CURMUDGUCATION: Education44: Obama USED Parting Shot

CURMUDGUCATION: Education44: Obama USED Parting Shot:

Education44: Obama USED Parting Shot

March continues to come in like a lion who really wants to create a blog about his experiences over the past five or eight years. We have looked at FutureEd and The Line, two new websites that are make sure we can all still get to hear the voices of a bunch of ed reform types who wouldn't shut up for the last decade. FutureEd has set out to plug Common Core and all the fun things that came with it, while The Line seems dedicated to making sure that Chiefs for Change and the Broady axis of reform still get the word out (I am wondering if Peter Cunningham, previously tasked with this important work at Education Post, is feeling abandoned).

But good lord, that's not all. Because who needs a website to get the word out about their hard work then the folks at the Obama Department of Education.

Oh, the fun we had trashing public ed

That's right-- a bunch of USED refugees have created a website as a monument to eight years of.. well, we'll get to that. Of all these sites, Education44 most explicitly promises to keep its eyes on the rear-view mirror of education policy:

Under President Obama – the 44th President of the United States – the U.S. Department of Education worked to make America’s promise attainable for more students. The administration’s agenda focused on protecting access to a high-quality education for all students while reforming and innovating public education to produce greater equity.

Here you will find the legacy of the Obama administration’s work, and a balanced platform where you can learn about policies and ideas for improving public education.

That link takes you to our first legacy document-- John King's exit memo that attempts to sum up CURMUDGUCATION: Education44: Obama USED Parting Shot:

The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things

Education, like life, is not about the macro or the big things. Like life, it is all about “the little things strung together.” It’s a lot like the quote that asserts, “There are no extraordinary people, there are only ordinary people in extraordinary situations.”

The reform of education is focused on the big changes as opposed to understanding that change is a step by step process. The educrats are playing for the big moment, yet they fil to understand that they can’t pull big moments out of thin air, consequently, their “big moments” exist in vacuums, totally disconnected and disembodied from reality.

From teaching students to be better writers, better students and better thinkers, to mentoring teachers to be better at teaching, to helping players to become better hitters or shooters, it was and is always about starting at step one and moving forward, step by step.

The reformers and the experts want to be able to say they did big things, that they changed everything, the only problem is, you can’t start out “big” – you have to start with the little things, and string them all together.

Are there poor teachers? Of course there are. There were bad teachers when I went to school, there were bad teachers when you went to school. If I were to ask you how many good or great teachers you had all the way through your college career, how many would you be able to list? I’d guess three or four- if you were lucky. Despite that fact, you are still successful today, you still survived. Good and great teachers don’t grow on trees and they are not “developed” or created in special teaching programs or institutes.

Good or great teachers grow and develop through experience and experience takes time and patience. Step by step. Slowly, based on little things strung together. When you marry that time and patience to extraordinary passion, The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

STOP DeVos in Los Angeles: Re-Elect Zimmer Next Tuesday - LA Progressive

STOP DeVos in Los Angeles: Re-Elect Zimmer Next Tuesday - LA Progressive:

STOP DeVos in Los Angeles: Re-Elect Zimmer Next Tuesday

On Tuesday, March 7th, Los Angeles voters can say NO to Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos by casting their ballots to re-elect LAUSD President Steve Zimmer of District 4, a swath of land that stretches from Westchester’s jet stream and Venice’s beach boardwalk to East Hollywood’s hip cafes and parts of the sun-drenched Valley that include working-class Tarzana and Van Nuys.

I am a 20-year public school teacher, now teaching special education at Venice High School in Zimmer’s district, and there’s a reason I’m phone banking on weekends to re-elect Zimmer, a teacher of 17 years and former counselor at Marshall High School.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest behind New York City, is under attack again and the stakes are high — the future for 550,000 students, over 75% of them people of color.

No one needs to schlep to DC in a pink pussy hat to beat back billionaires salivating to bankrupt the Los Angeles Unified School District by turning 50% of the district’s schools into charters

No one needs to schlep to DC in a pink pussy hat to beat back billionaires salivating to bankrupt the Los Angeles Unified School District by turning 50% of the district’s schools into charters — taxpayer-funded crap shoots privately run in the shadows, often beyond even the sleepy eyes of an anemic charter school board. When in 2015 the LA Times leaked billionaire Eli Broad’s 8-year plan to siphon off half of LAUSD schools into charters, Zimmer opposed the plan publicly, saying, “It’s not even a plan that uses competition as this lever for profound change; it really is a takeover strategy.”

But Broad and the Waltons of union-busting Wal Mart fame haven’t given up on massive charter expansion, spending millions on independent expenditures to defeat Zimmer, even though privatizers’ last effort to bounce Zimmer and bust public sector unions failed miserably. As Zimmer explained to teachers at a union conference in 2015, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg wasted a million dollars trying to unseat him because Zimmer was and is wary of charters.

In purist circles, some critics complain that Zimmer has approved too many charter applications during his eight-year tenure on the board, but we must remember that California state law leaves districts wide open to costly lawsuits and county and state board of education appeals if charter applicants who meet state criteria are turned down.

Nevertheless, Zimmer has used his bully pulpit and wonk hat to limit the proliferation of charters by making public schools more appealing with new magnets — schools within schools – like Venice High School’s STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) and World Language Magnet or the Spanish, Mandarin and French immersion programs at various Westside schools.

A champion of arts education, Zimmer saved the arts from devastating budget cuts, mobilizing parents, students, and teachers at rallies to preserve music, drama, dance, painting and other arts programs in the classroom.

Besides protecting and expanding arts education, Zimmer has gone to bat to save early childhood education programs — the ones that teach 3-year olds to identify colors and letters and take turns and share — and went the distance to make sure budget cuts did not close the doors to adult education — a critical resource for my students who need to make up credits to graduate and for young adults who need parenting skills or immigrants who yearn for citizenship.

Lest any voter ponder staying home — like the 50 million who sat on the couch during our last disastrous Presidential election — know that the billionaire boys are backing Zimmer’s opposition for a reason — because they need a partner to form a majority to plan and execute the dismantling of public education in Los Angeles. It’s not a matter of backing someone who will approve their charter application, for it is fundamentally far more threatening than that. At issue is subsidizing a candidate who can huddle in the back room to plot the multiplication of charter schools where non-union teachers work at will, subject to termination at any time, and students contend with a revolving door of inexperienced teachers amid incompetent yet highly paid management.

During Zimmer’s tenure on the board, graduation rates increased from 54% to 75%, while truancy and suspension rates decreased. Zimmer kept the district on a sound financial track, working to bring in $300 million federal dollars to LAUSD through the 2010 Education Jobs bill, making a strong case for passage of additional school funding guaranteed under Prop 30, then more recently Prop 55, and addressing the underfunding of special education with an eye to equity and access. Under Zimmer’s financial stewardship, LA Unified has been awarded the highest bond credit rating of AAA. Can’t beat that.

To avoid an expensive run-off and spare us another round of deceptive billionaire attack ads, Zimmer needs a simple majority of the vote next Tuesday. It could come down to a few thousand votes. Make one of them yours. Forget the couch. Don’t let someone else make this crucial decision for you. Get to the polls on March 7th to re-elect Steve Zimmer. Show Betsy we mean business.

Marcy Winograd

STOP DeVos in Los Angeles: Re-Elect Zimmer Next Tuesday - LA Progressive:

Badass Teachers Association: From the Mothers (Fathers, Husbands, Wives) of Teachers by Tara May Crawford

Badass Teachers Association: From the Mothers (Fathers, Husbands, Wives) of Teachers by Tara May Crawford:

From the Mothers (Fathers, Husbands, Wives) of Teachers 

by Tara May Crawford

When you are the mother of a teacher you will get to listen to people criticize public school teachers without a second thought.

They will demonize them as lazy leeches who teach for the money and not because they care about the future of their students. (Because we all know they make soooo much)

You will spend hours of your family time with your child watching her work on paperwork because she spends the day teaching and has to use most of her evening getting the rest of her duties done.

You will answer the phone and listen to her heartbreak when there is a student she feels powerless to save from poverty or abuse.

You will call her and hear the stress in her voice because she doesn't have Badass Teachers Association: From the Mothers (Fathers, Husbands, Wives) of Teachers by Tara May Crawford:

Black History Month Part 4 - From Slavery to Reconstruction Elites to Jim Crow - The War Report on Public Education

BHM Part 4 - From Slavery to Reconstruction Elites to Jim Crow:

BHM Part 4 - From Slavery to Reconstruction Elites to Jim Crow

Please join Internet radio host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. for the final show in our series for Black History Month. The series has been exploring the 400 year struggle for freedom, justice, and equality affecting African Americans, and how these struggles have contributed to their current social, cultural, social-economic status in the context of a political economy within America.

This show will examine the tragic rise and fall of the African Americans - from slavery to Reconstruction elite status to Jim Crow which was a return to another kind of slavery for the African Americans.

During Reconstruction, high achieving black men would rise and thrive across America. The nation's capital would become the center and the birth place of country BLACK ELITE. The elite were to be the proof that blacks could assimilate into the cultural, social, political and economic world of White America.

Once again, the rug was pulled out from under them, and all African Americans, when these elites were betrayed by the federal government, PAID the price for reuniting the union. This was the return of slavery by another name - JIM CROW.

Listen to Part 1 - The Origin Story - This show will open your eyes and you will see that we owe our nation's existence to the first Black Americans. They are our pride and the way they were treated is our shame.
http://bbsradio.com/podcast/war-report-public-education-february-5-2017

Listen to Part 2 - The Origin Story of Black Studies - the story of the student movement that changed the face and nature of higher education institutions, and gave birth to AFRICAN AND AFRICAN- AMERICAN STUDIES.
http://bbsradio.com/podcast/war-report-public-education-february-12-2017

Listen to the first part of Part 3 -
https://bbsradio.com/podcast/war-report-public-education-february-19-2017

Listen to the second part of Part 3 -
https://www.facebook.com/events/274775389622289/?active_tab=discussion%08%08

Do not miss Dr. Miller's critical examination of the African and African American experience.

Knowledge is power!

RESISTANCE MATTERS
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE
RESISTANCE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF EXPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY
RESISTANCE IS SURVIVAL
Please click on the website below to listen live:
http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport
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Schools of LAst Resort – Have You Heard

Schools of LAst Resort – Have You Heard:

Schools of LAst Resort

The Network for Public Education Action is proud to endorse two candidates for the Los Angeles Board of Education District 2 primary election—Lisa Alva and Carl Petersen.
Although it is very unusual for us to endorse two for the same position, both are well qualified and are committed to the ideals of NPE Action.
The third candidate in the race, the incumbent Monica Garcia, has clearly demonstrated by her record that she is not aligned with the pro-public education agenda of the Network for Public Education Action.
We therefore urge our supporters to vote for either Lisa or Carl.

NPE Action endorses Lisa Alva for LAUSD School Board - NPE Action - https://npeaction.org/?p=7175 

Could the only teacher in LA’s school board race pull off a surprise win?

LOS ANGELES TEACHER LISA ALVA

In this season of election surprises, could an upstart candidate win a spot on the Los Angeles school board, powered by little more than enthusiasm and word-of-mouth? *I think we might be surprised on March 7,* says teacher Lisa Alva, the upstart candidate herself. The school board election has attracted close to $5 million in outside spending, a not insignificant chunk of which has gone to Alva’s opponent, charter advocate Monica Garcia. Alva may not have glossy mailers or an army of paid canvassers going door to door, but she has something that all those independent expenditures can’t buy. She’s a voice of genuine resistance—to reform experiments gone wrong, to *choice* for the sake of choice, and to the kids, the parents and the teachers that are being left behind. Can you tell I have a bit of a crush?

I met Alva two years ago when I was in Los Angeles to talk to people about Eli Broad’s *bold* plan to move half of the city’s students into charter schools within six years. I did what I always do on one of these edu-reporting adventures: I asked anyone I knew with an LA connection to hook me up. Which is how I ended up spending an afternoon with Alva in her English classroom at Roosevelt High School in LA’s Boyle Heights neighborhood. A virtual edu-pal had introduced me to Alva; another contact, a documentary filmmaker, introduced me to Boyle Heights. Once the *Ellis Island* of LA, Boyle Heights was sliced apart in the 1960’s by the East LA Interchange. That would be the intersection of six freeways built to transport Los Angelenos to the new suburbs and the tract houses that were blooming across California, thanks to a young home builder named Eli Broad. But I digress…

In the endorsement that Alva scored from the LA Times, she’s described as espousing an *interesting mix of beliefs, including some that align with the school reform movement and others more in line with the positions of the teachers unions.* I’d put it a different way. Alva thinks teachers deserve to have more of a voice, in part to push back against misguided reform policies, like the botched experiment that played out at Roosevelt High School. In 2010, Roosevelt was broken up into seven small schools, each with its own principal and schedule, which created some, um, logistical Schools of LAst Resort – Have You Heard:

Immigrant students tweet to Trump: This is how our families help make America great - The Washington Post

Immigrant students tweet to Trump: This is how our families help make America great - The Washington Post:

Immigrant students tweet to Trump: This is how our families help make America great

Bruce Randolph School is a public school in Denver with this mission: “to graduate 100 percent of seniors prepared to succeed without remediation in a four-year college or university.” With more than 850 students in grades 6 to 12, the school mainly serves low-income and minority families, many from Hispanic and immigrant backgrounds. That makes it all the more remarkable that each year 100 percent of the senior class is accepted to college, according to its website.

Recently, sixth and seventh graders from immigrant families at Bruce Randolph undertook a project in their English language development class to come up with something that school leaders could take with them on an upcoming trip to Washington to meet with Colorado’s representatives in Congress,  as the education website Chalkbeat reported.

It came at a time when immigrant communities around the country have been concerned about President Trump’s actions to crack down on undocumented immigrants and when the Denver Board of Education passed a resolution promising to protect the information of its immigrant students and work to prevent any interruption to their education. (See the resolution below.)

Chalkbeat reported that teachers decided students should learn about the contributions of immigrants to the United States, how President Trump won the 2016 election and how he uses Twitter to communicate with Americans:

Last week, the students watched the film “A Day Without a Mexican,” which takes a satirical look at what would happen if all of California’s Mexicans suddenly disappeared. They watched a short PBS “Frontline” piece about Trump’s ascendancy. And they learned the language of Twitter — character counts, how to tweet at people, how hashtags work.

Then students wrote their own tweets about why immigrants are valuable to American society, and teacher Mandy Rees posted them to a newly created Twitter account.

Here are some of the tweets students wrote:

 Follow

Bruce Randolph ELD @BRSELD

Without immigrants there would not be enough money for the government. #mexicoislife

1:24 PM - 1 Mar 2017

 
•  Retweets
 
•  66 likes

 Follow

Bruce Randolph ELD @BRSELD

@realdolnaldtrump Immigrants are part of this community! #imalreadyhome

1:15 PM - 1 Mar 2017

 
•  11 Retweet
 
•  33 likes

 Continue Reading: Immigrant students tweet to Trump: This is how our families help make America great - The Washington Post:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

The Line: Yet Another Not New Voice

1by Peter Greene / 2h

Apparently we are in the season of website launches. An outfit called FutureEd has entered the thinky tank and website world with a spirited return to the ed reform greatest hits of yesteryear . Refugees of the Obama education department have launched a website that is... I don't know. Cementing their legacy? Shaping the narrative? Keeping a bunch of out-of-work pols busy? And then there's The Lin

YESTERDAY

Finding the Good Teachers

100+by Peter Greene / 22h

Modern ed reform has always embraced a binary view of teachers-- there are good ones and bad ones. We should sort them out. Maybe find the good ones so we can give them a nice reward. Find that bad ones so that we can fire them. The problems with this view are (or at least should be) obvious. Teaching is a complex multi-faceted web of human relationships. And teachers are human beings, and therefo

MAR 02

FutureEd Launches New Website, Old Voice

6by Peter Greene / 1d

There's a new education reform website on the scene, another "new voice" representing a new thinky tank, slick and pretty and well-endowed and charter-friendly and made out of smooshed-together words. Welcome FutureEd Much of the pitch is familiar. FutureEd is "grounded on the belief that every student should be effectively prepared for postsecondary learning and that performance-driven education

MAR 01

NPR Explains Charter Schools

70by Peter Greene / 2d

Claudio Sanchez at NPR decided to kick off March with a charter school explainer, and boy did March come in like a big, fuzzy, lamb. Sanchez decided that the best way to get a fully rounded explanation of charters was to talk to three charter advocates, a journalistic technique akin to interviewing the NRA about guns or the RJ Reynolds company about cigarettes. The resulting piece assures us all

DeVos, HBCU, and Justice

48by Peter Greene / 3d

There is just so much to unpack about Betsy DeVos's bonkers attempt to rewrite the story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities into an advertisement for school choice. They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education. HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are p

FEB 28

TX: Senator Ambushed by Students

21by Peter Greene / 4d

Texas GOP Senator Don Huffines is a huge fan of choice systems, and does his best to shill for them. But he ran into a rough time trying to pitch them to 7-12 grade students at Richardson ISD on, of all things, Texas PTA Day. While the senator might have gotten just a bit over-salty with the students, his spokesman spun Huffine's behavior as nobly passionate: It was dark. There were so many of the

Dangerous Amateurs

43by Peter Greene / 4d

Not all amateurs are a problem. I live in a small town world, and much of the community's important work is done by amateurs. Most of our major local organizations are run by amateurs, and our elected officials are all folks with a real day job-- there's no real money in being a professional politician on the local level. I have been one kind of amateur or another most of my adult life. My actual

FEB 26

The Free Market vs. Customers

11by Peter Greene / 6d

I write so much about the free(ish) market that one might assume that I hate it. I don't. I think the profit motive, properly harnessed and directed, can accomplish a great deal. Making money is not inherently bad. However, there are certain things that the free market will not do, and those weaknesses are in direct conflict with the purposes and goals of public education. If you want to see what

ICYMI: Here Comes March Edition (2/26)

7by Peter Greene / 6d

A wide assortment of stuff today, because fake spring is over and real winter is back. Homeschoolers Revolt Against Republican School Choice Bill Yeah, it's Breitbart, so it may be 100% crap. But it might also be an interesting look at how very conservative folks end up opposing school choice. Charter Schools Have 

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