Saturday, November 12, 2011
Is This Thursday’s Marquette Law School Forum Intended to Help Pave the Way for the MMAC Takeover Plan of MPS?
Is This Thursday’s Marquette Law School Forum Intended to Help Pave the Way for the MMAC Takeover Plan of MPS? « Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:
Is This Thursday’s Marquette Law School Forum Intended to Help Pave the Way for the MMAC Takeover Plan of MPS?
The Marquette Law School is sponsoring a conference this Thursday, November 17, seemingly to introduce the MMAC’s new plan to create 2 school districts in the City of Milwaukee (see blog: MMAC Proposes New MPS Takeover Plan.)
The opening session of the conference, with a speaker followed by a panel, is basically a pep rally for the New Orleans “reforms”. The panel includes Howard Fuller, a key architect of the MMAC plan. There is no speaker with a critical perspective on education in New Orleans.
According to the MMAC, the post-Katrina New Orleans school “reforms” show the path for improving Milwaukee’s schools. The MMAC’s interpretation is:
· Flood Milwaukee with “miracle” national charter schools.
· Create a “low-performing” school district within MPS with
Will · "My Teacher is an App"
Will · "My Teacher is an App":
“My Teacher is an App”
(This is a long one.)
So I hope no one minds if I continue to try to document the ways in which “education” is being reframed in this country at the peril, I think, of losing everything that is best about schools and teachers and classrooms.
If you’re not up to speed with these reframing efforts, the above titled article in the Wall Street Journal this morning should do the trick. The canary is singing in full throat. And let’s not make any bones about it: the Journal has a vested interest in making the type of online learning it describes successful as it owns a large stake in many of the vendors trying to occupy the space.
The author would like us to believe that education is being “radically rethought” by the online and “blended” options that are
Did a Powerful Florida State Senator Threaten a College Student? | Scathing Purple Musings
Did a Powerful Florida State Senator Threaten a College Student? | Scathing Purple Musings:
Did a Powerful Florida State Senator Threaten a College Student?
In a potential bombshell story from the St. Petersburg Times, it appears that Senator J.D. Alexander threatened the student representative to the Board of Governors.
TAMPA — A collective gasp swept across the room.
Michael Long, the lone student member of the Florida Board of Governors, had just told the audience that Sen. J.D. Alexander threatened to stop supporting higher education if the board didn’t make the University of South Florida Polytechnic the state’s 12th public university.
Heads turned to Alexander, sitting right behind Long. The senator remained silent.
Long continued.
“He is leveling his power in the Legislature,” Long said. “I do not feel very well represented by J.D.
Modern School: Davis Profs Endorse UC “General Strike”
Modern School: Davis Profs Endorse UC “General Strike”:
Davis Profs Endorse UC “General Strike”
In the wake of the savage assault on Occupy protestors last week at UC Berkeley, activists are calling for a system-wide “General Strike” on November 15. While they are confused on the concept and terminology, they are correct in calling for an intensification of their protests.
A General Strike entails the overwhelming majority of workers in a city or region refusing to work, whereas the UC actions are an attempt to shut down only one employer, the University of California. Therefore, it would not be a General Strike.
A system-wide strike is a necessary step in asserting students’ rights to peacefully assemble, speak freely, and
Jersey Jazzman: Our National Crisis!
Jersey Jazzman: Our National Crisis!:
Our National Crisis!
A bunch of education writers are meeting in Chicago as I write this. Apparently, according to the Twitter machine, they're all talking about teacher evaluations. And a very serious concern is getting evaluations right for art, music, and PE teachers.
See, there are hoards of these bad specialist teachers roaming our schools' hallways, making kids step off the wrong foot when they throw or endorsing bad color combinations or screwing up their embouchures. Obviously, they are directly responsible for the mess we are in:
This is a national crisis and it must be stopped at all costs. We know scads of these bad teachers exist
See, there are hoards of these bad specialist teachers roaming our schools' hallways, making kids step off the wrong foot when they throw or endorsing bad color combinations or screwing up their embouchures. Obviously, they are directly responsible for the mess we are in:
This is a national crisis and it must be stopped at all costs. We know scads of these bad teachers exist
Sexual harassment: Schools ‘could and should’ do more to help
Sexual harassment: Schools ‘could and should’ do more to help:
Sexual harassment: Schools ‘could and should’ do more to help
Nearly half of 7th- to 12th-graders were sexually harassed in 2010-11, according to a report released this week that sampled almost 2,000 students nationally. The harassment varied from verbal, in-person comments and physical attacks to online abuse, like cyber-bulling. More than half of the surveyed students also said they witnessed sexual harassment more than once during the school year.
Sad fact: Of the witnesses, only 24 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys jumped in to help the victim.
Even sadder: The top reason for not intervening was because they didn’t know what to do.
This week, Penn State University fired its beloved football coach, Joe Paterno, amid sexual assault allegations against a former assistant coach. When Paterno learned of the allegations more than a decade ago, he followed procedure and reported it to the school’s athletic director. Did he have an obligation beyond that?
Why Democrats Oppose Charter Schools | Seattle Education
Why Democrats Oppose Charter Schools | Seattle Education:
Why Democrats Oppose Charter Schools
| This is from the King County Democrats Legislative Action Newsletter dated November 11, 2011. Listen up Washington State PTA!
Why Democrats Oppose Charter Schools The State and King County Democratic platforms oppose charter schools, because they are union-busting agreements that take taxpayer money and use it for private purposes, without elected taxpayer oversight by school boards. The State and King County Democratic platforms oppose charter schools, because they are union-busting agreements that take taxpayer money and use it for private purposes, without elected taxpayer |
Neither the Will Nor the Mechanism Exists in Florida to Put Charter Schools Through Proper Scrutiny | Scathing Purple Musings
Neither the Will Nor the Mechanism Exists in Florida to Put Charter Schools Through Proper Scrutiny | Scathing Purple Musings:
Neither the Will Nor the Mechanism Exists in Florida to Put Charter Schools Through Proper Scrutiny
Its been a rough week for Imagine school CEO Dennis Bakke. After receiving a request from Missouri’s education commissioner for him to close his St. Louis schools, comes word that one of its schools will close in Kansas City. Imagine took over the school in 2007 and operated under the name, Renaissance. Mara Rose Williams writes in the Kansas City Star:
The K-12 charter school, which opened in 2007 with two campuses, has been plagued with management problems and low student achievement from its start, said Deb Carr, who coordinates charter schools for the University of Missouri, the sponsor for Renaissance.
“The issue was performance,” said Dana Cutler, an attorney for the school. “Test scores were low
Jersey Jazzman: "A Vast Improvement"
Jersey Jazzman: "A Vast Improvement":
"A Vast Improvement"
And so falls the New York Times:
Tennessee has a long way to go in improving its schools, but it has made significant headway in turning itself into a laboratory for education reform. It was one of the first states to test a rigorous teacher evaluation system, which was put in place this school year. Yet even before the results are in, political forces are now talking about delaying the use of these evaluations. State lawmakers and education officials must resist any backsliding.
Tennessee’s need to do better was underscored when the latest National Assessment of
Stalinizing American Education
TCRecord: Article:
by Lawrence Baines — September 16, 2011
The similarities between contemporary American educational reform and Soviet educational reform of the 1930s are as striking as they are discomfiting.
Stalinizing American Education
by Lawrence Baines — September 16, 2011
The similarities between contemporary American educational reform and Soviet educational reform of the 1930s are as striking as they are discomfiting.
Of the following three statements, which refer to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and which refer to America today?
1. “Teachers are asked to achieve significant academic growth for all students at the same time that they instruct students with ever-more diverse needs….The stakes are huge—and the time to cling to the status quo has passed.”
2. “We had to have a campaign for 100 percent successful teaching…all students must learn.”
3. “Poor work by the school and poor achievement by the entire class and by individual pupils are the direct result of poor work by the teacher.”
Although all three of the above sentiments could be attributable to current officeholders in Washington, D.C., only the first is American—from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Duncan 2010,
Behind the Manor of Gate’s Farm: “Charter Schools Good, Public Schools Bad” « Living Behind the Gates
Behind the Manor of Gate’s Farm: “Charter Schools Good, Public Schools Bad” « Living Behind the Gates:
Behind the Manor of Gate’s Farm: “Charter Schools Good, Public Schools Bad”
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~ George Orwell
Today, like so many other authors are trying to do, I am exercising my liberty to tell America’s people what they don’t seem to want to hear.
I am telling all of you that YOU are being led by the nose, by none other than “Pig Brother” like sheep to the slaughter in a Charter School
Teacher suspended after defying Hillsborough school district's evaluation system - St. Petersburg Times
Teacher suspended after defying Hillsborough school district's evaluation system - St. Petersburg Times:
Teacher suspended after defying Hillsborough school district's evaluation system
By MARLENE SOKOL, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, November 11, 2011
TAMPA — A veteran teacher was suspended Thursday for rejecting the evaluator chosen for him under a Gates-funded initiative that is revolutionizing the way the Hillsborough County School District assesses its teachers.
School and union officials believe this is the first such act of defiance under Empowering Effective Teachers, a complex system of mentoring and evaluation funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The district's action comes just one day after the couple themselves, Bill and Melinda Gates, toured Jefferson High School, where the computer mogul hailed the program as a national model and called its success "phenomenal."
Joseph Thomas, 43, a social studies teacher at Newsome High School, said he refused to
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