Big Education Ape

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Wis. Dem's Votes Won't Count--Another Blow to Democracy | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG #p2 #wiunion

Wis. Dem's Votes Won't Count--Another Blow to Democracy | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Wis. Dem’s Votes Won’t Count—Another Blow to Democracy

by Tula Connell, Mar 15, 2011


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Proving once again that state Senate Republicans don’t believe in democracy, Wisconsin Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald yesterday said the votes of state Senate Democrats won’t count.

Won’t count?

Here’s Fitzgerald to state Senate Republicans:

…when taking roll call votes on amendments and bills during executive sessions, Senate Democrats’ votes will not be reflected in the Records of Committee Proceedings or the Senate Journal. They are free to attend hearings, listen to testimony, debate legislation, introduce amendments, and cast votes to signal their support/opposition, but those votes will not count, and will not be recorded.

The retaliatory move is directed at the 14 state Senate Democrats who left Wisconsin so Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the majority Republican legislature would not ram through a vote taking away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for good middle-class jobs.

The Republicans in the Senate passed the bill in a dirty tricks move last week and their latest move again slashes the democratic process.

Schools provide open records for Sunshine Week – ED.gov Blog

Sunshine Week – ED.gov Blog

Sunshine Week

The U.S. Department of Education, along with other agencies in the federal government, recognizesSunshine Week.

The Department’s work on its open government plan began almost a year ago. During that time, several projects have been released to the public. We’d like to take the opportunity to highlight a few here, to recognize the hard work that went into them, both from staff at the Department as well as input and participation that we’ve received from the public.

U.S. Education Dashboard
Ed Data Express
Federal Student Aid Data Center
Grants Award Database
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
Teaching resources, including an XML export of the website database (FREE)
As well as a number of other data product releases.

Of these projects, the U.S. Education Dashboard is of particular interest to the general public. It reports the best available data on student performance and other indicators of progress toward meeting the President’s goal that America once again will lead the world in college completion by the end of the decade.

'Brutal numbers for Kasich' Teamster Nation #p2 #wiunion

Teamster Nation

'Brutal numbers for Kasich'

Ohio Gov. John Kasich might even be less popular than ~~Koch whore~~Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Public Policy Polling tells us that Ohioans hate the anti-worker bill SB 5 even more than Wisconsinites hate Walker's insane budget bill. The pollsters tell us

Voters in the state are having significant buyers remorse about the results of last fall's election. In a rematch 55% say they would now vote for Ted Strickland to just 40% who would vote for Kasich.

A citizens recall -- which Ohio Teamsters are working hard on -- looks eminently doable. PPP reports

Ohio Senate Bill 5 may not be in effect for very long...54% of voters in the state say they'd repeal it in an election later this year while just 31% say they'd vote to let the bill stand.
The support for repealing SB 5 is reflective of a high level of support for unions and workers in Ohio, more so than we saw in Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago. 63% of voters in the state

Don’t Let The System Put You In A Box « EducationCEO's Blog

Don’t Let The System Put You In A Box

by educationceo

Yesterday was a pretty busy day at work. We are nearing the end of Winter Quarter and a lot of people are applying and registering to start school in the Spring. I know I advised almost thirty students in the 6 hours that I worked, and that’s not including those I helped with course registration. [...]

March 9, 2011 MOMocrats/K12News Network Blog Talk Radio Show: Guest Leonie Haimson

by CYNTHIA on MARCH 15, 2011

Last Wednesday, my friends over at MOMocrats were kind enough to let me borrow their radio show and we chatted up the host, Donna Mill Schwartz (SoCalMom) and special guest Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters and one of the co-founders of Parents Across America.

We talked about everything from No Child Left Behind (and what needs fixing), charter schools, existing public schools and how in New York City, charters and existing schools are being pitted against each other for precious

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Quotables

Quotables

by Mike Klonsky

La Cucaracha

"In Madison a new governor, Scott Walker, is applying the Rahm Emanuel axiom that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." -- Michael Miner, Chicago Reader

******

David Brooks on Obama: "we were sitting on his couches, & I was looking at his pant leg & his perfectly creased pant" -- TNR

******

"There is something deeply shameful about continuing to use 9/11 as a justification for remaining

Modern School: Today in Labor History: March 15 #union

Modern School: Today in Labor History: March 15

Today in Labor History: March 15

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March 15, 1887: Formation of the Painters International Union, which has grown into the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. The union now represents over 140,000 Painters, Drywall Finishers, Glaziers, Floor Coverers, and Sign and Display workers. www.iupat.org

March 15, 1917: The Supreme Court approved the Eight-Hour Act under the threat of a national railway strike.

Rahim Kanani: Margaret Spellings, Former U.S. Secretary of Education, on Education Policy and Reform

by Rahim Kanani

On Monday, President Obama called on Congress to revamp the "No Child Left Behind" education law by the time students start a new school year in September. In this timely interview with Margaret Spellings, former U.S. Secretary of Education and White House Domestic Policy Advisor, we discussed the way forward for U.S. education policy and reform efforts.

Spellings served as U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. In that role, she oversaw an agency with a nearly $70 billion budget and more than 10,000 employees and contractors. As a member of the President's Cabinet, she led the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Prior to U.S. Secretary, Spellings

SEA Calls for Elimination of the MAP Test in Seattle Schools | Seattle Education 2010

SEA Calls for Elimination of the MAP Test in Seattle Schools

by seattleducation2010

In a Seattle Educators’ Association (SEA) meeting last night, it was voted by the members to call for a replacement of the MAP test.

The resolution is as follows:

Whereas testing is not the primary purpose of education;

Whereas the MAP test and other tests increase student stress and anxiety and distract from real learning;

Whereas the MAP was brought into Seattle Schools under suspicious circumstances and conflicts of interest;

Whereas the SEA has always had the position of calling for funding to go to classroom and student needs first;

Why nobody watches Katie Couric. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Why nobody watches Katie Couric.

by Fred Klonsky

I don’t watch 60 Minutes much anymore. And I never watch Katie Couric. Apparently nobody else does either.

Sunday night I was sick with the flu, on the couch with a cup of tea, too weak to change the channel. There was 60 Minutes.

Couric’s puff piece on NY’s Equity Project charter school and the strongman Zeke Vanderhoek who runs it like a

Letter to My Fellow Michiganders | MichaelMoore.com #p2 #wiunion #solidaritywi

Letter to My Fellow Michiganders | MichaelMoore.com

Letter to My Fellow Michiganders

By Michael Moore

DO SOMETHING: AFL-CIO Protest Page | Working Families Facebook Event Page | MoveOn Protest Page | Bus Times & Locations | Rachel Maddow Explains Rick Snyder's Attack on Middle Class

Friends and neighbors,

The call has gone out and I'm asking everyone who can to take Wednesday off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.

What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries -- and then ran in the general election as "just a nerd from Ann Arbor" who was a moderate, not an ideologue -- has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I've ever seen in electoral politics.

Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.

In just 8 short weeks he has:

* Gotten the House and Senate to pass bills giving him "Emergency Management" powers such as the ability to appoint a corporation or a CEO who could literally dissolve town governments or school boards, fire the elected officials, nullify

Is Discontent with Government a Recipe for Constitutional Crisis, or Reform? | Elections #wiunion

Is Discontent with Government a Recipe for Constitutional Crisis, or Reform? | Elections

Is Discontent with Government a Recipe for Constitutional Crisis, or Reform?

by Jon Walker

The American people are extremely less optimistic about “our system of government and how well it works” than at any time in the past several decades, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post:

Only 26 percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’re optimistic about “our system of government and how well it works,” down 7 points since October to the fewest in surveys dating to 1974. Almost as many, 23 percent, are pessimistic, the closest these measures ever have come. The rest, a record high, are “uncertain” about the system.

This chart shows a rather scary slide in support for our entire system of governance. From ABC News/Washington Post (PDF):

Optimism remained relatively steady for several decades–until the last few years. Since then, faith in our system of government has been almost cut in half, from 44 percent in the first month of 2008, to just 26 percent now.

With a divided, gridlocked federal government that seems incredibly disconnected from the wishes of the American people, a Senate crippled by its own insane traditions and a growing uneasiness with the influence of

No More Nukes! | Dissident Voice

No More Nukes!

by Ron Jacobs

Recently, Duke Energy and Progress Energy, two of the largest energy corporations in the world, merged and became the largest energy company in the United States. With this action, the power of this corporation more than doubled, perhaps making it the most powerful lobbying influence in legislatures throughout the southeastern US and in the US Congress. Not too many weeks after this merger, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 in Japan exploded on March 12, 2011, causing at least a partial meltdown. Not long after the explosion in Plant No. 1, other nuclear plants in the Fukushima Complex began experiencing emergencies, leading to at least one other partial meltdown a probable breach of at least one caontainment vessel and the release of large amounts of radioactive material as of March 15, 2011.

These seemingly disparate events are more connected than the reader might think. Duke Energy has been trying to convince the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), legislators in North and South Carolina and other agencies that it should build another nuclear power in the region. By becoming the largest energy corporation in the United States, the likelihood of this plant being built increased concomitant to the exponentially greater

Should Alexandra Wallace Be Expelled from UCLA for Racist YouTube Video? « Student Activism

Should Alexandra Wallace Be Expelled from UCLA for Racist YouTube Video?

by Angus Johnston

Now that UCLA student Alexandra Wallace has confirmed that she did in fact put up the racist “Asians in the Library” YouTube video that caused such a fuss over the weekend, more and more students are raising the issue of what punishment — if any — she should face.

For her part, Wallace has apologized, and is laying low. But what’s next?

Rumors of Wallace’s expulsion from UCLA have been flying, driving “alexandra wallace expelled” to the top of search term lists on this story. University officials told the Daily Bruin that they intended to, in the newspaper’s words “examine Wallace’s video to see if it violates any part of the student code of conduct,” and UCLA’s chancellor yesterday sent an email to the campus community declaring that “speech that expresses intolerance toward any group of people on the basis of race or gender, or sexual, religious or cultural identity is indefensible

AFL-CIO President Trumka @ Rally to Keep The Promise #p2 #wiunion #solidaritywi

youngtradeunionists on Mar 14, 2011

On March 14, 2011 there was a rally in Annapolis, Maryland where over
15,000 people showed solidarity with public employees. AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka was the main speaker.

Wisconsin: Sen. Hopper Could Resign, Be Replaced in Recall | FDL News Desk #p2 #wiunion #solidaritywi

Wisconsin: Sen. Hopper Could Resign, Be Replaced in Recall | FDL News Desk

Wisconsin: Sen. Hopper Could Resign, Be Replaced in Recall

by David Dayen

WI State Sen. Randy Hopper

Everyone’s having a laugh about Randy Hopper’s wife joining the recall against him, thanks to his marital indiscretions. And that’s practically poetic. However, there are also serious implications. First of all, if Hopper isn’t living in the district and instead with his mistress in Madison, as his wife apparently alleged, that’s a violation of state law. Second, there is at least some speculation that Hopper could resign the seat before a recall election could take effect, giving a successor a better opportunity to retain the seat for Republicans.

Hopper did not participate in the Fond du Lac St. Patrick’s Day parade over the weekend, citing unspecified

Hechinger Report | Connecticut’s achievement gap not just an inner city issue

Connecticut’s achievement gap not just an inner city issue

by Sarah Butrymowicz

Fourth-grader Xavier Rosa, sets up a science experiment with teacher Michele Cashman (l) and paraprofessional Robin Rothman (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)

WEST HARTFORD–Xavier Rosa is stuck. The fourth-grader at Braeburn Elementary School knows that five is not a factor of 57-he got the question right on his homework assignment. And he knows that any number that ends in five is divisible by five. But his teacher, Michele Cashman, presses him to remember what the other half

Teamster Nation: More good WI recall news #p2 #wiunion

Teamster Nation: More good WI recall news

More good WI recall news

Nearly half the signatures needed to recall the Wisconsin senators who voted to end collective bargaining have been collected. The Washington Post reported:

Dems have now collected over 56,000 signatures supporting the recall drivers, according to party spokesman Graeme Zielinski, after another surge in organizing activity over the weekend. That’s up from roughly 14,000 after last weekend. This means Dems are well ahead of schedule: In each targeted district, Dems need to amass the required signatures—25 percent of the number who voted in the last gubernatorial election—by a deadline of 60 days after first filing for recalls, which happened nearly two weeks ago.

Wisconsin Teamsters are a big reason the signatures are rolling in. Ric Schmidt, president of Local 344 in Milwaukee, says the recall

Lessons From Wisconsin - Bridging Differences - Education Week #p2 #wiunion

Lessons From Wisconsin - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Lessons From Wisconsin

by Diane Ravitch

Dear Deborah,

Last week, I wrote from Madison, where I spoke about the historical context for the current corporate reform movement. When I agreed to speak at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, I had no idea that I would arrive as the issues in that state reached a boiling point. Gov. Scott Walker said the state was broke; he made financial demands on the public-sector unions, and they capitulated to all of them. All that remained was his insistence on stripping public-sector unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights.

When I was there, the "Wisconsin 14" were still in hiding, and there were rumors that Gov. Walker might be willing to compromise. But I read in the Madison newspaper that Walker was well-known for his opposition to any compromise, and I didn't see why anyone expected that he might drop his plans to destroy his political opponents.

We now know that he had no intention of compromising, that he wanted to lure at least one Democratic state

Layoff Scares vs. Fair Warning - voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled: The Education Blog

Layoff Scares vs. Fair WarningComments (3) | 1:36 pm

By Emily Alpert

School board member Kevin Beiser calls it the "pink slip yo-yo." School districts don't know exactly what their budgets look like yet, but have to decide if they're going to warn teachers of layoffs by March 15.

Districts often end up laying off fewer teachers once they get their actual budget numbers. Even if they end up being canceled, layoff warnings cause a lot of anxiety and even spur teachers to leave.

But what if school districts could wait to warn teachers about layoffs until they had better information about their budgets? The nonprofit Education Trust West argues that we should do just that:

Lacking accurate budget information, and with fewer than two and a half months to make critical personnel decisions, many district leaders make conservative calculations about projected deficits and send layoff notices to

Schools Matter: Detroit Schools Emergency Mismanager Bobb Continues to Do a Heckuva Job

Detroit Schools Emergency Mismanager Bobb Continues to Do a Heckuva Job

Eli Broad's corrupt stooge in charge of Detroit Schools, Robert Bobb, continues his dismantling of Detroit's public schools per oligarch instructions, with a strategy that could not be clearer: provide a breathtaking level of planned incompetence and draconian policies that 1) destroys confidence in the public governance of schools, 2) scares away all students from the system whose parents have resources to make another choice, 3) blows up the debt through accelerated loss of students to unsustainable proportions, which is then used to justify all sorts of curriculum and teacher/admin/aide cutting, salary and benefit reductions, and union smashing.

Once that process is completed, the remaining pockets of impoverished children will be turned over to the hedge funders' corporate charter CEOs to manage with behavioral and psychological sterilization plans borrowed from the KIPP and Uncommon Schools chains. This is modern day eugenics plain and simple.

Below is part of the story told by Michael Winerip of the Times as only Michael can

Drag us all down. Pitting public and private sector workers against each other. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Drag us all down. Pitting public and private sector workers against each other.

by Fred Klonsky

Locked-out steelworkers from Illinois march to support public sector workers in Madison.

One of the great victories of the Battle for Madison has been the failure of the Walker-Fox tactic of pitting private sector and public sector union workers against each other.

A hat tip to my friend David Rathke for posting this on Facebook.

We left for Wisconsin on Feb. 27 to show our solidarity with the fine people of Madison, and drove through the night to make it happen. Once there, we noticed first the absolute cold and snow, and knew it was going to be a frigid day. As we

This Week In Education: White House: Obama Subtly Shifts From NCLB To Ed Funding

White House: Obama Subtly Shifts From NCLB To Ed Funding [image: image from graphics8.nytimes.com]Read between the lines (or talk to folks behind the scenes) and you'll sense how yesterday's Obama school visit shifted from NCLB reauthorization over which the President has little real control to education ...

AM News: Annual School "Giveaway" Today In LAUSD [image: image from webmedia.newseum.org] Rhode Island: Providence Mayor Plans School Closings NYT: As many as 70 teaching jobs could be eliminated under a plan to close four elementary schools in Providence, Mayor Angel Taveras said... Providence ...

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