Sent to the Indianapolis Star, June 13, 2011
Re: "Summer program helps kids learn the ins and outs of kindergarten" (June 13, 2011)
The idea of "preparing" children for kindergarten means that kindergarten is not kindergarten: It is school.
If we have to prepare children for kindergarten, shouldn't we also prepare them for kindergarten prep? When will this end? Prenatal literacy training?
Stephen Krashen
It is a staple of American politics that elected officials routinely frame their appeals to the “middle class.” The idea is simple: Since the vast majority of Americans consider themselves members of the middle class, it makes sense to use this label as shorthand for “people like you.” The practice of people locating themselveswithin a class structure – rather than being “assigned” to classes based on particular characteristics, such as income or occupation – is often called “subjective class identification.”
Now, I don’t know whether the daily use of the “middle class” appeal is smart politics (I assume it has been poll-tested and focus-grouped ad nauseum). But I can say that the underlying assumption – that virtually all Americans identify subjectively as middle class – is not correct. Or, more accurately, it depends on how you ask the question.
If you give people a three-category class structure (upper, middle, lower) in which they must place themselves, a
Lots More Union Events at Netroots Nation | 
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Union and Progressive Activists Join Forces at Netroots Nation |
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Netroots Nation, the annual conference for online activists, is on next week, June 16-19, in Minneapolis. The union movement has a big presence there, as we seek to work more closely with our progressive allies in the netroots community. Here are some highlights:
• AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler is taking part in a June 17 lunch panel to talk about breaking down economic barriers that keep many Americans from moving ahead, especially young people, women and communities of color. She is joined by communications consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio and hip-hop artist Rha Goddess.
• Minnesota local labor and progressive activists will showcase how they created strong coalitions to elect a Democratic governor in 2010 and move key progressive priorities, including Tax the Rich legislation. ”Working Together: How Coalition Campaigns Saved the Day in Minnesota,” The panel offers a spot of sun in this ugly state legislation session and an opportunity to meet
June 13, 2011
 TeenWorks, a community service project developed by the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Labor Council, helps young people develop teamwork and leadership skills and give back to their community. |
The union presence at Netroots Nation this week includes a Laborers (LIUNA) good jobs rally, a presentation by AFT President Randi Weingarten, political strategy from the California Labor Federation and dozens more events. Click hereand here for a closer look at union activities at the annual conference for online activists, including AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler’s participation in the Friday plenary panel.
Got comments? Post them at blog.aflcio.org.
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6.13.2011 japanese american internment: the video game  Wow. Researchers at the University of California San Diego have created a video game simulating the experiences of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II: Researchers’ Video Game Puts Players in Japanese-American Internment Camps. Drama in the Delta is a 3D role-playing game that puts players in the shoes of internees from a variety of perspectives. The game, a collaboration between UCSD's theater and dance department and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, explores two Arkansas-based internment camps and their surrounding areas: In a prototype level available now (fair warning: some computer tinkering may be required to get the game up and running, and it works only on a PC), players assume the role of Jane, a 14-year old Japanese-American girl, who has been tasked by her best friend with retrieving items scattered throughout the camp before the friend and her family are sent away. | |
Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.
Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self-improvement and for planning the future. Its growing popularity signifies a level of maturity and dignity in America long over due. In cities across the country, people of all races, nationalities and religions are joining hands to truthfully acknowledge a period in our history that shaped and continues to influence our society today. Sensitized to the conditions and experiences of others, only then can we make significant and lasting improvements in our society.
The Internal Revenue Service published a list of 275,000 nonprofit organizations that have lost their tax-exempt status due to a failure to file the required paperwork for at least three years. Hundreds of these organizations are local affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
The Newark Star-Ledger reports at least 39 local chapters of the New Jersey Education Association are on the list. A union spokesman said they may be defunct, merged or delinquent with paperwork. NJEA “is currently trying to determine the status of each one.”
EIA reported last August that 475 teacher union affiliates were in danger of losing their status, and posted a list of them, culled from the 340,000 nonprofits on the IRS roster. I know for certain at least one state affiliate used the information to clear up the problem.
EXECUTIVE ORDER
DELIVERING AN EFFICIENT, EFFECTIVE, AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to cut waste, streamline Government operations, and reinforce the performance and management reform gains my Administration has achieved, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to ensuring that the Federal Government serves the American people with the utmost effectiveness and efficiency. Over the last 2 years, we have made good progress and have saved taxpayer dollars by cutting waste and increasing the efficiency of Government operations by curbing uncontrolled growth in contract spending, terminating poorly performing information technology projects, deploying state of the art fraud detection tools to crack down on waste, focusing agency leaders on achieving ambitious improvements in high priority areas, and opening Government up to the public to increase accountability and accelerate innovation.
The American people must be able to trust that their Government is doing everything in its power to stop wasteful practices and earn a high return on every tax dollar that is spent. To strengthen that trust and deliver a smarter and leaner Government, my Administration will reinforce the performance and management reform gains achieved thus far; systematically identify additional reforms necessary to eliminate wasteful, duplicative, or otherwise inefficient programs; and publicize these reforms so that they may serve as a model across the Federal Government.
The implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111 5) (Recovery Act) has seen unprecedented transparency. The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) has developed innovative technologies and approaches for preventing and identifying fraud and abuse that have the potential to improve performance across all of Government spending.
Sec. 2. Accountable Government Initiative. (a) On September 14, 2010, in a Memorandum to the Senior Executive Service, my Administration introduced goals for the Accountable Government Initiative (Initiative). The mission of the Initiative is to monitor and promote agency progress in making Government work better, faster, and more efficiently. To hold executive departments and agencies (agencies) accountable for obtaining results consistent with this mission, the Vice President shall convene periodic meetings in which Cabinet members and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report to him on improvements implemented under their direction.
(b) The Federal Chief Performance Officer (CPO), who also serves as the Deputy Director for Management of OMB and the Chair of the President's Management Council (PMC), shall work with the PMC to support agencies' performance and management reform and cost cutting efforts. The CPO will lead OMB and the PMC in identifying practices that should be adopted across agencies and in facilitating reforms that require cross-agency coordination and cooperation. The CPO shall work with agencies to ensure that each area identified as critical to performance improvement has robust performance metrics in place, and that these metrics are frequently analyzed and reviewed by agency leadership. Agencies shall update these metrics quarterly, as appropriate, on the website performance.gov.
(c) In accordance with the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (31 U.S.C. 1115 et seq.), each agency's Chief Operating Officer (COO) shall be designated as the Senior Accountable Official responsible for leading performance and management reform efforts, and for reducing wasteful or ineffective programs, policies, and procedures. In discharging this responsibility, this official shall be accountable for conducting frequent data driven reviews of agency progress toward goals in the areas that OMB identifies as being critical to performance improvement across agencies or that the agency head identifies as top near term priorities. These goals may include reforming information technology, reducing improper payments, leveraging the Federal Government's purchasing scale, reducing high risk contracting practices, improving the management of Federal real estate, enhancing customer service, and achieving agency and Federal Government priority goals identified pursuant to the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010.
(d) The Director of OMB shall provide guidance to agencies as part of the Fiscal Year 2013 budget process for identifying areas of program overlap and duplication within and across agencies, and for proposing consolidations and reductions to address those inefficiencies.
(e) The Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) at all agencies shall be responsible for achieving agency cost savings. This will include each agency's share of the $2.1 billion in administrative cost savings identified in my Fiscal Year 2012 Budget, and for achieving those savings as quickly as possible. The CFOs are encouraged to realize these cost savings by targeting wasteful practices and by reducing, and identifying alternatives to, discretionary travel, the use of consultants, and other administrative expenses. The Federal CFO Council shall provide a monthly report on these efforts to the PMC, with relevant findings and progress reported on performance.gov.
Sec 3. Government Accountability and Transparency Board. (a) There is hereby established a Government Accountability and Transparency Board (Board) to provide strategic direction for enhancing the transparency of Federal spending and advance efforts to detect and remediate fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal programs. The Board shall be composed of 11 members designated by the President from among agency Inspectors General, agency Chief Financial Officers or Deputy Secretaries, a senior official of OMB, and such other members as the President shall designate. The President shall designate a Chair from among the members. Building on the lessons learned from the successful implementation of the Recovery Act, the Board shall work with the RATB to apply the approaches developed by the RATB across Government spending.
(b) Not later than 6 months after the date of this order, the Board shall submit a report to the President that identifies implementation guidelines for integrating systems that support the collection and display of Government spending data, ensuring the reliability of those data, and broadening the deployment of fraud detection technologies, including those proven successful during the implementation of the Recovery Act.
(c) The Director of OMB, in consultation with the Board, shall be responsible for assisting executive agencies in achieving objectives in the guidelines identified in subsection (b) above.
(d) The Chair of the Board, in consultation with the Director of OMB, shall provide monthly updates to the Vice President on the progress obtained under this order.
Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget related to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 13, 2011.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan finally said this weekend what has been implied for months. To wit, he is prepared to issue waivers to states and districts from No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requirements if Congress is unable to make significant changes to the federal K-12 education law this year.
But the big news from the otherwise blindingly obvious development was that Duncan said such waivers would be granted in exchange for reforms aligned to the Obama administration’s priorities. Having used the carrot of billions of dollars in stimulus money to prompt state reforms through the Race to the Top grant competition, Duncan will now do the same through a relief for reform scheme.
Congress in general isn't happy about this plan: Senate HELP Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) called it "premature," but Republicans are going to be even more displeased. Many of them consider the Race to the Top program a unilateral executive branch partial reauthorization of ESEA and this latest plan to institute their education vision through a regulatory quid pro quo is bound to draw even more scrutiny. Educators, too, surely didn't envision relief from NCLB's more onerous
History Test
Question: What was the largest armed civil conflict in the United States since the Civil War.
Answer: The Battle of Blair Mountain in September 1921. Lasting for five days, between 10,000 and 15,000 coal miners confronted an army of police and strike breakers backed by coal operators during a struggle by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. It ended only after about one million rounds were fired, and the President of the United States called in United States Army.
So. How’d you do on the test?
I’m not surprised. They don’t exactly teach about Blair Mountain in most U.S. History classes.
John Sayles told some of the background to the Battle of Blair Mountain in his wonderful movie, Matewan.
Last week, over 1,000 marchers returned to Blair Mountain to protest mountain top removal coal mining and the
Gary Small (photo by Justin Snider)
Psychiatrist Dr. Gary Small recently expressed a sentiment that may have crossed the minds of parents and educators who see how much time teenagers spend chatting online and texting: He worries they may not be learning empathy skills.
The digital world has rewired teen brains and made them less able to recognize and share feelings of happiness, sadness or anger, said the UCLA professor of psychiatry and aging, who has also studied adolescent brains.
“The teenage brain is not fully formed,” Small said, speaking at a Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media seminar on digital learning in Santa Monica, Calif., last month. “I’m concerned that kids aren’t learning empathy skills. They’re not learning complex reasoning skills.”
With less than a month to go before 15,000 NEA members and staffers come to my home town, state delegations have been moved out of Chicago hotels involved in a two year long labor dispute with Unite Here.
The Illinois delegation will now be housed and caucus at the Palmer House instead of the Hyatt Regency.
Chicago, a convention mecca, has no shortage of hotel rooms, so the boycott of Hyatt will be a major blow to the union-hating Pritzker family, who own the Hyatt chain.
The Pritzkers are prominent Chicago Democrats and big-time Obama supporters. They are also major funders of
The way students communicate with one another through social media and text messaging is creeping into high school classrooms across the country.
Slang terms and text-speak such as IDK (I don't know), SMH (shaking my head), and BTW (by the way) have become a common sight on student assignments, befuddling some high school teachers who are unsure how to fix this growing problem.
Terry Wood, a foreign language teacher at St. Mary's Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Md., has seen a "dramatic decline" in the writing abilities of her students "due to Tweeting,
A Year of Drama and Hard Feelings Stateline: What makes this year different from the previous two years is that more school districts are running out of ways to absorb the cuts without affecting what takes place in the classroom.. Work Cut Out for Him, a Schools Chief Dives In Chicago News Cooperative: As he begins his new job heading Chicago Public Schools, Jean-Claude Brizard, a former principal from Rochester, N.Y., has his work cut out for him... School Districts Look at Increase in Tax Rates Texas Tribune: School districts are looking at trying to raise local property tax rates to compensate for a decrease in state financing... Teachers Speed-Date For Jobs In Rhode Island Boston Globe: Earlier this year, the city of Providence, R.I., fired all of its nearly 2,000 teachers, shut down five schools and consolidated some programs. Most of the fired teachers were rehired, but when the dust settled, 400 teachers were left without jobs. To give them
by Frederick M. Hess • Jun 13, 2011 at 8:26 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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Our earnest Secretary of Education, who famously (and bizarrely) promised Congress a billion-dollar edu-bonus if it reauthorized NCLB by the administration's deadline and to the President's satisfaction, was back at it on Friday. Exhibiting the administration's patented disinterest in the niceties of the U.S. Constitution, he announced that he's getting ready to waive NCLB requirements for states if they agree, as the New York Timesput it, "to embrace President Obama's education priorities, a formula the administration used last year in its signature education initiative, the Race to the Top grant competition."
Ed Week's Michele McNeil observed, "Any new flexibility would come with strings attached, as states would be asked 'for courage and for reform.'" Duncan highlighted labor-management collaboration, laws that establish new teaching standards, and "the next generation of assessments" as the kinds of things he'd insist upon. McNeil reported, "Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for Mr. Duncan, said that unlike the Race to the Top, which allowed states to devise their own education improvement plans, the department would present states with a
The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) has once again collaborated with the Democratic Party to impose sharp cuts on Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers and K-12 education.
Earlier this month, teachers approved a contract that includes as many as six unpaid furlough days. This amounts to an effective pay cut under conditions of an all-out attack on teachers throughout California. The contract was approved by a vote of 83 percent in favor and 17 percent against. The original contract proposal by the LAUSD included more than 5,000 layoffs as well as 12 unpaid furlough days.
The vote, far from being an indicator of widespread agreement with the furloughs, is instead an expression of teachers’ fears that if they did not
by Eric Cortes
As the United States continues to grow sometimes I have to ask myself, “Are we preparing our youth to continue their education?” Are we even teaching them the skills to enter the workforce? The answer might simply be no. Budget cuts here, teachers getting fired there, it seems that no one has an interest in our future. But thankfully there are national programs which help educate emerging leaders.
For the past couple of months NBC News continued to evolve its program in education and taking it on the road.Education Nation is NBC News’ initiative to engage the country in solutions-focused conversation about the state of education in America. The tour stopped in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia t talk with educators, students, parents, and civic and business leaders to find out how they are working to improve education in their
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