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Monday, August 22, 2011

Big Education Ape: 8-22-11 AM Fact-Challenged Policy EDition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Published by Coopmike48 – 6 news spotters today

The Politicians Who Cried "Crisis"

archive.truthout.org - "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is a well known Aesop fable that offers a moral about the dangers of lies. While this tale holds a simple but accurate message, the world of fables is rarely a fair reflect...

DianeRavitch

The Mythical Founding Study « GFBrandenburg's Blog

gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com - You’ve probably heard educational Deformers like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan or Bill Gates use various studies to justify their Deforms. They say that “research shows” that if student A ...

DianeRavitch

New school year to see more virtual classes - Schools

miamiherald.com - “It’s the three of us working together,” she said.Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said there is a risk in imposing virtual education “simply on the basis of saving money, perhaps...

DianeRavitch

A Mirror of the American Character

dailykos.com - It is a dangerous and potentially failed thing to manipulate an audience by evoking our tendency to be compassionate for children. I have often used the documentary The Corridor of Shame, concernin...

DianeRavitch

Fact-Challenged Policy

epi.org - Last week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates published an op-ed in the Washington Post, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a bet...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 The Stealth Strategy of National Standards « Jay P. Greene's Bloghttp://t.co/PLqLjBC #Eduabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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Unions As Red Herrings | ThinkProgress

thinkprogress.org - An excellent point from Sara Mosle: Yet Brill wants us to believe that unions are the primary — even sole — cause of failing public schools. But hard evidence for this is scarce. Many of the nation...

tbfurman

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

preaprez.wordpress.com - Diane Ravitch interviews the teacher union hating Steve Brill on CSPAN. Running late with the post today. Enjoyed my last summer Sunday with the grand kids. Tim Furman features a youtube video of R...

fklonsky

The crisis facing Britain's education system | Education

guardian.co.uk - Watching the anarchic, frightening scenes erupt on the streets of London, Birmingham, Manchester, and many more urban areas over the last week, a single word kept reverberating around my brain. Sav...

DianeRavitch

SocietySee all

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Video

nypost.com - Michael Goodwin A top aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared the other day that Mayor Bloomberg is "not the dictator anymore." Though spoken by someone who's obviously never tripped over a...

DianeRavitch

War costs may top $3.7 trillion | Detroit Free Press

freep.com - WASHINGTON -- When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars...

mikeklonsky

Wisconsin school districts lose millions in shaky investments

schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com - With public school districts facing massive state budget cuts, school boards and financial managers are under pressure to get greater and more rapid returns when they invest dwindling reserves, hea...

mikeklonsky

StoriesSee all

The Interview II, in which My Kids Become a Concern

nycatr.blogspot.com - ANOTHER INTERVIEW TALEby Life in LimboWell, at least it didn’t last six hours. Nope, this principal managed to get me in and out in less than an hour. I must commend her efficient use of time. (S...

leoniehaimson

WorldSee all

It’s time for America to start fixing America

delcotimes.com - There are countless reasons why America should pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and let those countries fight their own battles.Since America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, 1,633 GI...

mikeklonsky

Hurricane Warnings for Dominic Republic, PR, Heading Florida

hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Published at 8:48 pm, August 21, 2011 The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are bracing themselves for what might be the first hurricane of the season, if Tropical Storm Irene continues gaining st...

coopmike48

Daily Kos: things CLEARLY breaking in Tripoli

dailykos.com - numerous reports on twitter, some citing Reuters citing Al Jazeera, some citing AJ (although it is not on the English home page) on numerous items 1. Brigade providing personal security to country...

coopmike48

LeisureSee all

how to re-invent your crappy american brand in asia

blog.angryasianman.com - This is largely an excuse for me to post this weird-ass photo of a bunch of Asian kids (in "whiteface"?) dressed as KFC's Colonel Sanders... but this is a pretty interesting article about sagging A...

coopmike48

#eduRead this paperSee all

What Back to School is Like for An Unschooler :: IDEA

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - What Back to School is Like for An Unschooler :: IDEAWhat Back to School is Like for An Unschoolerby Sara Schmidt in Uncharted Parenting For unschoolers like us, there is no back to school. There i...

coopmike48

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blogSunday links.by Fred KlonskyDiane Ravitch interviews the teacher union hating Steve Brill on CSPAN.Running late with the post today. Enjoyed my last summer Sunday...

coopmike48

#sosmarchSee all

Save Our Schools March NEWS #SOSMARCH #EDCHAT

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Save Our Schools March NEWSSunday, Aug. 21, 2011ArchivesSave Our Schools March NEWSPublished by Coopmike48 – 22 news spotters todayNext update in about 9 hoursSee all articlesHEADLINESEDUCATIONSOCI...

coopmike48

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      The Stealth Strategy of National Standards « Jay P. Greene's Blog

      The Stealth Strategy of National Standards « Jay P. Greene's Blog

      The Stealth Strategy of National Standards

      by Jay P. Greene

      I just returned from another excellent conference organized by Paul Peterson and the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance. At the conference I had a number of interesting discussions about national standards where I pressed advocates to describe the theory or evidence behind the push to nationalize standards, curriculum, and assessments. For the most part, people had a hard time articulating exactly why

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      Americans Split on Key Educational Issues - High School Notes (usnews.com)

      Americans Split on Key Educational Issues - High School Notes (usnews.com)

      Americans Split on Key Educational Issues

      By JASON KOEBLER

      Posted: August 22, 2011

      Print

      The American public is split on what careers talented high school students should pursue, the role of teachers unions, and the level of investment in classroom technology, according to the recently released Phi Delta Kappa / Gallup Poll on attitudes toward public schools. Of the 1,002 people polled, 62 percent have no children currently in school, 29 percent have children in public schools, and 5 percent send their children to private schools.

      Half of Americans polled say talented math and science students should become scientists, while the other half say they should become science or math teachers. About three fourths of those polled say they would encourage friends to become teachers if they showed

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      Big Education Ape - PostRank Today' 10


      Big Education Ape - PostRank Today' 10
      SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Next South Bronx School Internet Radio Cast: Guest Anthony Krinsky SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Next South Bronx School Internet Radio Cast: Guest Anthony Krinsky Next South Bronx School Internet Radio Cast: Guest Anthony Krinsky by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher) * ...

      School Tech Connect School Tech Connect Ed Reform Idol? How did I ever miss this? I was reading Rachel Levy's thoughtful piece on Defending 21st Century Teaching from Education Reform when I ran into this bizarre video from the Fordham Institute. Just watch the whole ...

      Charles Johnson on Free-Market Anti-Capitalism - Forbes Charles Johnson on Free-Market Anti-Capitalism - Forbes Charles Johnson on Free-Market Anti-Capitalism by E.D. Kain If you’ve ever been to Kevin Carson’s blog, you’ll have noticed its title – Mutualist Blog: Free-Market Anti-Capitalism. This may strike ...

      4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IMPERIL REFORM :: CEP Report: Strained Schools Face Bleak Future 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IMPERIL REFORM :: CEP Report: Strained Schools Face Bleak Future EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IMPERIL REFORM :: CEP Report: Strained Schools Face Bleak Future Districts Foresee Budget Cuts, ...

      When Test Results are the Only Thing That Matter | Scathing Purple Musings When Test Results are the Only Thing That Matter | Scathing Purple Musings When Test Results are the Only Thing That Matter by Bob Sikes Florida’s education system has been test-based for as long as any state’s. So much so that parents have begun to ...

      Loony Charles Koch thinks he's helping society Teamster Nation: Loony Charles Koch thinks he's helping society Loony Charles Koch thinks he's helping society Here's one of the Kochs' 'nonprofits': The Tea PartyAlmost makes your head spin, doesn't it? You may recall that Warren Buffett, the third ...

      Schools Matter: Jim McIntyre: The Tip of Eli Broad's Corporate Education Spear in East TennesseeSchools Matter: Jim McIntyre: The Tip of Eli Broad's Corporate Education Spear in East Tennessee Jim McIntyre: The Tip of Eli Broad's Corporate Education Spear in East Tennessee by Jim Horn (Photo by Sheena Patrick for MetroPulse shows McIntyre (far ...

      School Tech Connect: The Fall of NCTE School Tech Connect: The Fall of NCTE The Fall of NCTE by noreply@blogger.com (Tim) There isn't any better, more prolific critic of the self-marginalization of NCTE than Susan Ohanian. I myself don't understand the purpose of NCTE any more. I think that ...

      Modern School: Homework and Student Stress Modern School: Homework and Student Stress Homework and Student Stress by Michael Dunn *The following was submitted to the San Francisco Chronicle in response to their Sunday opinion piece onstudent stress and homework on 8/14 and printed in their ...

      When Will the Bubble Burst? Student Loan Debt Swells 511 Percent - Education - GOOD
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      Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - Guest Post: “What Does A Teacher Do?”

      Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - Guest Post: “What Does A Teacher Do?”

      More Folktales & Myths Here are new additions I’ve just made to A Beginning List Of The Best Folklore & Myth Sites, which I posted yesterday: Croatian Tales of Long Ago (animation) A Europe of Tales (animation) BBC World Stories (animation) Bunyips — go to “Aboriginal ...

      Guest Post: “What Does A Teacher Do?” *(Note: I very seldom have guest posts at this blog, but I thought I’d share this piece by Bob Sickles, the President of Publisher of Eye on Education (Bob also writes his own blog). EOE publishes a wide range of books on teaching and learning, ...

      “Dump Your Printer to Escape the Madness” Dump Your Printer to Escape the Madness is the headline of a New York Times column that contains a lot of simple and good ideas related to printer use. A lot of people more technologically proficient than me probably know all the info in the ...
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      MIchelle Rhee’s Stonewall | Scathing Purple Musings

      MIchelle Rhee’s Stonewall | Scathing Purple Musings

      MIchelle Rhee’s Stonewall

      by Bob Sikes

      In a stunningly revealing NY Times story , Michael Winerip details the lengths that Michelle Rhee went to keep from talking to the USA Today reporters who broke the test erasure scandal story that occurred on her DC watch. The reporters - Marisol Bello, Greg Troppo and Jack Gillum were interviewed at length and tell the NY Times reporter of Rhee’s months long refusal to be interviewed. Apparently other DC personnel were wary of being interviewed as well.

      It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.

      The reporters made a dozen attempts to interview Ms. Rhee, directly and through her public

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      Is it Research – or Propaganda? | Seattle Education

      Is it Research – or Propaganda? | Seattle Education

      Is it Research – or Propaganda?

      by Kristin

      There’s a lot of brand new education research coming out nowadays, and it’s telling our policymakers that privatization is good for education. Class sizes are going up? That’s okay, because research shows that class size has little impact on student learning. Charter schools are competing with your neighborhood schools? Hey, many of them outperform public schools!

      And this is good research. Great research. In fact, it’s the best research money can buy. Big money, I mean. Corporate money.

      How do they buy it? Through right-wing think tanks. Corporations fund think tanks, and the think tanks employ researchers, and then the researchers wrangle leadership roles in strategically placed research centers, which –

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      Federal penalty likely to slow charter growth | Thoughts on Public Education

      Federal penalty likely to slow charter growth | Thoughts on Public Education

      Federal penalty likely to slow charter growth - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess No one was more surprised than Eric Premack to learn last week that the federal Department of Education had docked California $11.5 million from an expected $51.5 million in critical grants for new charter schools this year – and may whack up to $40 ...

      New dropout rates may be accurate but tell you little and could get worse - by Peter Schrag State-level school graduation and dropout statistics have always been squishy, and the most recent numbers, from California’s Department of Education, are not immune to some of the familiar problems. While far more accurate and reliable than anything ...
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      The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card (for real) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

      The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card (for real) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

      The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card (for real)

      By

      Some things just speak for themselves, and this is one of them.

      From the Texas Charter Schools Association comes the Texas Charter Schools Visa® Card, which allows you to “donate with every swipe of your card!”

      (Users of the card can, if they choose, ignore the latest results of the Texas Education Agency’s accountability report on the state’s charter schools. It says in its executive summary that “this evaluation provides little evidence that [59] new open-enrollment charter schools are improving students’ academic outcomes.” It also says: “In addition,

      Why parents should leave their kids alone at college

      By

      This was written by Laurie L. Hazard, a psychology professor and a scholar of first-year-student transitions at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where she serves as director of the university’s Academic Center for Excellence.

      By Laurie L. Hazard

      High school graduation has long been viewed as the first big step toward full-fledged adulthood and independence. Today, however, this “social clock” is changing, as both parents and many institutions of higher education relate to students in a way that essentially prolongs

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      Cooperative Catalyst Week in Review: August 15th-21st 2011 « Cooperative Catalyst

      Cooperative Catalyst Week in Review: August 15th-21st 2011 « Cooperative Catalyst

      Cooperative Catalyst Week in Review: August 15th-21st 2011 This week we continued our recent growth at the Cooperative Catalyst adding a number of new authors with many more on the way. We are continuing to diversify as a community, but we still looking for more student voices and voices from different ...

      What’s wrong with this picture? Here in Denver, new mayor Michael Hancock and several corporate-funded education advocacy organizations are hosting a series of education forums under the name “More From Our Schools: Deeper Dialogue on Education Issues“. So far, it looks like ...
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      NYC Educator: I'm Shocked and Stunned

      NYC Educator: I'm Shocked and Stunned

      I'm Shocked and Stunned

      by NYC Educator
      What else would I be, facing the revelation that charters serve fewer special needs kids than public schools? I mean, do they have some advantage when their kids actually understand English and have no learning disabilities? This shell game has been going on for years and the remarkable thing is how rarely we read about it in the papers.

      And, in fact, it goes beyond the percentage game. Are the ESL students classified that way because they need a little help, or did they just get off a plane last week? If, in fact, they just set foot on American soil, the likelihood of their
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      Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

      Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

      WEEKEND QUOTABLES

      Steven Brill tells Ravitch
      "I don't have an agenda." -- C-SPAN
      Marian Wright Edelman
      "When Dr. King died calling for a Poor People's Campaign, there were 11 million poor children in America. Today, with 15.5 million poor children, millions living in extreme poverty, I've no doubt he'd be calling for a new Poor People's Campaign with a sense of urgency. He's not coming back. It's up to us to pick up the mantle of justice." -- Children's
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      All Education Matters: AEM's Agenda, August 22: Plexus Consulting, Congressman Hansen Clarke's Office, and SparkAction.org

      All Education Matters: AEM's Agenda, August 22: Plexus Consulting, Congressman Hansen Clarke's Office, and SparkAction.org

      AEM's Agenda, August 22: Plexus Consulting, Congressman Hansen Clarke's Office, and SparkAction.org

      by C. Cryn Johannsen
      I am headed to the Hill today with a proposal in hand. It offers a multi-solution approach. First up? A lunch meeting at Steve Worth's office. (I am an education consultant for his company, Plexus Consulting). After that, I am headed to the Hill to meet with Congressman Hansen Clarke's aides about his proposal to forgive student loan debt. After that, I'm hooking up with a great - and superbly funny - woman who works at an awesome org,Spark Action.

      Once I've ironed out the details for the proposal, I'll post that document online.

      On a personal note, it feels great to be back. I feel like I'm home, and can't wait to relocate to the east coast again. Incidentally, our flight to DC was absurd. We were scheduled to fly from Dallas to National, but DC was hit
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      Schools Matter: Knoxville Parent Vows to Fight Use of State Test Scores to Determine Student Grades and Placements

      Schools Matter: Knoxville Parent Vows to Fight Use of State Test Scores to Determine Student Grades and Placements

      Knoxville Parent Vows to Fight Use of State Test Scores to Determine Student Grades and Placements

      by Jim Horn

      Looks like Jim McIntyre has started something he might not be able to finish! From a Knoxville parent:
      Grades are important. I impress it upon my kids, but I don’t allow it to define them. Unfortunately, this is what the school is doing; in the state of TN, our children are being severely limited by a simple standardized test. Let me explain:
      I have a 7th grader who has always achieved academically. She was placed in the gifted programs in elementary school and proceeded into honors classes when she moved into the
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      A worm in the Apple for teachers « Failing Schools

      A worm in the Apple for teachers « Failing Schools

      A worm in the Apple for teachers

      AUGUST 22, 2011
      by mariasallee

      Recently I stopped at a mall with one of my daughters for a quick trip to a particular store. By chance, I passed by the Apple store and saw a poster that instantly raised my blood pressure. Young teen in tow, I stopped short, marched into the store, and requested of the nearest store employee the contact information for the Apple customer relations department. The poor guy asked if he could help but I calmly explained that he probably couldn’t. I was infuriated by the poster suggesting that Apple was “helping” teachers in low-income schools because it is teaming with Teach for America to donate iPads to TFA employees. Uh, Apple, if you really want to help

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