LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-23-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Bobby Jindal’s Little White Lies

by dianerav

Voters in one of Louisiana’s high-performing school districts are angry that their public schools will lose funding to pay for Governor Bobby Jindal’s harebrained voucher scheme, which sends students to backwoods fundamentalist schools that teach religious doctrine.
Jindal insisted that this could not possibly be true, that the vouchers were drawing money from someplace else, not from local taxes. Where does he think taxes come from? Is there a reserve fund in the bayou?
This blog calls him out for trying to hoodwink smart people. In fact, the schools of St. Tammany Parish stand to lose more than $2 million to satisfy the governor’s ideological wishes.
Apparently stung by a series of public meetings in St. Tammany Parish, during which school board members 

Will Andy Smarick Join the KIPP Challenge?

by dianerav

My friend Mike Petrilli at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently sent me a post from the Institute’s daily blog called “Chartering the Future” by Andy Smarick. Mike sent it with a note, saying, “you won’ t like this.” He’s right, I didn’t like it at all. And yet, if you read to the end, you will see that Andy and I end up in agreeing on one important point.
The post is a summary of Smarick’s new book; he argues that urban school systems are so broken that they should be eliminated and replaced by charters, lots and lots of charters. In a previous article in the conservative 

Is Tom Luna the Worst State Superintendent?

by dianerav

If we had a race for the worst state superintendent in the nation, there would be many contenders. One thinks immediately, for example, of Tony Bennett in Louisiana or John White in Louisiana.
By worst, I mean someone who has done his best to destroy public education–which is a sacred trust in the hands of the chief state school officer–and to demoralize the teachers who do the daily work of teaching the kids.
One of the top contenders for that odious distinction is Tom Luna of Idaho. Idaho is a small state and it doesn’t 

EduShyster Is Seriously Worried about Tom Friedman’s Value-Added Rating?

by dianerav

Poor Tom Friedman! Everyone who knows anything at all about education knows that Tom has egg all over his face. They are either angry at him or laughing at thim. He made such a fool of himself with his over-the-top (the same one we are racing to) praise of Race to the Top. If he had ever talking to a real educator, he would have written about Libya or Syria instead. But, no, he chose to act like Arne Duncan’s PR flack, repeating Arne’s favorite lines and doing no fact-checking.
Fortunately we have EduShyster, who has done the fact-checking. The result of this laborious activity is that E.S. is worried that both Tom Friedman and Arne Duncan have extremely low value-added scores. Before long, both may be replaced by someone young, innovative, and data-driven.

solidaridad: Second Community Based LAUSD District 2 Candidate Forum Announced

solidaridad: Second Community Based LAUSD District 2 Candidate Forum Announced:

Second Community Based LAUSD District 2 Candidate Forum Announced

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

I am honored to have been invited to this event and am looking forward to discussing critical education issues. Many thanks to the District 2 Neighborhood Coalition for organizing these forums. Thanks to PESJA, CARECEN, MALDEF, and others for endorsing the event.

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A very prominent candidate was missing from the first forum...

10 great education tweets from debate:

10 great education tweets from debate

Posted by Valerie Strauss on October 23, 2012 at 12:30 am

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Highlights from Monday’s debate between President Obama and Governor Romney at Lynn University. (The Washington Post)

Monday night’s  debate between President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney was supposed to be exclusively about foreign policy, but education came up anyway (though not, it should be noted, in any illuminating way.) Here are some of the best tweets about the debate and education:

Pasi Sahlberg@pasi_sahlberg

Education debate in Finnish local election campaign right now: No to privatization, yes to smaller classes - everybody agrees.

22 Oct 12

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‘How Children Succeed’ — Q&A with Paul Tough

by Valerie Strauss

Here is a conversation I had by email with Paul Tough about his new book, “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity,  and the Hidden Power of Character.” Tough is an author and speaker who worked as an editor for both The New York Times Magazine and Harpers Magazine and as a reporter and producer for the public-radio program  “This American Life.” Tough’s also wrote “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America.” Both books were well-received.
Read full article >>

Common Core will falter if global competitiveness is sole goal | EdSource Today

Common Core will falter if global competitiveness is sole goal | EdSource Today:

Common Core will falter if global competitiveness is sole goal

October 23rd, 2012 | Add a Comment | 
By Merrill Vargo

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Merrill Vargo

Why have public schools anyway? We’ve all heard the answer: Public schools are the engine of our economy, the cornerstone of our democracy, and the avenue for individuals to achieve their dreams.

This list of goals sounds like mere rhetoric, but these three goals are worth thinking about. The first observation worth making about these three goals is that we don’t get to choose; we need to do all three. Second, though reformers like to emphasize the ways that these three purposes overlap, these three purposes also pull us in different directions. This means that when educators start to implement something, they are always doing a balancing act. That’s okay, and in fact puts education in the mainstream in this nation, which has found great strength in finding ways to balance opposing forces. But it’s never easy, and it might help if we admitted it.

It is important to keep both the three goals – economy, democracy, and individual dreams – and the balancing act in mind as we begin serious work on the Common Core standards. The primary impetus behind the Common Core is the first of the three goals: public 

Elk Grove sharply reduces suspensions of foster youth - by Susan Frey

by Susan Frey

Elk Grove Unified has dramatically reduced suspensions and expulsions of foster youth by applying the principles of the recently passed law, Assembly Bill 1909, long before the bill was written. The new law, which goes into effect in January, requires districts to notify social workers when a foster child enters one of their schools and to contact the child’s attorney if he or she faces a...

A Binder Full of Bad Ideas | toteachornototeach

A Binder Full of Bad Ideas | toteachornototeach:

A Binder Full of Bad Ideas

by aristotlethewise

A Binder Full of Bad Ideas

by Randi Weingarten

Earlier this year at a roundtable discussion in Colorado, Mitt Romney was talking about education — extolling the virtues of private schools and vouchers, and criticizing public schools and teachers unions. When a teacher participating in the discussion tried to offer her perspective, Romney shot back: “I didn’t ask you a question.”
But teachers, like many other Americans, have questions about Romney’s policies and proposals. They worry about their impact on the education that kids receive, because he advocates slashing education funding and privatizing public education.
They question his taking credit for educational success in Massachusetts that was spurred by reforms instituted a decade before he became governor, and wonder why as a presidential candidate he is proposing entirely different, discredited education policies.
They are incredulous that he says he would preserve the U.S. Department of Education only so he’d have a club 

Daily Kos: NY Times slams Romney for final debate

Daily Kos: NY Times slams Romney for final debate:

NY Times slams Romney for final debate

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

in an editorial titled simply The Final Debate
Here's the first paragraph:

Mitt Romney has nothing really coherent or substantive to say about domestic policy, but at least he can sound energetic and confident about it. On foreign policy, the subject of Monday night’s final presidential debate, he had little coherent to say and often sounded completely lost. That’s because he has no original ideas of substance on most world issues, including Syria, Iran and Afghanistan.

little coherent to say  because he keeps changing positions?he has no original ideas of substance on most world issues - which might be why he kept agreeing with

I will be discussing debate on internet radio

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

on my show at BeeVocal.  The show is called  Politics with teacherken and tonight at 7 EDT I will be talking about the debate, the response to it, and the state of the Presidential race.  If as a listener you want to bring up a related topic, say control of the House or a specific Senate race, we can go there as well.
Below the fold I have provided instructions of how to participate.
It will not surprise anyone that my response to what happened last night is somewhat different than what a lot of talking heads are saying.
I invite you to participate.
Please keep going below the fold.

on horses and bayonets

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

which btw was the highest spike on the dials in the Fox News focus group
let's start with bayonets.  Yes, we still have them.  As a former US Marine I can tell you every Marine is trained to use a bayonet.   But bayonets are an infantry weapon and a decreasing percentage of our smaller military is infantry.
As for horses?  We still have them.  But consider this -
One important use for horses in the United States Army is to draw the caissons on which are carried the bodies for those to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
I think that is one of the most memorable lines in the debate, that and what followed - about aircraft carriers and 

Legacies of the Civil Rights Era: Accountability and Attention to Poverty (John Spencer) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Legacies of the Civil Rights Era: Accountability and Attention to Poverty (John Spencer) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Legacies of the Civil Rights Era: Accountability and Attention to Poverty (John Spencer)

by larrycuban

John P. Spencer is a former high school social studies teacher and an associate professor in the Education department at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform.
 The past decade has brought a steady stream of commentary on how education is the “civil rights issue of our time,” most recently from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But education has been a civil rights issue for decades—and not just in Brown v. Board of Education or Little Rock, but in urban communities with low-performing schools.
Revisiting the 1960s shows us that the civil rightsera left a dual legacy in school reform, half of which echoes 

Students Last: Not Our Usual Fare

Students Last: Not Our Usual Fare:

Not Our Usual Fare

by Students Last

We know you come to this site for a laugh but some things are just NOT funny. Here's a non-satirical editorial from Students Last.
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How nice to be told by presidential candidates that they "love teachers." Too bad it's bullshit, like the flowers a woman gets the day after her abuser gives her a black eye. In fact America has, at least as of late, quite the abusive relationship with teachers. Claiming to love teachers but repeatedly disrespecting them in a myriad of ways. What teachers need is fewer meaningless words and a helluva a lot more deeds of respect.

When teachers tell you that standardized testing is robbing instructional time, narrowing curriculum and 

NYC Educator: Sick Days? ATRs Don't Need No Stinking Sick Days!

NYC Educator: Sick Days? ATRs Don't Need No Stinking Sick Days!:

Sick Days? ATRs Don't Need No Stinking Sick Days!

by NYC Educator

For the past couple of weeks I've been feeling sick. Not 'can't get out of bed' sick, but I have a runny nose and cough that never seems to go away, for a few days I had a nasty intestinal virus that made me weak and nauseous, and the constant changes of schedule have made me tired and sluggish.

Had I been in a normal teaching situation, I probably would have called in sick one of those days to recuperate. I often found that taking one day off just to sleep and relax often did a world of good for me, both physically and mentally.

But as an ATR, I can't do that. I'm told that wherever I go, I have to