this piece is definitely worth a read.

Teachers versus the Koch Brothers in Arizona  

Arizona has one of the worst and most destructive voucher programs around. Jeff Bryant looks at the campaign to beat it back.

Snake Oil, Charter Schools and Disingenuous Debate

From Tennessee, a newspaper op-ed repudiates the charter movement.

Values That Express Our Ideas of Public Schools   

Jan Resseger with some writings to help focus your thinking as you head for the polls.

Halloween and the Value of Make-Believe   

Oh, yeah. Halloween happened this week. Nancy Bailey has some thoughts on the value of the holiday.

Ipads Are Not The Future of Education    

Just in case there was any doubt in your mind.

Billionaires Are Spending Their Fortunes Reshaping America's Schools. It Isn't Working.

From Vox. Add to the "ed reform is losing" file.

Who Gets Access To Your Kids' Information?  

Project Unicorn's promises are vague and unconvincing. Did your school sign up?

DeVos Meets With Far More GOP than Dems

I don't know if this is news, exactly. But it's an interesting look at yet one more aspect of Betsy "My Mind's Made Up So I Don't Need To Listen TO Anyone" DeVos and her approach to leading the USED>

What a Difference a Decade Makes   

Nancy Flanagan is dead on with this piece about election outcomes, and the key quote (which comes from Sabrina Joy Stevens) is so important I'm going to put it here, just in case you don't follow the link.

I am very worried about people tying their emotional well-being and sense of empowerment to the outcomes of elections.

NPE Action - Political Endorsements - http://npeaction.org/ on @NPEaction

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Campaign Home Stretch Edition (11/4)

Why Principals Differ: Joe, Ralph, and Edna | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Principals Differ: Joe, Ralph, and Edna | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Principals Differ: Joe, Ralph, and Edna

The film Lean on Me portrays high school principal Joe Clark in Paterson, New Jersey in the early 1980s rescuing a school mired in violence and poor academic performance. In one dramatic scene, over two hundred troublemakers are on the auditorium stage. The rest of the student body sitting in the auditorium watch as Clark at the microphone–played by a young Morgan Freeman– quiets everyone including those students standing behind him. Clark tells the students that those on stage have caused all the trouble and to turn around this school, they must be removed.

Facing the two-hundred mischief-makers milling around on stage, Clark points his finger at them and says: “You are expurgated! You are no longer welcome in this school.” The school security staff in blue blazers shoves them out of the doors.

Joe Clark’s kicking out troublesome students pleased movie crowds 30 years ago as it did the country when they learned about this baseball bat-toting principal. In real life, Joe Clark got in trouble with the school board over expelling the students yet he had his 15 minutes of fame and continued as an educator until he retired.

But he was a sprinter principal, not a marathoner.

Lean on Me lays out the fantasy Americans have about their principals. We want fearless school leaders but get managers with keys dangling on their belts. This expectation of principal-as-Superman (or Wonder Woman) is fairly common but few principals are Clark Kents in mufti. Most principals want to be leaders but cannot because they are caught in the middle between their district bosses wanting them to follow policy, parents wanting their requests fulfilled, teachers wanting to be left alone, and students wanting teachers who teach. Principals learn to navigate among potential conflicts by being managers and politicians juggling competing expectations and constituencies. The DNA of the job is Continue reading: Why Principals Differ: Joe, Ralph, and Edna | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Idaho School Employees Who Dressed as MAGA Wall and Mexicans on Halloween Put on Paid Leave Pending Further Investigation | deutsch29

Idaho School Employees Who Dressed as MAGA Wall and Mexicans on Halloween Put on Paid Leave Pending Further Investigation | deutsch29

Idaho School Employees Who Dressed as MAGA Wall and Mexicans on Halloween Put on Paid Leave Pending Further Investigation

Fourteen teachers/staff at a Middleton, Idaho, school have been placed on paid leave for collectively dressing on Halloween as a wall with “Make America Great Again” written on it and a group of Mexicans. Investigation into the situation continues.

According to the November 3, 2018, Idaho Statesman, the staff members dressed “as part of a team building activity after school hours.”

What amazes me is that none of the 14 individuals exercised enough foresight to nix the idea. Nothing doing. Not only did the crew dress as the border wall and Mexicans; they posted pictures to the district Facebook page on Thursday, November 01, 2018.

Though the pictures have been deleted and the FB page apparently shut down, that did not stop the pics from going viral:

Middleton Schools superintendent, Dr. Josh Middleton, also posted this response on the district website, on Friday, November 02, 2018:

Dear MSD Parents,

I want to bring you up to date on events within the district.

We are getting lots of inquiries regarding Halloween day costumes and a photo posting from one of our schools. Local patrons and people across the country are calling in expressing their displeasure with the costume choices. This matter was brought to me last night and district admin are currently reviewing and investigating the chain of events. I have released a statement to the media and spoken to our local TV stations. The district as a whole is receiving publicity that is judging our schools and community on the events of that afternoon into a negative, broad generalization. I know we are better than that literal snapshot, but in the meantime we need to continue our investigation.

I hope we can wrap up our review by Monday. Despite this disruption, our Continue reading:Idaho School Employees Who Dressed as MAGA Wall and Mexicans on Halloween Put on Paid Leave Pending Further Investigation | deutsch29