Saturday, July 2, 2011

Walker Responsible for MPS Devastating Layoffs « Larry Miller's Blog

Walker Responsible for MPS Devastating Layoffs

by millerlf

The MPS layoffs are not due to an act of God. they are the results of the unGodly acts of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

Milwaukee’s kids, families and communities are meant to suffer while Walker hopes teachers are blamed.

MPS is losing an estimated $54.6 million in general state aid in the new fiscal year – a 9.3% cut and MPS will take an estimated $53.4 million loss in state aid going to the school voucher program, resulting in layoffs of 519 employees.

These cuts are Scott Walker’s cuts, meant to devastate Milwaukee’s communities. At the same time he is giving tax breaks, contracts and access to Wisconsin’s resources to corporations and the rich.

Read the following MJS summary about Walker’s draconian policies:

Nearly every Wisconsin school district to see cuts in state aid

By Karen Herzog of the Journal Sentinel July 1, 2011

ASCD Inservice: Best of #ASCDSC11 Day One

What Triggers You?

by Matthew Swift

Wil Parker looked around at his audience and asked them a tough question. He wanted everyone to write down emotions, biases, or views that might affect their teaching in a synchronized "culture of learning." After the audience members wrote down...

Best of #ASCDSC11 Day One

by ASCD Bloggers

View "Best of #ASCD11 Day One" on Storify

#NEARA11 Adopts Resolution Criticizing Arne Duncan - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA Adopts Resolution Criticizing Arne Duncan - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA Adopts Resolution Criticizing Arne Duncan

by Stephen Sawchuk

With a few minor amendments, the NEA's Representative Assembly today passed New Business Item C, a.k.a."13 Things We Hate About Arne Duncan."

One of its sponsors said that unions are tired of being attacked, and they are "especially upset that the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Duncan are part of the problems we face every single day."

No one disagreed, and there wasn't a whole lot of debate on the item, which is a pretty good indication of just how ticked off the union is right about now.

Worth mentioning: One delegate offered and then withdrew an amendment to encourage President Obama to recall Duncan—and replace him with former NEA President Reg Weaver. (The amendment, believe it or not, went to a standing vote before it was withdrawn.)

Another delegate wanted to know whether there was any new information in the item that the NEA hadn't already conveyed to the Education Department. Apparently not. "They have all been related to the secretary of

Two Useful School Reform Articles | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Knovio Makes Creating An Audio/Visual Web Presentation As Easy As Pie Knovio might end up being one of the best Web 2.0 applications of the year. You upload a PowerPoint presentation, record a presentation with your microphone and webcam, and then it’s done! It’s free, and it is not open to the public yet, but I ...

Two Useful School Reform Articles Here are two recent useful school reform articles: The rumors of our sucking at math have been greatly exaggerated comes from The Julia Group. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Getting Some Perspective On International Test Comparison Demagoguery. ...

Be a Firecracker! What do you get when you strap a tiny video recorder to firecrackers? This video: I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Learning About The Fourth Of July. Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

Bloomberg Asks Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of The CityTime Project To Give The Stolen Money Back

Parent Advocates - ParentAdvocates.org

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Asks Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of The CityTime Project To Give The Stolen Money Back

| Posted 7/2/2011 at 9:34 AM

Good move on Bloomberg's part, but we must not forget that neither Bloomberg nor anyone in his administration admits to protecting the public funds - $$700 million - taken by the CityTime consultants in an unprecedented fraud on the City of New York. Let's remember that CityTime was hired by the FBI in 2000 and made a mess of the job back then. It was nice of Bloomberg to give them another bite at the apple, but when does public integrity set in?

NEA Endorses 'Save Our Schools' March - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA Endorses 'Save Our Schools' March

by Stephen Sawchuk

The delegation just passed New Business Item B, which encourages all NEA members to participate in the "Save Our Schools" grassroots rally taking place in Washington, D.C., on July 30.

As my colleague Erik Robelen wrote about earlier, the rally's organizers generally criticize things like standardized testing, teacher accountability, school "privatization," and what they deem the "corporate reform" movement. It will include speakers like historian-cum-advocate Diane Ravitch, celebrities, and other officials.

'Wisconsin 14' Earn NEA's Friend of Education Award

by Stephen Sawchuk

In what is apparently the first time the National Education Association has bestowed its "Friend of Education Award" to a group rather than an individual, the union honored the "Wisconsin 14," the senators who left the state for three weeks this spring to try to block a bill supported by Gov. Rick Scott stripping public workers of many collective-bargaining rights.

(That story ended with Republicans pushing the bill through as part of a budget measure. Efforts are now underway to recall both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.)

No big surprises here, obviously. The delegates all held up "Thank you 14" signs, and shouted "Recall!" and

I Hope This Is Not A Good Indication Of What The Dept. Of Ed Is Doing About Family Engagement | Engaging Parents In School...

I Hope This Is Not A Good Indication Of What The Dept. Of Ed Is Doing About Family Engagement Family Engagement: Four Great Ways to Get Involved is a report on the Department of Education’s blog about a family engagement forum they recently hosted. If the blog post is an accurate indication of what occurred, then it’s a sad commentary about ...

North Carolina Drops Funding For Home Visits Editorial – Bad Cut: PTA’s winner becomes a budget loser comes from The Fayetteville Observer, and criticizes the state for cutting funding for a PTA program that, among other things, supported teacher home visits. I’ve previously written quite a few ...

“Trigger Laws Are No Magic Bullet for Failing Schools” Trigger Laws Are No Magic Bullet for Failing Schools is the title of an article at The Root, and makes some good observations on parent trigger laws. You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning Why The Parent Trigger Isn’t Good ...

#NEARA11 's Obama Endorsement: Will They, or Won't They? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA's Obama Endorsement: Will They, or Won't They? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA's Obama Endorsement: Will They, or Won't They?

by Stephen Sawchuk

So will the National Education Association's delegates vote at this year's Representative Assembly to endorse Barack Obama for United States president—or won't they?

A few days ago, I wrote that an endorsement was all but a done deal. Now I'm wondering if I'll have to eat my words.

Why? Well, take a look at a New Business Item that is coming up for debate this afternoon.. Its sponsors want to postpone the endorsement and vote in January 2012 instead through an electronic or mail ballot. The NBI rationale says that it would "provide a common ground between those who want to endorse the president at this RA and those who do not."

Or read Stephanie Banchero's story in The Wall Street Journal, which points to a California advisory group that

#NEARA11 Des Moines Education Association: Solidarity Forever: For the Union Makes Us Strong

Des Moines Education Association: Solidarity Forever: For the Union Makes Us Strong

Solidarity Forever: For the Union Makes Us Strong

by Mr. Brown

Today the National Education Association honored the "Wisconsin 14" with the NEA Friend of Education award. Read more about the "Wisconsin 14" here.

There are 9 recall elections going on in Wisconsin. NEA Director and National Board Certified teacher, Shelly Moore is running for election for State Senate in one of those recall elections. You can visit her website athttp://mooreforwisconsin.com/. She will need fiscal support to be able to stand

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: More from brother Fred at the #NEARA11

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: More from brother Fred at the NEA RA

More from brother Fred at the NEA RA

by Mike Klonsky

Hey bro,

Just a quick note during a break in the first session.

The main event today was NEA Prez Dennis Van Roekel's speech to the delegates. It was a fine speech. It hit on all our concerns: The attack on collective bargaining. Funding equity. Teachers as professionals. A stirring defense of public schools The attacks on teachers and other public employees in states like Wisconsin,Michigan, Ohio, and you know the rest.

What was missing was the acknowledgement that the Democrats need to be sent a similar message. Not only the GOP. Barely a mention of Arne Duncan plus a full-

Tell President Obama to Protect Pell Grants - Hispanically Speaking News

Tell President Obama to Protect Pell Grants

Latino students struggling to afford higher education are at risk of losing the opportunity to attend college. Right now, congressional Republicans and President Obama are negotiating a budget deal, and Pell Grants are on the table. Cuts to Pell Grants would follow the elimination of the Summer Pell program earlier this year. So far, needy students have “contributed” $4 billion to debt reduction through cuts to Summer Pell, but they may be asked to make more sacrifices, even if it means that they can’t pay for college.

Tell President Obama that putting Pell Grants on the chopping block is the wrong decision. TAKE ACTION HERE

President Obama understands that more Hispanic students must get college degrees for our country to remain economically competitive, but the cost of college has skyrocketed over the past 30 years. According to The Education Trust, college tuition and fees have increased 439% since 1982. Pell Grants are a lifeline for students

#NEARA11 RA Day 1: Thirteen Things NEA Hates About Arne Duncan? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

RA Day 1: Thirteen Things NEA Hates About Arne Duncan? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

RA Day 1: Thirteen Things NEA Hates About Arne Duncan?

by Stephen Sawchuk

A very strongly worded New Business Item that will be debated sometime this afternoon at the RA makes some blistering criticisms of the U.S. secretary of education.

We probably won't get back to it until this afternoon, but it is interesting to see that even in the face of all the anti-bargaining legislation out in the states, the union is still really upset about things like the Race to the Top program.

It would direct the NEA president to communicate "aggressively, forcefully, and immediately" to Barack Obama about all the things it doesn't like about U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Essentially, this is a laundry list of all the beef the union has with the Obama administration education policies, ranging from its support of the Central Falls, R.I., teacher firings, to its use of competitive grants, to its support for charter schools, to the four School Improvement Grants turnaround strategies, to teacher evaluations based in part on student scores, to what it describes as Duncan's practice of "disrespecting and failing to honor the

Economist's View: Why the Wealthy Need the Welfare State

Why the Wealthy Need the Welfare State

We have forgotten what it was like before the welfare state (I prefer the term social insurance state), and why it was put into place:

What history teaches us about the welfare state, by Francois Furstenberg, Commentary, Washington Post: In the wake of the economic crash, which has led to soaring budget deficits, Democrats and Republicans are negotiating “to move forward to trillions of spending cuts,”... unprecedented reductions in the size of the welfare state... Lost in this debate is an appreciation of the historical origins of the American welfare state — long before FDR and the New Deal, after another epochal financial crash.

Much like our time, the Gilded Age was an era of economic booms and busts. None was greater than the financial crisis that began in September 1873... For 65 straight months, the U.S. economy shrank — the longest such stretch in U.S. history. America’s industrial base ground to a near halt... Until the 1930s, it would be known as the Great Depression. ...

As demand collapsed, businesses slashed payrolls and reduced wages, and a ruinous period of deflation began. By 1879, wholesale prices had declined 30 percent. The consequences were catastrophic for the

TEEN GIRL ASSASSINS: Young Girls Fighting for Cartels in Mexico - Hispanically Speaking News

TEEN GIRL ASSASSINS: Young Girls Fighting for Cartels in Mexico (VIDEO)

Drug cartels in Mexico are using young girls as assassins to try to avoid detection. For $2000 a month ( twice what the military are paid) these young girls are easily enticed into a life of crime. The young girls are desensitized during training so that they can be used to torture and murder their victims.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Public Policy Blogger: Back to it. A blog from Israel. Thoughts on standardization and testing.

Back to it. A blog from Israel. Thoughts on standardization and testing.

by Anne Geiger

Summer. Life. Trying to sell a house in awful-real-estate-market Florida. Will try hard to get back to my weekly postings. For now, here's this...

Looking for a recipe, I stumbled upon this gentle, thoughtful blog by a stay-at-home mother in Israel. Her most recent post was strikingly parallel to much writing these days about our over-emphasis on standardization and testing in our public schools. Clearly, this is not just an American problem. She refers to a book she's reading by Charlotte Mason, a homeschooling author, and includes these quotes,

“The fact that successful examination of one sort or another is the goal towards which most of our young people are labouring with feverish haste and with undue anxiety, is one which possibly calls for the scrutiny of the investigating Why?”

“The tendency of the grind is to imperil that individuality which is the one incomparably precious birthright of

Fighting charters: It's about equality - NYPOST.com

Fighting charters: It's about equality

THE ISSUE: The NAACP and UFT's fight against co-locating traditional public schools and charters.

***

Once again, The Post blames the victims rather than the perpetrators ("UFT-NAACP Child Abuse," Editorial, June 24).

It is not the UFT and NAACP that are guilty of child abuse but the Department of Education, which has placed more and more of the neediest students -- over-age, undercredited, English language learners and special-education students -- in a few chosen schools.

The DOE then cuts funding to these same schools, calls the schools failures and tries to close them, illegally.

ROBERT KALFUS

Charter kids sharing space in a Bronx school.

David Pecoraro

UFT Chapter Leader

Beach Channel High School

Rockaway Park

***

If your open-minded readers could make an in-depth visit to most buildings where charter and traditional district schools are co-located, they would discover glaring differences in the resources provided to them.

Charter schools are the pet projects of people who masquerade as education reformers with the welfare of children at heart. But what really drives them is vicious and mindless anti-unionism.

The UFT and NAACP are driven by one overarching agenda: respect for the law and responsible devotion to all children, with no exceptions.

Ron Isaac

Fresh Meadows

***

To compare the leading civil-rights organization and local union to child abusers is disgusting. The two organizations are trying to prevent a "separate but equal" situation.

Merrimack Education Center board has potential conflicts - The Boston Globe

New ethics questions arise for nonprofit

Potential conflicts found on board

By Michael Rezendes

Globe Staff / July 2, 2011

Text size – +

He stepped up to restore stability at a troubled nonprofit after its longtime executive director stepped down amid allegations that he used taxpayer dollars to pay extravagant salaries to himself, his girlfriend, and a handful of top staffers.

But now Gary Garmon, a longtime member of the board at the Chelmsford-based Merrimack Education Center, is facing ethical questions of his own after the state inspector general revealed that he was the co-owner of a Lowell furniture store that sold at least $9,000 in goods to the center in 2004.

Garmon’s business connection is one of a growing number of potential conflicts of interest investigators are focusing on following accusations by the inspector general that the center’s executive director, John B. Barranco, fleeced a separate but related public agency that educates special needs students of more than $10

15 of 31 “F” Schools in Florida are Charter Schools | Scathing Purple Musings

15 of 31 “F” Schools in Florida are Charter Schools

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Bob Sikes

Rick Scott’s pretty pleased with himself will all the ed reform measures he’s signed into law. He wrote this in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed piece last Monday:

With these pieces of legislation, we open doors of opportunity for students with disabilities, create stronger charter and virtual schools, and strengthen Students at failing schools are more likely to drop out, which means they are most likely to have trouble keeping a job. To prevent this tragedy, we are expanding the Opportunity Scholarship program, so students at chronically low-performing schools can choose a better school.
We have redefined what makes a failing school from those that earn an “F”

School Tech Connect: Ignore the Data Behind The Curtain! #NEARA11

School Tech Connect: Ignore the Data Behind The Curtain!

Ignore the Data Behind The Curtain!

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

The actual data will be ignored by the data-driven people. Why?

Because the data contradicts their noise machine. Read the whole thing. (It's so hard to decide whether to treat "data" as a singular or plural, btw.)

Anyway, the bottom line for charters vs. take-all, serve-all neighborhood schools is this:

The neighborhood schools have slightly more kids exceeding the standards.
The charter schools have slightly more kids meeting standards.
The neighborhood schools made more gains during this last round of testing.

I noticed the Brizard immediately lept on the single statistic that even came close to being

What can be done to save the schools? 25TeachersSalaries.org

25TeachersSalaries.org

What can be done to save the schools?

Dear Reader,

A million dollars can buy one $1 million bomb or pay for 25 teachers’ salaries for 1 year. Would you . . . .

School districts balance their budgets mostly by cutting expenses, including laying off teachers. Class sizes go up and the quality of the education goes down. Teachers do more with less every day. The Department of Defense can be asked to do more with less. School districts need a new long term reliable source of revenue.

The Pentagon budget is $685 billion this year. 1% of that would enable the states to pay for over 100,000 K-12 teachers’ and other educators’ salaries including benefits. The average K-12 starting teacher’s salary in California is $40,000.

On May 25 in Daly City the Jefferson Elementary School District Board of Education became the first school board to pass a resolution in favor of trading bombs for teachers. See our “News” page.

Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Nearly every Wisconsin school district to see cuts in state aid

New ethics questions arise for nonprofit

Potential conflicts found on board

15 of 31 “F” Schools in Florida are Charter Schools

What can be done to save the schools?