#msnbc Chris Hayes talks to Merrow: Twitter bomb @chrislhayes – @ the chalk face

#msnbc Chris Hayes talks to Merrow: Twitter bomb @chrislhayes – @ the chalk face:

#msnbc Chris Hayes talks to Merrow: Twitter bomb @chrislhayes

by Timothy D. Slekar

I’m sure by now most of you know the pressure is on Queen Rhee after the memo concerning cheating in D.C. was leaked to John Merrow.  In case you didn’t get a chance to see it, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes interviewed John about Rhee, the memo, the cheating, and the disastrous statistics that plaque the D.C. district.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51523921?ocid=twitter#51523921
The interview was a great first step at exposing Rhee.  But we know Rhee is just one of the many players in education reform.  Journalists must continue to shine the spotlight on D.C. and Rhee, but WE need to help the media and Chris Hayes understand that education reform is more than just a story about cheating.  Here are a series of tweets I sent to Chris Hayes.  Please feel free to copy, paste, and tweet.  Add your own too.
@chrislhayes thanks for taking the time to look where others refuse. So called education reform is the story of the century.
@chrislhayes the cheating on tests is just a small glimpse of a massive and coordinated attack on public schools.
@chrislhayes we are not conspiracy theorists. We have the evidence. Please talk to more of us.
@chrislhayes start looking at the true academic and intellectual damage that has been visited on a generation 

NYC Educator: Advice from UFT

NYC Educator: Advice from UFT:

Advice from UFT

by NYC Educator

All chapter leaders should engage principals on all aspects of a new teacher evaluation system. You should focus on the fact that visits by the talent coaches should be supportive, not intimidating for teachers, and you should establish the ground rules and advocate for comprehensive professional development so our members will be ready when the new system is implemented in September.

Well, that's something to think about. Problematic is the fact that the system does not actually exist.

Of course no teacher wants a "gotcha" system. Many feel that's what we have now. And the UFT has stood in the forefront with those who wish to "reform" it, like Bill Gates. We worked on the MET study. We participated in the project that led to teachers being publicly vilified in the pages of the Post. This was but one by-product of our much-vaunted "seat at the table." Who could've anticipated that Joel Klein would break his word and urge news 

Diane in the Evening 4-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Teacher Ken Shows Creativity

by dianerav

Please check out Teacher Ken’s post on the Daily Kos.
Scroll down through the comments and you will see some creative reworking of the covers of Time and Newsweek, as well as the “Waiting for Superman” poster, now renamed “Waiting for Eraserhead.”

Jersey Youth Will Run NYC School System

by dianerav

Dennis Walcott, the chancellor of the Néw York City Department of Education, has announced the selection of Andrew Buher, age 27, to be Chief Operating Officer of the 1.1 million student school system.
Buher graduated from college in 2007. He came to wirk for the DOE in 2010. He started at $75,000 but soon 

Daily Howler on “Cherry-Pick Hall of Fame”

by dianerav

The Daily Howler has a few choice words for today’s opinion piece about how to reform teaching, by a Harvard professor.
The writer of the Daily Howler happens to be a former teacher and cares a lot about education.
Today he begins to dissect the NY Times article that I described as one of the dum

One of the Dumbest NY Times’ Opinion Pieces Ever

by dianerav

Today, the New York Times gave a lot of column inches to an article by a Harvard professor who claims to know how to fix the teaching profession.
He begins with the assertion that despite the many reforms of the past 30 years, the performance of our K-12 education system “remains stubbornly mediocre.”
His “evidence” is the test scores on the 2009 PISA in which the US scored about average.
Wouldn’t you expect a Harvard professor to check out the socioeconomic breakdown of the PISA scores which

Why the Tennessee Bill to Punish Welfare Families for Low Test Scores Was Wrong

by dianerav

Kay McSpadden writes frequently about education issues in North Carolina. Here she explains why the Tennessee bill to cut welfare benefits to families if their children didn’t get high test scores was a disaster. Fortunately, key Republican legislators put a halt to it and it never came to a vote.
I try not to read comments on blogs, other than this one, where I read them all.
But I couldn’t help read the ones that followed Kay’s compassionate post and was appalled by several, 

A Reformer’s Dilemma

by dianerav

EduShyster ponders the plight of a reformer trying to figure how to pay for an elite private school.
What to do?
The tuition is just the beginning.
All those fancy clothes and vacations and SAT prep.
Could she use an Opportunity Scholarship?
Not likely. The school won’t take them.
She how she solves her problem.

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 4-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 1 hour ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] This Rhee Scandal Can’t Be Silenced with Spin by dianerav John Merrow’s bombshell investigation of cheating in DC is seeping into the mainstream media. There is no way that polished statements and well-honed rhetoric will stop the suspicions and speculation. It’s time for a thorough and professional investigation. Here is a blogger for Esquire magazine, who goes to the heart of the matter. What did Rhee know and when did she know it and what did she do in resp... more »

Turnaround Arts Initiative artist, Sarah Jessica Parker, visits King School (photos) | OregonLive.com

Turnaround Arts Initiative artist, Sarah Jessica Parker, visits King School (photos) | OregonLive.com:

Turnaround Arts Initiative artist, Sarah Jessica Parker, visits King School (photos)

by Faith Cathcart, The Oregonian

Turnaround Arts initiative artist , Sarah Jessica Parker, visits King School students for the first time. As part of the program, Parker is mentoring King School students for two years. The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities supports the program as an example of using the arts to help close achievement gaps.

  (14 total photos)

Is Reince Priebus after my demographic??? Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Is Reince Priebus after my demographic???:

Is Reince Priebus after my demographic???

by admin

From the Illinois Review:
The concerns about the federal Common Core curriculum and the national standards it would impose on local schools reached the level of the Republican National Committee Friday and was passed unanimously.  Illinois RNC National Committeewoman Demetra DeMonte said she was happy to co-sponsor the resolution and encourage others to support the effort.
The RNC resolution reads in part:

… RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee recognizes the CCSS for what it is– an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived “normal,” and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee rejects the collection of personal student data for any non-educational purpose without the prior written consent of an adult student or a child student’s parent and that it rejects the sharing of such personal data, without the prior written consent of an adult student or a child student’s parent, with any person or entity other than 

Denver schools to pay millions to reverse controversial 2008 bond deal - The Denver Post

Denver schools to pay millions to reverse controversial 2008 bond deal - The Denver Post:

Denver schools to pay millions to reverse controversial 2008 bond deal

POSTED:   04/13/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT
UPDATED:   04/13/2013 12:37:50 AM MDT

By Kevin Simpson
The Denver Post

Blog: Colorado Classroom

Colorado Classroom covers local and state 

education issues affecting K-12 and higher 

education students in the state of Colorado.

Denver Public Schools, which entered a risky and controversial variable-rate pension bond deal a few years ago, next week plans to finish converting those bonds to safer fixed-rate instruments — a reversal that will cost more than $120 million and put a dent in the district's budget for years to come.

In the proposed transaction, DPS will issue about $525 million in fixed-rate bonds to refund about $396 million in previous bonds with termination fees and other costs rolled into the total, said David Suppes, the district's chief operating officer.

"It will cost us some additional money," he said, "but it will give people comfort in that some outstanding risk is not there anymore."

Suppes estimated that the new deal will cost about $2 million per year in increased interest for the term of the bonds — another 25 years. But he adds that the original deal saved DPS about

Read more:Denver schools to pay millions to reverse controversial 2008 bond deal - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_23016666/denver-schools-pay-millions-reverse-controversial-2008-bond#ixzz2QN6MG8fO
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse
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New Jersey native, 27, named chief operating officer of NYC's Department of Education | NJ.com

New Jersey native, 27, named chief operating officer of NYC's Department of Education | NJ.com:

New Jersey native, 27, named chief operating officer of NYC's Department of Education

by Julia Terruso/The Star-Ledger

A 27-year-old New Jersey native who has sprinted up the ladder of success has been named chief operating officer of New York City's Department of Education, the New York Post reports.

Lawrence native Andrew Buher, a 2007 graduate of Rider
 University, has been named chief operating
 officer of the New York City Department of Education
.Rider University website

Andrew Buher, a Lawrence native, graduated from Rider in 2007, then received his master's degree from Columbia University in 2010. He started at the department in 2010 as a "special assistant" and in his 30 months on the job has more than doubled his salary and received three promotions, the Post reported.

The New York City school system is the nation's largest.

Buher's predecessor, Veronica Conforme, earned an annual salary of $202,000 as COO, though the department said Buher's salary was still being determined, according to the Post report.

The political science and public policy major briefly attended Tulane University in New Orleans before returning home after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

As a senior at Rider, Buher became the first student from the college to receive a 

4LAKids - Gladys explains it all for you: AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS = WALMART’S TRAINING ACADEMIES

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Gladys explains it all for you: AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS = WALMART’S TRAINING ACADEMIES:

Gladys explains it all for you: AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS = WALMART’S TRAINING ACADEMIES

A YOUTUBE VIDEO ANIMATION BY JOHN THE DAD | 16:02

April 10, 2013  ::  Something's not quite right in America's schools and Gladys is going to tell the world just what is wrong! Designed to empower citizens in a democracy, public schools have become Walmart's training academies and Gladys wants an end to it! Be informed and entertained, but most of all get busy, taking back our schools from the wolves and educating our kids for democracy!
smf: Pour yourself a martini – gin or vodka – dry – and not with that trendy flavored stuff – and let Gladys tell you how it was, how it is, and how it doesn’t always have to be.
Everybody knows Gladys Galling – she’s someone’s grandmother if not your own. Bit of a lefty – probably voted for Stevenson against Eisenhower – long before Ike came round and warned us against the military industrial complex. She worked against the blacklist and called Nixon “Tricky Dick” long before Watergate.
Listen carefully – she’s been right before.  OK: correct!
Ahhh…. that’s the spirit!

Ed Notes Online: "I Am Not a Crook," Rhee Heading for Perp Walk?

Ed Notes Online: "I Am Not a Crook," Rhee Heading for Perp Walk?:

"I Am Not a Crook," Rhee Heading for Perp Walk?

by ed notes online

I imagine some of you think this Rhee "head on Nixon body" photoshop I keep up on the Ed Notes sidebar was just done.

In fact David Bellel did it for me many years ago fairly early in her reign as DC supt. I was so sure it would come in handy time and again.

I think we did them for Joel Klein, Chris Cerf, John White. We never thought of Beverly Hall but should have. In fact I know so much about who cheated and when in some districts here in NYC, cheating going back way before BloomKlein years, there would be many indictments.

For instance, the DOE has been sitting on a story for years about a high school principal who openly forced her teachers to cheat under threat of U ratings. And many did. There are tapes and whistleblowers but silence.
The DOE fired the principal for some semi-bullshit excuse while covering up the cheating and in fact going after some of the teachers who were under threat of losing their jobs.

Best of all, the network people knew exactly what was going on and no one has paid. In fact, one of the awful 

"NYSUT adopts resolution against high-stakes testing." April 13, 2013. NYSUT: A Union of Professionals. www.nysut.org

"NYSUT adopts resolution against high-stakes testing." April 13, 2013. NYSUT: A Union of Professionals. www.nysut.org:

NYSUT adopts resolution against high-stakes testing

WASHINGTON, D.C. April 13, 2013 - Just days before New York state students sit for yet another round of standardized tests, delegates to New York State United Teachers annual policymaking convention unanimously passed a resolution criticizing SED's rocky implementation of new Common Core standards and demanding that this year's test results not be used for high-stakes decisions affecting students and teachers.

Close to 2,000 delegates to NYSUT's 41st Representative Assembly unanimously passed Resolution No. 10 - Common Core Testing Unfair to Students - after roaring "Let us teach" in a chant directed at the State Education Department.

Delegates, who represent more than 600,000 members across New York state, made it clear during a question-and-answer session with State Education Commissioner John King that the state's flawed implementation and obsession with commercial standardized tests is hurting students and narrowing curriculum. One teacher questioned why the rush to test, given that the state has produced only five of the promised 39 math modules for middle school. A teacher called it "heart-breaking" to see special education students and English Language Learners struggle through the grade-level tests "when the data does not support having them sit for those tests." Another spoke of the devastating impact on student morale from test scores which SED has acknowledged will drop dramatically.

NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi said that, while the Common Core holds the "potential" to enhance student learning, the State Education Department rushed the tests. "No experienced teacher would test what hasn't been taught, but that is exactly 

Photos are on Facebook. Were you caught on camera?

Delegates started tagging themselves and their friends just minutes after we posted the first photo album Thursday. Join the fun!

City College of San Francisco fights against privatization | DailyCensored.com - Breaking Censored News, World, Independent, Liberal News

City College of San Francisco fights against privatization | DailyCensored.com - Breaking Censored News, World, Independent, Liberal News:

City College of San Francisco fights against privatization

by Danny Weil

From:

__Bob of Occupy

     CCSF

     City College of San Francisco

This quote from The Rude Pundit offers the best riposte to those who don’t want to offend more nervous folks at CCSF:

“We don’t make great leaps forward anymore for fear of upsetting someone, some previously powerful group or some corporation or some industry or some herd of drooling idiots. Instead, we get milquetoast, over compromised baby steps. The politics of politeness is the politics of capitulation.”

I always hope that those of us who seek compromise sooner than later understand that those of us who strive more forcefully towards the ideal of what City College should be and do so with firm resolve, fully comprehend the contribution of political pressure we mount against the overwhelming power of the Corporations and the State that we are up against.

Imagine if you will if the Coalition to Save CCSF had never been formed. Imagine the students, if they had dutifully continued to pursue their studies and not Occupied Chancellor SS’s headquarters overnight. Imagine if the Campuses were not drawn into our struggle. Imagine if the March to City Hall never manifested the thousand 

UPDATE: Saturday coffee. | Fred Klonsky

Saturday coffee. | Fred Klonsky:

IEA RA. Press registered? One. Me.

by Fred Klonsky

 

The in box. Retiree Joyce Siska on NBI 16: “That was MY New Business Item.”

by Fred Klonsky

I reported earlier on the report that IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin gave to the IEA Representative Assembly as she was directed to do by last year’s New Business Item 16.
NBI 16 directed the Executive Director to investigate and report on the negative impact Senate Bill 7 has had on teachers in the state.
Audrey along with Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman helped create the language for Senate Bill 7.
Many delegates felt Audrey’s report was not responsive to NBI 16.
Joyce Siska, a retired IEA member writes me:

Fred,
That was MY NBI and they made it quite a struggle to allow me to speak against their new eval.

Saturday coffee.

by Fred Klonsky

Photo: Fred Klonsky. Ex-IEA President Ken Swanson speaks to the 2013 IEA RA.
I was originally going to go to today’s final session of the IEA Representative Assembly at the Conrad Hilton downtown.
I’m sitting here enjoying my coffee instead.
Nothing that will be decided there will have anything to do with what the leadership ends up doing. They now claim to make their decisions based on secret polling data rather than votes by delegates at the RA.
As I was driving home yesterday I was thinking about the kerfuffle over whether my press pass allowed me on the RA floor.
Here we are in the middle of a major pension battle and we are at the annual state convention of the largest public employee union in Illinois, and I’m the press in attendance. The only press in attendance. As if nobody

Songs I can play on my ukulele.

by Fred Klonsky

Yip Harburg.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiozXTw_fuk&feature]

Ten minute drawing. How’s Harold!

by Fred Klonsky

Click on drawing to enlarge.

The Letter that Prompted “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” |

The Letter that Prompted “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” |:

The Letter that Prompted “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

by Angus Johnston

Fifty years ago yesterday, a group of eight white Birmingham clergy published “A Call For Unity,” an open letter criticizing Martin Luther King and other civil rights organizers. The letter, excerpted below and available in fullhere, prompted King to write Letter From Birmingham Jail.

“We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely…

“We believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experiences of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment.

“Just as we formerly pointed out that ‘hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions,’ we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not 

Parent Advocates - Lawsuit Against The California Department of Education For Failure

Parent Advocates - ParentAdvocates.org:

Lawsuit Against The California Department of Education For Failure To Educate Students With Disabilities Will Proceed

A federal district judge in Sacramento has denied a motion by the California Department of Education (CDE) to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two parent associations on behalf of children with disabilities. (Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association v. Calif. Dep’t of Educ., U.S. Dist. Ct., Eastern Dist., Calif. No. 2:11-cv-3471-KJM-AC)). The parents have charged the department with systematically failing to assure that their children receive a free appropriate public education as required by federal and state law. The Court’s ruling of March 29 means the plaintiffs’ case may move forward.
           

COURT ALLOWS LAWSUIT AGAINST STATE AGENCY FOR SYSTEMATIC FAILURE TO EDUCATE STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

A federal district judge in Sacramento has denied a motion by the California Department of Education (CDE) to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two parent associations on behalf of children with disabilities. (Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Ass’n v. Calif. Dep’t of Educ. (U.S. Dist. Ct., Eastern Dist., Calif. No. 2:11-cv-3471-KJM-AC)). The parents have
charged the department with systematically failing to assure that their children receive a free appropriate public education as required by federal and state law. The Court’s ruling of March 29 means the plaintiffs’ case may move forward.

Plaintiffs’ lead counsel Rony Sagy, of San Francisco’s Sagy Law Associates called the ruling “an important breakthrough for California children with special needs.” The complaint, filed in 2012 by Sagy Law Associates and co-counsel Stephen Rosenbaum of Berkeley, details the experiences of numerous children who have suffered as a result of CDE’s systematic failure to adequately monitor, investigate and enforce laws at the school district level.

The complaint alleges, for example, that children with behavior problems have been improperly tied to their chairs and 

Daily Kos: A reflection on work, employment and aging

Daily Kos: A reflection on work, employment and aging:

A reflection on work, employment and aging

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

This Saturday reflection will begin about the particulars of my personal situation, but I will use that as a starting point for a broader reflection on public policy and attitudes.
In less than 6 weeks I will turn 67.  I had retired from teaching, but at the request of friends stepped in to a challenging high needs middle school in DC.  It was stretching me, but I had to leave it to care for my spouse in the early days of her cancer treatment.
We are now rapidly reaching the point where she will not need as much close attention from me.  It will be sufficient to have her dressed and in her back brace ("Gregor") -  she could if necessary take a cab to work and then have me pick her up in the evening.  Thus I have embarked on an active job search.
Search is the operable word.  I am looking, I am applying, but so far with little positive response.
There is the reality of my age.  For any kind of position, people perhaps legitimately have doubts about my

another RNC fail?

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

just in to my email inbox is the daily Political Playbook email from Mike Allen of Politico, from which I quote the following, without comment:

REPUBLICAN REBOOT - "RNC's celeb plan falls flat in Hollywood," by James Hohmann in L.A .: The RNC met "this week in the most touristy part of Tinseltown, but it's apparent the 'Celebrity Task Force' recommended by last month's 'autopsy' report isn't going to happen. The proposed task force was the most mocked of 219 suggestions from a five-member committee tasked with looking into why the party fared so poorly in 2012. 'The Party is seen as old and detached from pop culture, the group said. 'Establish an RNC Celebrity Task Force of personalities in the entertainment industry to host events for the RNC and allow donors to participate in entertainment events as a way to attract younger voters.' ... 'I don't know,' [RNC Chair Reince Priebus] said when asked ... if the party will ever implement the task force. ..."There [was] a decided lack of star power at the committee's four-day spring meeting despite the locale. ... The schedule of closed-press breakout sessions focused on issues like 'working with minority media,' 'how to say what we mean and show that we care,' as well as "taking the 

"It's time to fight back!" A rap for Chicago : blue cheddar

"It's time to fight back!" A rap for Chicago : blue cheddar:

“It’s time to fight back!” A rap for Chicago

by bluecheddar

The fight to keep Chicago’s public schools open is still on strong. If you’re not “up” on what’s going on, you probably had some help with that from the consolidated, conciliatory, and corporate press. They can’t be relied on to pump up protest news like so many celeb. rehab stories, ya know. Search Topsy for #CPSclosings (shortcut to the Topsy search is right HERE) or look at the twitter widget I put on this blog, top right corner. Labor Notes has a great article: Chicago School Closings Spark ‘Wildfire’ of Protest And here’s a first person account: Nine schools in 12 years: One teacher’s tale of life in Chicago’s public schools – Chicago Reader You