Sunday, April 17, 2011

CNN Newsroom: Blog Archive - Michelle Rhee Answers Critics « - CNN.com Blogs

Posted: 12:15 PM ET

Heather Sinclair - CNN Newsroom
Filed under: Kyra Phillips

School Tech Connect: The Bleak Future of Teaching In Illinois

The Bleak Future of Teaching In Illinois

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Recently I fell in love with Soundcloud but I haven't had any audio to try it out. So I went out an filched a speech by Audrey Soglin of IEA posted over at Catalyst. I'm pretty sure I'm in copyright violation territory here, but I went for it anyway.

Audrey is talking about the new teacher evaluation laws here in the Land of Lincoln, among other things. It's a bit of a mishmash, but you can get the general idea. (Audrey doesn't start until a little past the five minute mark.)

Amp20101201crsteacher-evaluation by tbfurman

Audrey is followed by Alicia Winckler of CPS and Adrew Broy, of the charter school world. I haven'

Jersey Jazzman: Cerf On The Record

Cerf On The Record

by Duke

Much to be learned from watching Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf's interview today with Michael Aron. For example, I learned that Chris Cerf is a distorter, and deceiver, and a liar.

Don't believe me? Let's go:

6:00: "Dr. [Bruce] Baker has never seen a reform he likes, so at least he's consistent on that point. He's against charter schools, against using data in any way, shape or form to evaluate teachers. I don't think he's been for any kind of accountability system when it comes to differentiating between excellence and mediocrity."

Dr. Baker hardly needs me to defend him against the likes of Chris Cerf, and I'm sure

Tell Walgreens you don’t appreciate their stocking Koch brothers’ stuff. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Tell Walgreens you don’t appreciate their stocking Koch brothers’ stuff.

by Fred Klonsky

Former IEA President Bob Haisman writes:

Walgreen’s has been running a special on Brawny and Northern tissue, Koch Industries products. If you are so inclined, contact Walgreen’s and tell them what you think about their support of the Koch

Schools Matter: "A Taxing Tale" for Imagine Schools

"A Taxing Tale" for Imagine Schools

by Kenneth Libby

From Karen Francisco at the Journal Gazette:

A taxing tale

County scrutinizes charter school property tax exemption

The news about charter schools, their owners, and the money they make goes back to December to the state Supreme Court. In reversing a decision by the Indiana Tax Court, the justices ruled that a property owner doesn’t automatically qualify for a tax exemption even if property is used for a charitable or exempt purpose.

From that one decision, some charter school books are being opened in Fort Wayne. Taxpayers

Mud Wrestling with Marshall McLuhan | Lefty Parent

Mud Wrestling with Marshall McLuhan

by Cooper Zale

Well… mud wrestling in a sort of metaphorical way. My latest attempt to embrace and wrestle to the ground his at times elliptical ideas, with the title of this piece my homage to an outside-the-box thinker and crafter of provocative aphorisms like “the medium is the message”, its corollary, “the medium is the massage”, and the “Global Village”.

Though I only came close to meeting him once, I learned about McLuhan’s ideas through a dear family friend and one-time McLuhan collaborator, Mary Jane Shoultz, who I willingly let regale me with the synthesis of their radical thinking during my teen years in the 1970s. Mary Jane meshed McLuhan’s ideas on how we are profoundly impacted by our communication technology with her own radical feminist thought to come up with

Former Cheney Aide: Last 100 Years of Progressive Reforms All a Mistake | Firedoglake

Former Cheney Aide: Last 100 Years of Progressive Reforms All a Mistake
By: Blue Texan Sunday April 17, 2011 11:50 am	Tweet

Children working in Mary Matalin's ideal America (1908).

Paul Krugman wrote yesterday that Republicans want to repeal the Great Society and the New Deal, but the way they talk, it sounds to me like they want to go much further. Listen carefully to what former Cheney aide and professional wingnut Mary Matalin said on the latest “Left, Right & Center” (audio ca. 4:15).

There is no small amount of empirical data to say we’re at the end of this hundred year, European-originated social democracy welfare state experiment…there’s current data and there’s century’s long data that says we cannot sustain this trajectory.

Matalin’s chosen time frame isn’t arbitrary.

1911 was before three of the right’s most hated institutions were established: the Federal income tax (1913), the Federal Reserve (1913) and the Estate Tax (1916).

1911 also happens to be the year of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a tragedy that claimed the lives of

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE: Tuesday, April 19th Vigil at Sac State: "The Death of Education, the Rebirth of Our Movement"

Tuesday, April 19th Vigil at Sac State: "The Death of Education, the Rebirth of Our Movement"

by Paul B

The Death of Education; the Rebirth of Our Movement

The Sac State Coalition is holding a vigil on Tuesday from noon to six in the Sac State Library quad to mourn the death of funding for higher education for our CSU system and to honor the rebirth of the student movement to protest the educational funding situation. Students and supporters are asked to wear black on Tuesday.

This is a also a symbolic action in response to aggressive action from campus administration. This is a also a stand against the administration’s use of intimidation toward students early Saturday morning when riot police

Donald Trump: Famed Business Failure Wants to Run America | Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire - "the Secular, Humanist Revival"

Donald Trump: Famed Business Failure Wants to Run America Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the right wing, the republican presidential field is looking grim. As one blogger put it Donald Trump looks like the man who fired your Dad. Match him up with Mitt Romney and it’s the man who fired your Dad ...

Redistricting done: On to part 2 of the “political investment” cycle With the redistricting election of 2010 won by the corporatist forces, little attention has been paid to their shift in money from candidates to issues. While groups like ALEC lobby onwards with de-regulating industry, overtaxing the common wealth pool ...

Nieman Watchdog > Ask This > Miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam

Nieman Watchdog ; Ask This: Miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam

Miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam
ASK THIS | April 13, 2011

Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch tells reporters to dig deep when states or school districts or even individual schools claim big educational gains; chances are someone is gaming the system. She shows how such gaming works – and when it comes to asking the right questions, Ravitch could be anyone’s assignment editor.

By Diane Ravitch
gardendr@gmail.com

Be skeptical of miracle schools. Sometimes their dramatic gains disappear in a year

John Thompson: KIPP and Its Critics Are Both Right

KIPP and Its Critics Are Both Right

I was a social scientist before I became a teacher so I was excited to read that Mathematica had analyzed "late arrivals" who attended KIPP. That seemed to be an inspired methodology for determining whether KIPP "creams" by excluding the most difficult-to-educate kids. I thought that KIPP did not admit students after the year began, but if they had a big enough sample to compare the characteristics of KIPP students who arrive in October, for instance, with students who first enter neighboring schools at that time, we would have real evidence!

Reading the study and its definitions, I learned that Mathematica attempted no such thing. Sure enough, KIPP does not admit students in the middle of the year.

As with their previous research, Mathematica was impeccable in fulfilling the purpose of their study. Their methodology showed that 22 KIPP schools have demonstrated remarkable fidelity in implementing their model, while reducing "creaming" as much as is possible for a system where poor families must apply, and volunteer to meet much higher standards. The highly-respected

Sunday links.+ The wall. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links.

by Fred Klonsky

What a great time to be rich says Charles Blow in the NY Times. Poor? Not so much.

I’m confused by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. In Idaho he says our union should fight to preserve tenure and seniority. But here in Illinois he praises the quisling IEA President Ken Swanson for giving it away.

Yesterday’s pro-Walker rally featuring Sarah Palin brought dozens of tea baggers to the Madison Capitol steps.

New legal documents prove that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a total asshole.

Derrick Rose? Not since Michael Jordan. What an incredible performance. No link. I’m just sayin’.

Washington Post understatement tweet of the year: washingtonpost In D.C., Obama falls short of hopes.

The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not

The wall.

by Fred Klonsky

Seattle, Washington.

Hi Ya! Karate and Autistic Kids

by California Father

Thanks to Autism Key for the vid. I love the woman’s comment about wanting to expose her child to something other than therapy. Ditto. “We want to feel normal,” she says. Ditto on that too. Our autistic boy has been taking karate lessons for a while now, but for me the biggest benefit hasn’t been better balance or social skills. What it has shown me week after week is how hard my boy tries. Also these valuable lessons from his sensei, a great guy who makes learning fun: 1. if you show your head your opponent will hit it and 2. the best defense is striking back, then running for help. PS Check out the incredible photo that accompanies this article on a Wisconsin study that explores the benefits of karate for autistic kids.

Obama IS BIG A.P.E.

Engaging Parents In School…

Check out: Engaging Parents In School…

Surprise! Obama shows up at Sasha’s parent-teacher conference

Behind the scenes Monday, presidential advisers focused on US policy in Afghanistan and efforts to meld multiple healthcare reform bills into a single version for each chamber. But President Obama was making two surprise visits to Maryland schools, chatting about his daughter and playing book critic with grade-schoolers.

Mr. Obama’s day began with an early morning motorcade to the private Sidwell Friends School in nearby Bethesda, Md., for a parent-teacher conference for daughter Sasha. The school had been told Michelle Obama would be on hand, but the president’s presence was a surprise, the White House press office said. The half hour trip was not accompanied by the usual sirens and blocked intersections, with the first family stopping at red lights along the route.

Later in the morning the president headed to Viers Mill Elementary School in suburban Silver Spring, Md., for an unannounced visit with third and fourth graders at lunch. Press assistant Ben Finkenbinder told the travel pool that the school was picked because it was the first school with a large concentration of low income students in Montgomery County to win the National Blue Ribbon for significantly closing the achievement gap. It won the award in 2005.

For this jaunt, the president’s trip through Washington traffic was speeded along by police cars blocking intersections, keeping other drivers away from the president.

Presidential book reviews

Pool reporter George Condon of Congress Daily said the president asked each student what he or she was reading. One student said “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” The president said, “Sasha and Malia loved that. They think it is hilarious.”

When another student said “Goosebumps,” Mr. Obama said a couple of other kids had said that was good. “I haven’t read it,” the president admitted. One student was reading Harry Potter. The president said, “Malia and I read the Harry Potter books. We thought those were pretty good.” As he left each table, the president said, “You guys keep on reading, alright?”

At one point, the president noted that just yesterday he had seen Spike Jonze’s movie adaptation of the classic children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are.” The First Movie Critic said, “That’s a great book” and proclaimed of the movie, “It’s worth seeing.” The White House has its own movie theater, off of a ground floor walkway near the East Wing.

Saving jobs in education

While the president was chatting up third and fourth graders on the value of reading, in the press room his aides were pitching reporters on how the $787 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was saving education jobs around the country.

Jared Bernstein, chief economist and economic policy adviser to the vice president, said that preliminary data from states showed that 250,000 education jobs were saved or created as a result of Recovery Act spending. “This is a subset of the 1 million jobs saved or created thus far through the act, leaving us solidly on track to accomplish our stated goal of saving or creating 3-1/2 million jobs by later next year,” Mr. Bernstein said.

Melody Barnes, the president’s domestic policy adviser, argued that “we were able to avert massive class expansion, class size expansion, something that we’ve been concerned about in the educational context, for quite some time, and also to provide needed services when it comes to math and literacy.”

She said some $39.8 billion in recovery act funds have been earmarked for K through 12 education. The number of jobs saved so far ranges from 4,000 in New York City to 1,944 in Miami-Dade County to 242 in Indianapolis, she said.

Christian Science Monitor

Look for the Union Bunny | Dissident Voice

Look for the Union Bunny

by Walter Brasch

Bullied, harassed, and lied to, District 1 of the Amalgamated Association of Easter Bunnies, AFB-CIO (American Federation of Bunnies–Cottontails International Organization) went on strike, forcing a halt to this year’s Easter egg hunts in Wisconsin.
At Bunny Headquarters, Solomon P. Bunny, union executive secretary, and a militant corps of Easter bunnies were preparing picket signs. I walked in, notepad in hand.
“Excuse me, Mr. Bunny, why aren’t your members delivering eggs this week?”
Bunny looked up from the papers on his desk, chomped harder on his cigar, looked at me, scowled, and answered harshly,
“Don’t you know!?”
“No, sir,” I replied apologetically. “I always thought you were happy and content delivering Easter eggs.”
“We love it,” growled Bunny, “but the Wisconsin Legislature doesn’t love us.”
“I will admit the newly-elected governor and the newly-elected conservatives in the Legislature were a bit authoritarian in what they did to the rights of the workers.”
“Authoritarian, heck!” said Bunny, “they’re the models of a fascist government in how they took away our rights.”
continue reading at

Look for the Union Bunny | Dissident Voice

Youngstown News, State continues to blindly shift funding to charter schools

State continues to blindly shift funding to charter schools

Published: Sun, April 17, 2011 @ 12:00 a.m.

State continues to blindly shift funding to charter schools

In attempting to hold public school districts accountable for their success or failure in educating students, the Ohio General Assembly has created a budgetary monster that is consuming hundreds of millions of dollars with virtually no accountability.

In last Sunday’s Vindicator, a story on for-profit charter schools operated by White Hat Management of Akron not only made the point that these schools are not performing as well as their public counterparts, but they are doing it behind a cloak of fiscal secrecy.

Only 2 percent of the students attending White Hat schools show a level of academic progress that is expected under federal education law. Yet, once

'Hands Across' event targets education funding - LA Daily News

'Hands Across' event targets education funding

SUPPORT: Human chain to be formed to raise money for community colleges.

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer

Posted: 04/15/2011 06:53:21 PM PDT

Updated: 04/15/2011 08:49:48 PM PDT

A human chain of an expected 1million helping hands will wend from the Sierra foothills to San Diego on Sunday to support California community college students.

At 2 p.m. across the San Fernando Valley, the so-called Hands Across California will link students to celebrities from Pierce College to Los Angeles Valley College and beyond.

"College is the American dream," said Gabe Ayon, 35, of North Hollywood, a first-generation Valley College student who has recruited an anticipated 2,000 students, faculty, celebrities and more to join hands along Oxnard Street. "Not all of us are middle class.

"All these scholarships will help people get into college."

The 1,000-mile event aims to raise a $100 million endowment for scholarships available to the state's 3 million community college students.

The call for support comes as the state grapples with a $26 billion budget crisis, with community colleges facing $800 million or more of spending cuts, with enrollment denied to as many as 400,000 students.

Hosted by the Foundation for California Community Colleges, donors can target dollars toward

An unorthodox school reform blueprint - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

An unorthodox school reform blueprint

By Valerie Strauss

This post was written by Joanne Yatvin, a veteran public school educator, author and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is now teaching part-time at Portland State University.

By Joanne Yatvin
Having complained long and loud about the misguided school reform schemes that rule the day, I think it’s time for me to step up and offer my own ideas for making schools work. Be warned that my proposals are not only unorthodox, but also teacher-biased, and cheap. Well, at least cheaper than the test-drenched plans now in place and on the horizon.

My version of school reform is based on two premises: (1) poverty and its accoutrements are the major causes of students’ poor academic

Carlos Michelena: “Ni de derecha ni de izquierda, soy libre pensador, no creo en el carácter del Estado” « Spanish Readers' Blog

Carlos Michelena: “Ni de derecha ni de izquierda, soy libre pensador, no creo en el carácter del Estado”

by Mr. R

"Es mi obligación cívica, ética, moral como artista, decirle a la gente que piense”.

Existe un ambiente político interesante en el Ecuador. Sin tener todos los parámetros para comentar, sin

School Tech Connect: Oprah--- Will You Show This?

Oprah--- Will You Show This?

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

I just saw this video over at Sabrina's. It really is remarkable that this complete charlatan, Michelle Rhee, has been so successful at public relations. She was a disaster for the DC schools. Watch the whole thing-- apparently there's a whole series over on the YouTube page.

Incidentally, this whole business of not being allowed to refer student discipline cases to the office--- that's a nation-wide phenomenon. I learned early on in Mesa, Arizona, not to refer my discipline cases to the office