6-14-13 @ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER

@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER:

#highered needs some consistency in its #MOOC concerns. Please. #AAUP

by Chalk Face, PhD

We don’t really cover MOOCs here all that much. Perhaps we need to get on it. But I was cued into a post on the Chronicle over the AAUP’s concern with intellectual property rights and MOOCs. I like the AAUP. It’s a relatively strong organization that seems to be the last really supporting academic freedom, […]

@educationgadlfy reviews state science standards, but something’s missing #NGSS

by Chalk Face, PhD

For the record, a “gadfly” is an annoyance, right? Something that buzzes around, maybe a thorn in the side or a stick in the craw? But this gadfly is the status quo, let’s be clear. Nothing revolutionary coming out of Fordham these days. Nothing subversive. All right. They gave the new Next Generation Science Standards […]

The Lies that Won’t Die (Despite the Evidence)

by plthomasedd

To embrace the claims and policies of the education reform movement requires ignoring a tremendous amount of evidence to the contrary. The education reform narrative goes something like this: Education is the one true way to overcome all of society’s ills, but our schools are failing, and thus we must take the standards-and-testing accountability reform […]

6-13-13 @ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 8 hours ago

@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER: [image: gears] CCSS, the Corporate Profit Black Hole by plthomasedd Unleash the Power!!!!! The power of corporate education reform to generate profit for textbook, program, and testing corporations while childhood poverty in the US skyrockets and children continue to be cheated out of rich educational experiences… Sounds about right: —– I think Education Week accidentally published the cover from an upcoming new young adult science […] Ask and receive: #Commoncore cereal! by Chalk Face, PhD Never too early to get college and career ready! ... more »

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-14-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

Public Education Is Not Failing, But NCLB and RTTT Are

by dianerav

Ron Berler has written about his year in a so-called “failing school” in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The school has a dedicated staff trying its best to raise the achievement levels of students who enter school far behind. Yet it is a “failing school” because no matter how much progress the students make,the children are still not as “proficient” as those in nearby affluent New Canaan.
Berler has a new book out, called “Raising the Curve,” explaining the utter failure of No Child Left Behind.
He wrote this note to me:
“The Title 1 school I wrote about — Brookside Elementary, in Norwalk, Conn. — is 0-for-NCLB. This past school 

Steve Zimmer Proposes Safety Lock for Parent Trigger

by dianerav

Steve Zimmer proposed the following resolution to the Los Angeles Board of Education. His goal is to make sure that parents are fully informed and protected against stealth campaigns to trick parents into handing their school over to a charter operator or firing the staff.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
OPEN SESSION ITEMS
Board Resolutions For Initial Announcement
1. Mr. Zimmer – Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation (For Action June 18, 2013, 

The Shame of Providence

by dianerav

Providence and the state of Rhode Island allowed a school to use developmentally disabled students to do manual labor for little or no pay.
Both the city and state received a stern letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice.
“Both Providence and the state allowed the Harold H. Birch Vocational School to operate a “sheltered workshop” 

Steve Zimmer Proposes Safety Lock for Parent Trigger

by dianerav

Steve Zimmer proposed the following resolution to the Los Angeles Board of Education. His goal is to make sure that parents are fully informed and protected against stealth campaigns to trick parents into handing their school over to a charter operator or firing the staff.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
OPEN SESSION ITEMS
Board Resolutions For Initial Announcement
1. Mr. Zimmer – Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation (For Action June 18, 2013, 12 p.m.)
Whereas, The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District recognizes the essential role of 

A Word from the Cripples

by dianerav

The state of Pennsylvania, the School Reform Commission, Governor Corbett, and the Legislature have decided to strip bare the publuc schools of Philadelphia. They are doing to these students what they would never do to their own. They are vandals.
This morning, i received this poem written by a student, Siduri Beckmann. Why is Siduri less deserving of a full 

Happy Birthday, EduShyster! One Year in Pursuit of Excellence

by dianerav

In this post marking the one-year anniversary of her blog, EduShyster interviews herself.
She answers such pressing questions as:
Do you really consume wine by the box?
Will the education reform movement survive the coming Zombie apocalypse? (I promise you will love this one, especially the illustration.)
If you were an education reform group, which one would you be? (Love the photo.)

Hey, Kids! $100 If You Enroll in This Charter School

from Diane Ravitch's blog by dianerav

David Safier writes here about a charter school in Arizona that offers students $100 to sign up. Arizona was once known as the Wild West of charter schools, but now other states are catching up as charter operators join the Gold Rush.

Crazy Crawfish Tells All: How He Became an Anti-Reformer

by dianerav

In this blog post, Crazy Crawfish reveals his true identity.
He was working inside the Louisiana Department of Education when Bobby Jindal took control.
The story he tells is alarming and shocking.
It all started with Katrina. That event created a massive shock and provided an opening for Jindal: “Jindal 

The Gates Foundation’s Strangest Grant

by dianerav

The Gates Foundation gave $10 million to the Discovery Institute.
This is a conservative public policy institute that promotes “intelligent design” and is skeptical of evolutionary theory.
It was founded by Bruce Chapman, an official in the Reagan administration.
The purpose of the grant is for research, advocacy, and transportation.
Presumably this mean the Gates Foundation wanted the Discovery Institute to do research about and advocacy 

Diane in the Evening 6-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: New York’s Evaluation Nightmare by dianerav Arthur Goldstein, aka Néw York Educator, describes the vain and convoluted effort to create a teacher evaluation system in Néw York. A pinch of this, a heavy dose of testing, and the computer will tell us which teachers are great and which are the stinkers. *LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all* mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 2 hours ago Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for al... more »

State Board handed job of defining rules of new funding system | EdSource Today

State Board handed job of defining rules of new funding system | EdSource Today:

State Board handed job of defining rules of new funding system

June 14th, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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The Legislature will vote today on a bill establishing Gov. Brown’s historic school funding system that punts to the State Board of Education some key decisions on how dollars for disadvantaged students must be spent and accounted for.

The language for implementing the Local Control Funding Formula is SB 91.

Senate Bill 91, the 178-page “trailer” bill containing statutory changes for Gov. Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula, was released Thursday, one day before lawmakers must vote on the $96 billion state budget that includes funding for the new system. Its provisions won’t satisfy advocates for disadvantaged children who had called for restrictions tightly tying funding to targeted students along with detailed information on how every school spends its money. But the bill also may not please districts that wanted broad district control over allocations under the LCFF. The bill indicates the solution – that extra dollars must be spent “in proportion” to the high-needs students who generate them – is somewhere in between.

“We tried to thread the needle,” said Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles.

To be more accurate, lawmakers will be handing the thread and the needle to the State Board (better throw in a thimble for the pain), which, under SB 91, will have until Jan. 31, 2014, to write 

Ed Notes Online: IS YOUR CHILD’S PROMOTION IN DOUBT? Find out what you can do about it

Ed Notes Online: IS YOUR CHILD’S PROMOTION IN DOUBT? Find out what you can do about it:

IS YOUR CHILD’S PROMOTION IN DOUBT? Find out what you can do about it

by ed notes online

Change the Stakes Provides NYC Parents With Resources on Convoluted DOE Promotion Policy.

SO AMAZING!!!! Thank you! Thank you! --- NYC parent (and teacher)

As letters of horror rolled in from parents about threats to hold their kids back if they don't go to summer school, the CTS crew took on the immense task of collating lots of invaluable info.

It takes a village and Change the Stakes is a VILLAGE.

I always say that given where CTS started less than two years ago, and the fact that the people running it today mostly came on board later on (I play almost no role other than cheer-leading) seeing their output and the spirit with which this now almost all parent group works is one of the most gratifying aspects of activism. It makes this old guy kvell.

Please share this info with your students' parents.

Here is the email from Janine Sopp (who claims she has become this amazing parent activist after being inspired

UFT Fiddles as Christine Rubino 2-Year Suspension Ends Today

by ed notes online

Thursday, June 13, 2013
To: mmulgrew@uft.org, mmendel@uft.org, Amy Arundell, aabrams@uft.org, asolomon@uft.org, hschoor@uft.org,

I am sure you all are well aware of the fact, that my 2 year suspension is supposed to be over-effective tomorrow. I have yet to hear from anyone regarding this matter. If possible, can someone please contact Laura Brantley or Claude Hersch to find out what is going on with this issue? Maybe, Theresa Europe can be consulted?

Thank You,
Christine Rubino

A union is "supposed" to stand by their members and seek information that will help 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The CPS Way? Really?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The CPS Way? Really?:

The CPS Way? Really?

by Mike Klonsky

“Here they are coming right back after they claimed they were going to save money [by closing schools] ... and yet they’re saying, ‘Oh by the way we didn’t save any money, now we’re going to have to slash the budget of every school in the system.” -- CTU's Jackson Potter

Chicago principals, including those in charter schools, are still in shock after getting a glimpse of their shrunken school budgets and hearing Board PresidentVitale's instructions to "do more with less." That's the new mantra, now called The CPS Way, dressed up with slick brochures and videos complete with a new"5-Year-Plan". Many teachers and staff are already being told they will not be needed in the Fall.

“We fundamentally believe that all of our children are capable of success, and to ensure that success, every child must have equitable access to a high-quality education,” said Byrd-Bennett, accompanied at Westinghouse College Prep on Monday by a video called “The CPS Way” and a glossy, 25-page brochure titled 

Video of the Day: Investing in schools creates twice as many jobs as military spending | Parents United for Public Education

Video of the Day: Investing in schools creates twice as many jobs as military spending | Parents United for Public Education:

Video of the Day: Investing in schools creates twice as many jobs as military spending

by parentsunitedphila

Popout
Say what? UMass economist Bob Pollin argues against “austerity” and heightened militarism, saying that education is by far the better investment.

“Spending on education is one of the best ways to create jobs, and it’s maybe the best way insofar as we already have an infrastructure in place called the system of public education at the state level, at the level local level. And when you spend $1 million on education, you’re going to create 27 jobs. Compare that with spending on the military. You spend $1 million in the military, you create 11 jobs. So you create two and a half times more jobs per dollar of expenditure by investing in education. And the most extensive system of education we have, obviously, is public education, to say nothing of the good it does for the community and for young people to have a decent public school in the community. So we must reverse this thinking that somehow public education is a drag on economic well-being, that they need austerity in public education. Quite the opposite. Even on strictly economic terms, on job creation terms, invest in education, invest in public education. It’s the single best route to creating jobs right now.”

Read the full transcript here.

Teachers’ letters to Bill Gates:

Teachers’ letters to Bill Gates

By Valerie Strauss, Published: June 14, 2013 at 6:00 amE-mail the writer

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Bill Gates                                        (By Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Bill Gates is a central figure in the modern school reform movement, thanks to his willingness to spend billions of his own dollars  for projects he likes. He, for example, spent $2 billion in an effort to break up large high schools and create a network of small schools, but he abandoned that when he decided it hadn’t worked. He and his foundation injected hundreds of millions of dollars into experiments to develop controversial teacher assessment systems, is pushing a project to videotape every teacher in the country to help them see how they do their job, spent at least $150 million to help the Common Core State Standards initiative, provided $100 million to build a controversial student database, and, well you get the idea. His money has deeply affected the course of school reform.

There are, naturally, school reformers who are thrilled with Gates’ support, and, naturally, there are critics who wonder why a private citizen who happens to be rich should have so much influence on education policy, especially when his projects are not based on any research about what works.

In that last regard, a new website called Teachers’ Letters to Bill Gates  is publishing messages from teachers to the Microsoft founder about what they do and his effect on their classrooms. The site published this letter to Gates and his wife, Melinda, whose name is also on the Gates Foundation as a way of explaining itself:

Dear Bill and Melinda ~

We would like to invite you to engage in dialogue with school teachers from the US and around the world about the very broad topic of public education.

Eight weird things schools banned this year

by Valerie Strauss

1) Frilly socks – Kingsholm Primary School in Gloucester, England, banned them after  a child with a very long frill apparently tripped and fell, according to the Independent. 2) Triangle-shaped flapjacks — Castle View School in Essex, England, banned flapjacks in … Continue reading →

NYC Educator: My Secret Identity

NYC Educator: My Secret Identity:

My Secret Identity

by NYC Educator

A lot of people ask me, "Hey, NYC Educator, who the hell do you think you are?" That's an interesting question. But it doesn't matter a whole lot who the hell I think I am. It matters more who the hell I am, I suppose. Whether or not I think I am that person is one of those things I'm too tired to contemplate right now.

So here's the thing. If you actually want to know who the hell I am, or you'd like to meet me, or Patrick Sullivan, or Leonie Haimson, or Diane Ravitch, you can come to the Skinny Awardsnext Tuesday night, have a great meal, and support the best cause there is. Actually, I'd also like to meet Patrick Sullivan, Leonie Haimson, and Diane Ravitch. That's why I've specifically canceled my rumba lesson in order to make it.

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying, "But NYC Educator, Tuesday night is when the "Wheatgrass Roots" episode of Chopped is on the Food Channel. I can't miss that. How will I find out what you can cook with rutabaga, Froot Loops, stuffed green olives, and Chef Boy-Ar-Dees Meat sauce?" Now that's a great question. I'm gonna suggest if you actually go to a 

Teaching History Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching History Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teaching History Then and Now

by larrycuban

Suppose you could find someone who taught history in three different high schools in two cities between the 1950s through the early 1970s. Suppose further that this person had been trained as an historian and had kept personal records such as a journal, student grade books, scattered lessons, school yearbooks, and student letters from those year of teaching.  Suppose even further that this person could reconstruct from those sources and official school archives what it was like to teach history in those three largely minority high schools a half-century ago. And, finally, suppose that this former high school history teacher (who had ended up as a university professor researching curriculum, teaching, the uses of technology in classrooms and school reform) could then go to those same three high schools–still largely minority–in two different cities today, yes, today, and observe how teachers teach history now.
If all those “supposes” could happen, would those pictures of teaching history then and now in the same high schools a half-century apart reveal anything worthwhile to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, parents, and 

UPDATE: CPS budget bomb. Students will need to bring their own toilet paper. | Fred Klonsky

CPS budget bomb. Students will need to bring their own toilet paper. | Fred Klonsky:

The wind and windex for the smoke and mirrors.

by Fred Klonsky

Tony at the Red Line Tap.

by Fred Klonsky

“Happy birthday, Klonsky,” said Marty as I sat down at the bar.
“Thank you, m’am. I have a taste for a bottle of the Nankasi from Eugene Oregon.”
“Got some. I like it too.”
Tony kept his eyes on the TV. It was showing highlights from the Blackhawk marathon against the Bruins.
“Of course you didn’t watch,” said Tony.
“Of course I didn’t.”
“You’re a sad piece of shit, Klonsky. Spending your birthday sitting next do me at the Red Line.”
“I can’t think of anywhere else I would want to be and nobody else I would rather be with,” I said. “I just got back from the doctor and he was totally happy with me. I’m down 20 pounds from a year ago. In fighting shape. In fact 

CPS budget bomb. Students will need to bring their own toilet paper.

by Fred Klonsky

There will be fewer dollars for art in Chicago schools.
The promises by Rahm that a longer school day would expand the curriculum is a lie.
Another Rahm Emanuel lie.
There will be less money available for music.
There will be no money for toilet paper.
Over the past few days word has emerged about massive school budget cuts.
Massive cuts.
Amundsen High School’s 2013-14 budget is $780,000 lower than 2012-13,
Roosevelt High School  is down $1 million. Lincoln’s is down a million.
Catalyst reports that while CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is