Kirst: Expedite parent trigger regs | Thoughts on Public Education

Kirst: Expedite parent trigger regs | Thoughts on Public Education

Kirst: Expedite parent trigger regs

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No need to get Legislature involved

Posted on 3/10/11 • Categorized as Parent Trigger

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

State Board of Education President Michael Kirst said Wednesday that the State Board does not plan to ask the Legislature to fix the parent empowerment law known as the parent trigger – to the great relief of the embattled law’s advocates. Instead, the State Board extended emergency regulations implementing the parent trigger and speeded up the timetable for adopting final rules to clarify disputed issues.

Kirst’s statement allayed worries of the 100 Los Angeles area parents, affiliated with the nonprofit organizers Parent Revolution, who had driven all night to Sacramento for the second straight month. Among them were parents from McKinley Elementary in Compton whose landmark parent trigger petition calling for a charter school was denied on a

Protesters Retake Wisconsin Capitol after Republicans Pass Anti-Union Bill | Labor Notes #wearewi #WIunion

Protesters Retake Wisconsin Capitol after Republicans Pass Anti-Union Bill | Labor Notes

Protesters Retake Wisconsin Capitol after Republicans Pass Anti-Union Bill

Jane Slaughter and Mischa Gaus

| March 9, 2011

Wisconsinites have been protesting Governor Scott Walker's power grab for more than three weeks. The confrontation climaxed Wednesday night. Photo: Sue Ruggles.

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Stunned and outraged, thousands of Wisconsinites forced their way into the Capitol tonight after Senate Republicans passed their bill attacking unions.

The Republicans rewrote the bill to strip out fiscal measures and focus just on attacking union rights and collective bargaining, allowing them to pass the bill without the participation of Senate Democrats.

Republicans didn’t need them because a quorum is required only for fiscal measures. The bill would cripple public worker unions by ending dues checkoff, mandating yearly votes to maintain the union’s certification, and restricting bargaining to wages, which are tightly constrained.

MARCH 10: STATEWIDE RALLIES IN WISCONSIN | www.kochwatch.org #wearewi #WIunion

MARCH 10: STATEWIDE RALLIES IN WISCONSIN | www.kochwatch.org

MARCH 10: STATEWIDE RALLIES IN WISCONSIN via SEIU- March 9, 2011- Late Wednesday night, Republicans just rigged the rules and stripped working families in Wisconsin of their rights, and they did it without a Democrat present. The vote was 18-1. On March 10, 2011 - we're going to rally ...

Wisconsin State Journal: Thousands storm the Capitol as state reacts to budget votes in Legislature *March 9, 2011-* Thousands of protesters rushed to the state Capitol Wednesday night as word spread of the hastily called votes that sent Gov. Scott Walker's controversial bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public workers speeding through ...

Think Progress: WI Leader Admits His Union-busting agenda is intended to hurt Obama reelection WATCH ON YOUTUBE:

Think Progress: WI Senate GOP Leader Admits On-Air That His Goal Is To Defund Labor Unions, Hurt Obama's Reelection Chances *March 9, 2011-* A prank call from a man purporting to be petrochemical billionaire David Koch to Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) a few weeks ago revealed that Walker had crafted his “budget repair” bill in a bid to crush the labor unions. The revelation ...

Talking Points Memo: Wis. State Senate Passes Anti-Union Bill, In End-Run Around Dem Boycott *March 9, 2011-* Capping a dramatic turn of events, the Wisconsin state Senate on Wednesday night passed a new, stripped-down "budget repair bill" -- which now excludes all the fiscal elements of the original budget repair bill, and simply includes ...

Talking Points Memo: Wisconsin Conference Committee Passes New, Stripped-Down Anti-Union Bill *March 9, 2011-* The special conference committee in Wisconsin -- convened in order to strip out the fiscal elements of Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, in order to pass the anti-public employee union proposals and avoid the state ...

CNN: This Is Proof It's Not About How Much Money I Make It's ALL About Union Busting! Teacher Protester WATCH ON YOUTUBE:

Democurmudgeon: Fitzgerald Admits on Fox News Busting Unions the Way to Beat Obama #wearewi #WIunion.

Democurmudgeon: Fitzgerald Admits on Fox News Busting Unions the Way to Beat Obama.

Fitzgerald Admits on Fox News Busting Unions the Way to Beat Obama. MSNBC's Cenk Uygur takes a look at Rove's big money flowing into Wisconsin and an interesting clip of Sen. Scott Fitzgerald bragging on Fox News how breaking the unions will make it so much harder for Obama to win Wisconsin. Oops, did he say that? ...

It's The "Change the Face" campaign to Recall Republicans.

State Rep. Peter Barca Fights to the last against Rabid Republicans. It's still so refreshing to see Democrats act like Democrats...sigh. Here's Rep. Peter Barca declaring illegal Sen. Scott Fitzgerald's conference committees attempt to pass the stripped out collective bargaining section. Sen. Jon Erpenbach talked with ...

The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America | Dailycensored.com

The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America | Dailycensored.com

The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America

Written by Solomon ComissiongDaily Journal (Opinion), Education, Media, PoliticsMar 9, 2011

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The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America

By: Solomon Comissiong

The United States continues to produce one of the most underachieving and disproportionately unequal public school systems within the realm of industrialized countries. Despite a wealth of monetary resources the American public school system has grown quite comfortable when it comes to the vast under funding of myriad of its public schools. The US public

The Answer Sheet - Gates spends millions to sway public on ed reform

The Answer Sheet - Gates spends millions to sway public on ed reform

Gates spends millions to sway public on ed reform

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spending at least $3.5 million to create a new organization whose aim is to win over the public and the media to its market-driven approach to school reform, according to the closely held grant proposal.The organization is tentatively called “Teaching First,” and already has a chief executive officer: Yolie Flores, a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, who has championed such issues as public school choice and teacher effectiveness. Flores did not immediately return phone calls for comment. A Gates foundation spokesman said she would take over the job fulltime when her board term is up in June.

Modern School: Bank Occupation & Growing Worker Militancy #wearewi #WIunion

Modern School: Bank Occupation & Growing Worker Militancy

Bank Occupation & Growing Worker Militancy Protesters from the National People’s Action occupied the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in Washington, D.C., this week, forcing staffers to flee. They did the same to House Leader John Boehner. Many carried signs saying ...

UPR Students Defy Protest Ban, Attack Chancellor Students at the University of Puerto Rico have been protesting fee hikes and privatization for over a year now at many of the university’s 11 campuses. Numerous times the university has sent in cops who have brutalized students with batons, clubs and ...

Beating ‘Right to Work (For Less)’ Labor Victory (image by HarryStaab) *The wave of government attacks on unions that has been growing across the country has the ultimate goal of abolishing unions entirely. Unions drive up wages for workers, which is a good thing, but it pisses off ...

Merit Pay Does Not Work To the uncritical ear, Merit Pay sounds like a good thing. You become good at your job and you are rewarded with more money. Seems fair and, when it comes to teachers, it seems like it should be good for students, too, as it should encourage teachers

If I “Recall” it is time to Party | Firedoglake #wearewi #WIunion

If I “Recall” it is time to Party | Firedoglake

If I “Recall” it is time to Party

by Attaturk

I guess the most effective parodies are the those that end up being true to life.

AFL-CIO Organized Protests Thursday March 10 | Defend Wisconsin #wearewi #WIunion

AFL-CIO Organized Protests Thursday March 10 | Defend Wisconsin

Thousands storm the Capitol as state reacts to budget votes in Legislature Thousands of protesters rushed to the state Capitol Wednesday night as word spread of the hastily called votes that sent Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public workers speeding through the Legislature. ...

Full Text of the Amended Budget Repair Bill Here is a link to the full text of the amended bill, which the Assembly will take up on Thursday, March 10. More more updates on the legislative process on the bill, visit the WisPolitics Budget Blog.

Budget bill foes say stealthy vote broke open meetings law; challenges coming *Shortly after Senate Republicans’ surprise vote Wednesday to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for most public employees, protesters started collecting signatures from citizens in preparation for filing an open meetings complaint.* *It is ...

AFL-CIO Organized Protests Thursday March 10 From the AFL-CIO: *Please be at the Capitol at 9am tomorrow morning. * If you or members can’t make it to Madison, we will have protests taking place at 9am statewide below. If there isn’t anything by you, go to your local county courthouse. ...

NYC and LAUSD Public Schools- The Coast to Coast Homogeneity of Purposefully Failed Public Education by Susan Lee Schwartz - Perdaily.com

NYC and LAUSD Public Schools- The Coast to Coast Homogeneity of Purposefully Failed Public Education by Susan Lee Schwartz - Perdaily.com

NYC and LAUSD Public Schools- The Coast to Coast Homogeneity of Purposefully Failed Public Education by Susan Lee Schwartz

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

If you like what you read, check out Susan Lee Schwartz' website.

Why I wrote this letter to The NY Times.

Recently, The NY Times began to report on education news that was not the same-old spin about those 'bad' teachers -- rants about balancing budgets by firing senior teachers so the 'best' new hires could be kept. I read one oped column examining the principal's role in failing schools, and another that acknowledged that evaluations based on the subjective criteria a boss creates eliminates good people from any workplace -- something that is THE process used to remove top practitioners from schools. This week, I read a wonderful essay by Bob Herbert about the lack of critical thinking skills in graduating college students, and one by Michale Winerap describing how great

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The road to Madison #wearewi #WIunion

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The road to Madison

The road to Madison

by Mike Klonsky

The drive from Chicago up to Madison is about 150-miles, a little over 2 hours each way. Maybe a little longer coming back because of the late afternoon traffic or if you stop for dinner. It's a straight, boring shot up I-90, past Rockford and the Clock Tower Inn, where the Fab 14 Democratic senators have been holding up for the past 23 days. But if you drive it with friends, there's time to catch up on politics and personal stuff. Or just plug in some good sounds, stop at the Oasis for cheaper gas and coffee fill-up. Before you know it you're heading down John Nolen Drive towards the Capitol. You can usually park on the street or in a lot, a blocked

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: After a decade of No Child Left Behind

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: After a decade of No Child Left Behind

After a decade of No Child Left Behind

by Mike Klonsky

We're approaching 100% "failure"

Arne Duncan said Wednesday, that 82% of all schools could now be labeled as "failing" under NCLB rules. The DOE estimates the number of schools not meeting targets will skyrocket from 37 to 82 percent in 2011 since states have "raised standards" to meet the requirements of the law. Yes, we're truly racing towards the top.

The latest news has forced Duncan to re-triangulate. He has been pushing, so far unsuccessfully, for NCLB re-authorization for the past two years. He still praises NCLB for supposedly "shining a light on achievement gaps among minority and low-income students," but now admits, ""No Child Left Behind is broken" and needs to be fixed.

"This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed."

That's all true. The law is all about test-and-punish. "Fixing" it, could only mean easing the standards or allowing waivers for charter school or other Duncan favorites. But when we first made this point, he labeled us a

Schools Matter: An intercepted memo

Schools Matter: An intercepted memo

An intercepted memo

by skrashen

Memo from Bill to Arne:

Our progress thus far and plans for the future

The current Blueprint provided a strong beginning. The Blueprint calls for a substantial increase in testing, far beyond the level required for NCLB. We will test more subjects (eventually all, I hope), do pre (fall) and post (spring) tests in order to have value-added scores unaffected by summer, and interim tests all along the way, as the Achieve people are already doing with PARCC. The Department of Ed's $170 million is certainly well spent there. Their testing plan will reach over 60% of US schools. In addition, the technology report demands quantification and a demonstration of cost benefits for all aspects of education.

The public reaction has been far better than expected. There have been practically no protests of this gigantic

Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill; Capitol Reoccupied « occupy california #wearewi #WIunion

Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill; Capitol Reoccupied « occupy california

Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill; Capitol Reoccupied

by *

MADISON, Wisconsin – Late on Wednesday night, the Wisconsin state Senate passed the new bill tearing collective bargaining rights away from all state unions (with the exception of police and fire unions). The State Assembly is scheduled to vote on the bill tomorrow at 11am.

Thousands of protesters rushed to the state Capitol Wednesday night, forcing their way through doors, crawling through windows and jamming corridors, as word spread of hastily called votes on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public workers.

…

Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Stree

Robert Reich (Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat) #wearewi #WIunion

Robert Reich (Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat)

Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat

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Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d’etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn’t be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It’s been to bust the unions.

That’s no surprise to most people who have watched this conflict from the start, but like any coup its ultimate outcome will depend on the public. If most citizens of Wisconsin are now convinced that Walker and his cohorts are extremists willing to go to any lengths for their big-business patrons (including the billionaire Koch brothers), those citizens will recall enough Republican senators to right this wrong.