Karen Heller: Vouchers are not for the kids - Philly.com

Karen Heller: Vouchers are not for the kids - Philly.com:

Karen Heller: Vouchers are not for the kids

October 30, 2011|By Karen Heller, Inquirer Columnist

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File photo: Students leave Spring Garden School in North Philadelphia in June. A school… (AKIRA SUWA / Staff Photographer)

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Harrisburg is bankrupt in so many ways, and not just officially. When it comes to helping Philadelphia, funding public schools and social services, or banning assault weapons that have zip to do with hunting Bambi, state legislators barely look up from their BlackBerrys.

Then, lo and behold, lawmakers started wringing their hands over the plight of our city's neediest, suggestive of a massive conversion experience or, barring that, something hinky in the Capitol's drinking water.

The state Senate passed SB 1 last week, the voucher bill that appears to serve our poorest children attending Pennsylvania's worst public schools, the majority in Philadelphia, the very institutions whose funding the GOP-controlled legislature sliced and diced earlier this year.

But appearances can run contrary to the truth.

"This has nothing to do with helping the poor children of Philadelphia," said State Sen. Daylin Leach.

Preschool Peers May Boost Language Skills in Kids - Hispanically Speaking News

Preschool Peers May Boost Language Skills in Kids - Hispanically Speaking News:

Preschool Peers May Boost Language Skills in Kids

Preschool students with poor language skills show much greater improvement if they’re placed in a classroom with higher-achieving children, compared to being in a class with other low-achievers, researchers say.

The findings are important because many preschool programs in the United States are targeted to poor children, whose development of language skills may be lagging, according to lead author Laura Justice, a professor at Ohio State University’s School of Teaching and Learning.

“The way preschool works in the United States, we tend to cluster kids who have relatively low language skills in the same classrooms, and that is not good for their language development,” she said in a university news release. “We need to pay more attention to the composition of preschool classrooms.”

She and her colleagues looked at 338 children in 49 preschool classrooms and found that, among children with

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN: You, me — any parent — would risk it all to cross the border to secure a better future for our families.

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN: You, me — any parent — would risk it all to cross the border to secure a better future for our families.:

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN: You, me — any parent — would risk it all to cross the border to secure a better future for our families.

OP-ED BY SUSAN STRAIGHT IN THE LA TIMES | HTTP://LAT.MS/VTEHVE

30 Oct 2011 - In 1979, in my hometown of Riverside, my father came home one evening with news from the linen plant where he worked. A group of women whose job it was to wash, dry, iron and stack hospital linen had been taken away by immigration officials that day. They were undocumented workers from Mexico and would be deported.

I was 18 when I heard this, and I couldn't stop thinking about the likelihood that the deported women had left children behind. What if one had been forced to leave her children with a neighbor she didn't like or trust, just for that morning,

Hechinger Report | New Jersey greatly slows charter school growth

Hechinger Report | New Jersey greatly slows charter school growth:

New Jersey greatly slows charter school growth

by Sarah Butrymowicz

Students at the Charter School of Wilmington (Photo by Ruokai Chen)

The New Jersey Department of Education surprised many this fall when state administrators approved only four new charter schools out of an applicant pool of 55. In a different round of applications just nine months earlier, the Office of Charter Schools had trumpeted its decision to grant 23 charters—or about half of applicants—as part of Gov. Chris Christie’s pro-charter education reform agenda.

Proposition 13: Tax Breaks For The Big Boys | California Progress Report

Proposition 13: Tax Breaks For The Big Boys | California Progress Report:

Proposition 13: Tax Breaks For The Big Boys

by megan

By Peter Schrag

It’s been just a third of a century since the passage of Proposition 13 in June, 1978. In that time few of its offspring have caused more damage than the great loopholes allowing corporations to evade hundreds of millions in local property taxes that they’d owe in any fair and economically rational revenue system.

Exact numbers are hard to come by, but as schools, cities, counties and other local agencies scratch for funds to pay cops, firefighters, teachers, librarians, and park and street maintenance workers, the cost becomes more glaring by the day.

In county after county, as Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Association has been trying to tell us for years – and as he demonstrated again in a 2010 report written with David Kirsten – Proposition 13, which was supposed to protect homeowners, has become a great gusher of benefits for banks, drug and grocery chains, hotel corporations, oil companies, and real estate speculators.

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Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - October’s Best Posts

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - October’s Best Posts:

October’s Best Posts

by Larry Ferlazzo

I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see my previous Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month.

These posts are different from the ones I list under the monthly “Most Popular Blog Posts.” Those are the posts the largest numbers of readers “clicked-on” to read. I have to admit, I’ve been a bit lax about writing those posts, though.

Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past

The Educated Reporter: Taking the Bully By the Horns

The Educated Reporter: Taking the Bully By the Horns:

Taking the Bully By the Horns

by Emily Richmond

Some stories are tough to read. But that doesn't make them any less valuable. One example is Rebecca Golden's recent piece on Salon.com, about trying to make peace with her childhood bullies.

Golden's first-person account is effective for the naked honesty and bravery it took to even attempt such a reconciliation, never mind write about it. But where the story rings most true is in her minimal lack of success -- both at getting her past tormentors to talk to her, and her ability to fully let go of her past pain.

I've blogged about my own history as a "mean girl", as well as my experiences being the one who was picked on. If any of the kids I pushed around were to seek me out now, I think I would have enough respect for the

NYC Educator: Class in a Box

NYC Educator: Class in a Box:

Class in a Box

by NYC Educator

The ATR agreement, negotiated last year by the UFT and the DOE, has proven to be money-saving bonanza for city high schools. For example, it appears schools no longer need to invest their precious budget dollars on art teachers. In fact, one high school now simply gives a box of assignments that can be handed out to kids by any ATR teacher--art, English, science, or whatever.

The teacher distributes the assignment, and the kids do it. Or they don't. Or they copy it from a kid who does do it. Or whatever. When they're finished, the assignment goes into the magic box. From there, all that happens is someone, somewhere, checks off a name, and Voila! Instant art credit!

Think of the possibilities. Why should this process be

Occupy Oakland, the General Strike on November 2, 2011 and An Introduction | Seattle Education #ows

Occupy Oakland, the General Strike on November 2, 2011 and An Introduction | Seattle Education:

Occupy Oakland, the General Strike on November 2, 2011 and An Introduction

by seattleducation2011

You might be wondering why I am posting so much about the Occupy Movement. It’s because of the transference of wealth from the hands of the many to the pockets of a few that our public school systems have been suffering for at least three decades. My first post on the original Seattle Education 2010 blog written in

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

John Adams' 276th birthday

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.” -- The New Civil Rights Movement

Anthony Cody

"Bill Gates can produce the most elaborate teacher evaluation system in the world, but any system built upon the two

Learning Civics through Digital Engagement: An Oxymoron? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Learning Civics through Digital Engagement: An Oxymoron? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Learning Civics through Digital Engagement: An Oxymoron?

by larrycuban

Left far behind in the wake of No Child Left Behind has been the teaching of Civics. Once a ninth grade fixture in social studies since World War I–yes, a century ago in a surge of enthusiastic curricular change, educational progressives in the U.S. established Civics to prepare students to be responsible citizens. By the 1950s, U.S. students took Civics, Problems of American Democracy, and U.S. Government in high school. Since then, these courses have shrunk considerably.

The decline in course-taking has occurred over decades as policy elites have replaced the civic mission of public

Antitrust: The New Monopoly Frontier – Education and The Legacy of Bill Gates « Living Behind the Gates

Antitrust: The New Monopoly Frontier – Education and The Legacy of Bill Gates « Living Behind the Gates:

Antitrust: The New Monopoly Frontier – Education and The Legacy of Bill Gates

By livingbehindthegates

In a 2001 film loosely based on the life of mega-mogul Bill Gates, “Antitrust” packs a punch against the very idea of a “MONOPOLY”. I can’t help but think about Steve Job’s recent death and do a little comparison of personality traits between rival tycoons Gates and Jobs; how one seemed to want to create things that benefit humanity which in turn created power for himself that he often chose not to wield while the other seems to wants to

Schools Matter: Tata Pushing Rejected Right Wing Agenda #ows

Schools Matter: Tata Pushing Rejected Right Wing Agenda:

Tata Pushing Rejected Right Wing Agenda

by Jim Horn

When the Resegregationist Gang of Five chose Michelle Rhee's COO, Gen. Tony Tata, as superintendent of Wake County Schools, they could have have chosen a more loyal general to carry out the orders of the social antiquarians, John Birchers, and efficiency zealots who would like to return to an era of single gender schooling and class and racial segregation. Nothing, it seems, can stand in the way of the resegregation agenda, not even an election that repudiated the Gang of Five, and not even more pressing needs such as "critical" food safety violations in 60 percent of Wake County Schools.

Tata has gone all in to get the resegregation policy in place before another of the Art Pope puppets can be voted

Occupy Oakland Calls For City-Wide General Strike, Nov 2 | OccupyWallSt.org #ows

Occupy Oakland Calls For City-Wide General Strike, Nov 2 | OccupyWallSt.org:

Occupy Oakland Calls For City-Wide General Strike, Nov 2

by OccupyWallSt

1 person liked this

Below is the proposal passed by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on Wednesday October 26, 2011 in reclaimed Oscar Grant Plaza. 1607 people voted. 1484 voted in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained and 46 voted against it, passing the proposal at 96.9%. The General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.

Proposal

We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.

The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible.

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Because iPads Can’t Read Themselves | The Jose Vilson

Because iPads Can’t Read Themselves | The Jose Vilson:

Because iPads Can’t Read Themselves

by Jose

Excerpt:

More importantly, if a portable reading device is more intuitive and more interactive, doesn’t that (at least minimally) connect the reader with the text? People still want to read, but no matter what the medium. Much of it is a matter of relevance and engagement. Conde Nast, for instance, made an excellent move recently by developing app versions of their magazines. Wired Magazine particularly functions MUCH better under the iPad than the print version. Computers lend

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Charles Blow #Occupy #Ows

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Charles Blow:

Charles Blow

by The Perimeter Primate

During this exciting emergent era becoming known as #Occupy, Charles M. Blow is producing some of the most relevant mainstream media work for the New York Times. The image below accompanied his piece, "America's Exploding Pipe Dream", published on October 28, 2011.


Funny how the ed deformers will never address any of this. Only dummies, people wearing blinders, or henchmen for privatization would deny that these dismal rankings are connected to America's struggling

Testing the conventional wisdom | EdNewsColorado

Testing the conventional wisdom | EdNewsColorado:

Testing the conventional wisdom

by Todd Engdahl

Will hard-nosed political assumptions be upended on Tuesday when the votes are counted on Proposition 103?

Sen. Rollie Heath, father of the proposal to temporarily increase state tax rates to help fund education, thinks so. “I don’t have anybody now telling me we don’t have a chance,” the Boulder Democrat told Education News Colorado late last week.

Republican former legislator Victor Mitchell said he thinks Prop. 103 will lose, but he did use the phrase “cautiously optimistic” when saying making that prediction during an interview. Mitchell heads one opposition

Daily Kos: I rarely agree with Tom Friedman

Daily Kos: I rarely agree with Tom Friedman:

I rarely agree with Tom Friedman

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

but one part of his column in today's New York Times caught my attention, and I'd like to focus on it if I may:

We need to focus on four reforms that don’t require new bureaucracies to implement. 1) If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can’t risk another trillion-dollar bailout. 2) If your bank’s deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can’t do any proprietary trading with those deposits — period. 3) Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk. 4) Finally, an idea from the blogosphere: U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from. The public needs to know.

Let me comment on these points one at a time, at the same time as I also note one other line from the column:

Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.

And what do we get? The best government for the financial services community that their money can buy.

On to the four points.

Jersey Jazzman: Jazzman Estates Update

Jersey Jazzman: Jazzman Estates Update:

Jazzman Estates Update

by Duke

I had some killer stuff I was going to post today that would conclusively prove I am right about everything. And then the snow hit.

Here at Jazzman Estates, we are fortunate enough to have a generator from our Florida days. Funny, we never actually used it down there, but it's been getting a workout since we've come back to Jersey.

We have a bizzarre tangle of cords running through the kitchen and family room, powering the fridge and a rotating selection of electronics deemed absolutely necessary for teenaged life in the 21st Century. I'm tethered to a cell phone and a waiting for the current tank of gas to run out before shutting down for the night and bringing